The Post Method Era & the Role of the Teacher

1. The Post Method Era & the Role of the Teacher The ELT Profession in Tucumán in the 21st C.

2. Approaches to Teaching • 20th C. to 21st C: from methods to pedagogy • Power to the teacher

3. Why a ‘post method era?’ • Methods are prescriptive • Imposed • Teachers: adapt!

4. Brown’s Curriculum Development Approach • Diagnosis • Needs • Syllabus • Materials • Treatment • Instruction • Pedagogy • Assessment • Testing and evaluation

5. Methods: static set of procedures • Pedagogy: dynamic interplay – T/Ss/Materials

6. Kumravadivelu’s Conceptualization of Teaching Acts • Is teaching an art or a science? Or both?

7. Can you state the difference? • JOB / VOCATION / WORK / CAREER / OCCUPATION / PROFESSION

8. From David Hansen’s The Call to Teach • JOB: • Sustenance • VOCATION: • Autonomy and significance • WORK: • Autonomy and meaning • Service?

9. From David Hansen’s The Call to Teach • CAREER: • Long-term involvement • Like job-work • Fulfillment? Identity? Service? • OCCUPATION: • Endeavor in the system • No sense of calling • PROFESSION: • Expertise and social contribution • Public recognition and rewards • Calling?

10. The Role of the Teacher An architect and a an artist Scientist and psychologist Manager and mentor Controller and counselor A sage on the stage A guide on the side

11. History of the role • Teachers as passive technicians • Teachers as reflective practitioners • Teachers as transformative intellectuals

12. Teachers as passive technicians • Linked to the Behavioral School of Psychology • Empirical verification • Focus: Content knowledge • Content knowledge: broken down into discrete items for teachers • Teachers and their methods: unimportant

13. Technicist view of teaching • Privileges professional experts • Teachers: apprentices, passive technicians • Teacher: conduit – does not question validity or relevance • Theorists conceive and construct • Teachers understand and implement • Safe, secure for which teachers?

14. Teachers as passive technicians • Consequence: disempowerment • Received knowledge only for teachers • Apathy: no challenge • Reflective task • Advantages and disadvantages of the role and function of teachers as passive technicians. Think about some of your own teachers whom you might call technicists. What aspect of their teaching did you like most? Least? Is there any aspect of technicist orientation that you think is relevant in your specific learning and teaching context?

15. Teachers as Reflective Practitioners • John Dewey (1933) How We Think: • Action as routine • Action that is reflective • Teaching: Context-sensitive action grounded in intellectual thought • Teachers: problem-solvers • Reflective teaching: CREATIVITY, ARTISTRY and CONTEXT SENSITIVITY

16. Teachers as Reflective Practitioners • Don Schon (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: • Teachers have a better perspective than experts • Reflection ON action vs. reflection IN action • Reflective teaching: • Goals, values, and assumptions • Context: class, institution, culture • Curriculum development • Teachers’ professional development • Teachers’ classroom research

17. Teachers as Reflective Practitioners • Johnson, Karen (1999) Understanding Language Teaching: Reasoning in Action: • Teacher conceptualizes, constructs explanations, responds to social interactions and shared meanings • Reflective task • State the main differences between a technicist and a reflective teacher. • Consider the true meaning of being a reflective practitioner in a specific learning and teaching context. What are the obstacles you may face in carrying out the responsibilities of a reflective teacher? And how might you overcome them?

18. Teachers as Reflective Practitioners • Critique • Focus on the Teacher’s introspection – not so interactive with other strata • Focus on classroom actions – no sociopolitical factors • Little contribution to change the status quo

19. Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals • Giroux and Freire • Sociopolitical emancipation • Individual empowerment • Education: democratic process • Pedagogy is embedded in relations of power and dominance • Pedagogy may create and sustain social inequalities • Classroom reality is socially constructed • So, pedagogy should empower, and consider teachers’ and students’ experiences

20. Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals • Giroux and McLaren view teachers as “professionals who are able to and willing to reflect upon the ideological principles that inform their practice, who connect pedagogical theory and practice to wider social issues, and who work together to share ideas, exercise power over the conditions of their labor, and embody in their teaching a vision of a better and more humane life.” (1989, quoted by Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 13) • Reflective task: What aspect(s) of this definition strike(s) you most?

21. Teachers as Transformative Intellectuals • Giroux (1988) Teachers as Intellectuals: Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Learning: Transformative intellectuals… • Develop counterhegemonic pedagogies • Empower students – give them knowledge and social skills to function as critical agents • Educate for transformative action • Create and implement forms for knowledge that are relevant to their specific contexts • Construct curricula and syllabi around the students’ needs, wants, and situations

22. Transformative intellectuals: • Maximize sociopolitical awareness of their learners using consciousness-raising, problem-posing activities. • Become aware of inequalities and injustice in society • Address them in purposeful and peaceful ways

23. Transformative Teachers: • Are inquiry oriented • Are socially contextualized • Believe appropriate knowledge is produced by interaction T-S • Are dedicated to an art of improvisation • Promote the students’ finding their own voice • Promote introspection and self-reflection • Promote a sense of ownership of their education • Are sensitive to pluralism • Are committed to action • Are concerned with the affective dimension

24. Reflective task • What are the implications of becoming/being a transformative intellectual? For what reasons would you support or oppose the expanded role that teachers as transformative intellectuals are expected to play?

25. Reflective task • What might be a productive connection between a theorist’s professional theory and a teacher’s personal theory? Which one, according to you, would be relevant and reliable for your specific learning and teaching context? Is there (or, should there be) a right mix, and if so, what?