Reflections

1. Reflections On Empowerment and Professional Development Dee Parker CULI National Seminar 2009

2. Empowerment • Enable the teachers to contribute to their ability to exercise a measure of choice in their lives • Create an environment that encourages teachers to grow in a particular direction • Create an action plan that is based on the way things are out there (reality) • Acknowledge the constraints that contribute to the desirable outcomes, but which permit us to choose actions for success

3. Empowerment • Empowerment requires change • in interpersonal relationships • in the allocation of institutional resources, including uses of time and space • in the power structure at large • Empowerment allows the realization of teacher and student potential leading to liberation • Empowerment does not come quickly or easily

4. Plus ca change… • Reaction to 1977 throughout Europe attributed poor student performance due to teachers’ lack of linguistic and pedagogical competence • MoE developed national system-wide in-service teacher education program for foreign language teachers

5. Special Foreign Language Project (PSLS) • What? Italy developed systematic in- service teacher education (PSLS) 1978 • Why? To retrain Italian teachers of English, French, German, and Spanish • Who? Secondary school teachers • How? Collaboration by MoE and cultural agencies (US, France, Germany, Spain)

6. PSLS • Systematic response to problems in FL teacher education in Italian schools due to: • poor student competence in FL • lack of pre- or in-service teacher education • focus of university studies on literature studies as opposed to communicative competence

7. Purpose • To improve the standards of foreign language education for Italian students • To update the professional knowledge and linguistic competence of Italian foreign language teachers • To address the lack of pre-service education in the educational system

8. PSLS Theoretical Assumptions • That in-service education would be more effective when it was • conducted by fellow teacher (peer education) • conducted in familiar school contexts • conducted in a collaborative way, in a non- threatening atmosphere and without pressures of assessment and evaluation • immediately applied in the teacher’s own context

9. PSLS Assumptions • readjusted to meet the teachers’ changing needs • conducted in the target language (integrating language improvement with the development of teaching skills)

10. Trainers • Seminar leaders selected once a year from most committed to the project • Trainers selected according to regional demand • Trainers are classroom teachers at secondary level • 10-15 sent abroad annually to US for training • 1993 seminars held in Italy • Fulbright scholars assigned regionally to support trainers

11. PSLSOrganization • Levels: gradual reinforcement of knowledge and specific skills • Level 1 (100 hours) theoretical background in FL teaching, general language improvement • Level 2/3 (50 hours each) teaching skills, testing, evaluation, teaching literature • 1991 all levels 50 hours focusing on topics on specific areas

12. Course Logistics • 20 participants per course – voluntary • Release time from school duties one 3-hour afternoon session per week and three intensive 8- hour days throughout the school year • No system of accreditation or career incentive for teachers or leaders until 1989 • Commitment of attending teachers • Freedom to devise own courses and to experiment

13. PSLS Project Outcomes • Creation of pre-service education for all teachers • Support for new forms of in-service education developed locally by teachers • Closer link between practical and theoretical issues • Leaders demonstrated professional accountability by writing articles, textbooks and giving conference presentations.

14. Durable Outcomes • Support and commitment from the organizing agencies (MoE,US Embassy) • Project’s adaptability to changing needs and conditions • Leaders and participants’ shared status • Non-invasive procedures (narratives, focus groups, lesson transcript analysis, teacher logs brought participants’ classes into the course.

15. Network Approach to Peer Training Thailand

16. Network Training Thailand • Attempt to replicate similar model in Thailand to train secondary school teachers (2004) • Create a network of “peer” teacher trainers who commit to work with colleagues on a bi-weekly basis throughout the school years • Organized by AUA, US Embassy RELO and MoE

17. Training Paradigm Shift • Traditional Training “Blocktraining,” intensive short courses, often mandatory introduce new ideas or expose teachers to new techniques, BUT • Consistent on-going training with regular input and regular feedback is most effective in helping teachers adopt new practices

18. Purpose • To prepare English teachers to deliver training modules to peer teachers on a bi-weekly basis • To apply cooperative learning principals to collaborative teaching methods • To develop support groups and organize joint activities: peer observation and feedback, team teaching, peer coaching

19. Trainers • Most have been on the AFS teacher exchange program: one year in the USA with host family, teamed with ESL teacher • Later groups chosen with MOE to fill educational areas where no trainers existed • Trainers had to able to deliver modules in English • Trainers supported regionally by State Department English Language Fellows

20. Training Process • 20-22 participants per course – voluntary • Commitment to become teacher trainers • 3 weeks training of trainers • Week One: From teacher to teacher trainer (SIT approach) • Weeks Two & Three: Presentation of 10 modules • Module presentation include theory, focus sessions, demonstrations, microteaching and feedback sessions

21. Commitment • Teacher participants returned to home areas, recruited 15-20 peers on a voluntary basis, delivered 10 modules • Modules delivered bi-weekly throughout academic year • Trainees return to their schools, try out the modules, get feedbackat next session

22. Outcomes • Project ran 7 trainings of trainers between October 2004 and May 2007 and 2 retrainings • Trainers (160) in over 60 of 76 provinces • Trainers retrained over 4500 teachers throughout Thailand in an extended period • Trainers felt commitment to teacher development

23. Sustainable Leadership Moving from ‘Flurries of Change’ to lasting Moving from ‘Flurries of change to lasting n n improvement improvement Secondary school teachers as agents of change Secondary school teachers as agents of change n n in their communities in their communities Three Cs: Three Cs: n n Commitment to teacher development n Collaboration for success n Confidence in communicating your vision and n empowering others

24. Changing Plans • Project unfinished • Lack of long termcommitment to project on part of stakeholders • Lack of release time for training • Trainers drawn off and transferred to other positions • Funding provided for new activities

25. Cart Before the Horse

26. Competence and Confidence • Majority of Thai teachers have insufficient English proficiency • Most primary teachers not trained to teach English – non-English majors • Vast number secondary school teachers unable to conduct teaching effectively in English • Non native communicative competence often based on assumed abilities of native speaker of English

27. Competence and Confidence • Teachers self-perceptions • Lack confidence to teach in English, especially CLT • Cannot convey messages to their students in the target language • Cannot provide a good language model • Lack of creativity as teachers as teachers can not use creative language in classroom or choose creative materials

28. Competence and Confidence • Feel more comfortable in teacher fronted class • Want textbook designed to help them out of their lack of confidence • Language tasks too abstract for those not yet conceptually capable of functioning at that level • Lack ability to change curriculum when students needs are not met