The fifth and final post in this short series of extracts from Jack Richards’ Key Issues in Language Teaching addresses the teacher’s knowledge base, highlighting that there is much more to being an English language teacher than simply ‘knowing’ the language.
English language teaching requires a specialized knowledge base, obtained through both academic study and practical experience. The professional knowledge base of teachers is known as content knowledge. Content knowledge refers to what teachers need to know about what they teach (including what they know about language teaching itself), and constitutes knowledge that would not be shared with teachers of other subject areas.
Content knowledge can be thought of as constituting the ‘theoretical foundations’ of ESL/ ELT, in comparison with the practical, teaching-skills aspects of teaching, which were discussed above. Content knowledge, however, is of many different kinds. One important distinction is between disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.
Disciplinary content knowledge refers to a circumscribed body of knowledge that is considered by the language-teaching profession to be essential to gaining membership in the profession.
For example, it could include the history of language teaching methods, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, phonology and syntax, discourse analysis, theories of language, critical applied linguistics and so on. It is important to stress here that disciplinary knowledge is part of professional education and does not translate directly into practical teaching skills. As a result, teachers in training may not immediately grasp its relevance.
Pedagogical content knowledge, on the other hand, refers to knowledge that provides a basis for language teaching. It is knowledge which is drawn from the study of language teaching and language learning itself, and which can be applied in different ways to the resolution of practical issues in language teaching.It could include coursework in areas such as curriculum planning, assessment, reflective teaching, classroom management, teaching children, teaching the four skills and so on.
Professional courses for ESL/ELT typically include a mix of disciplinary knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. Introductory courses generally spend more time on pedagogical content knowledge. A sound grounding in both disciplinary and pedagogical content knowledge prepares teachers to be able to do things such as the following:
- Understand learners’ needs.
- Diagnose learners’ learning problems.
- Plan suitable instructional goals for lessons.
- Select and design learning tasks.
- Evaluate students’ learning.
- Design and adapt tests.
- Evaluate and choose published materials.
- Read the professional literature.
- Adapt commercial materials.
- Make use of authentic materials.
- Make appropriate use of technology.
- Evaluate their own lessons.
So there is much more to being an English teacher than knowing English. Like the teaching of any subject in the curriculum, English language teachers need a firm grounding in the subject matter of English language teaching as well as the practical skills needed for classroom instruction. The field of second language teacher education deals both with the nature of the knowledge and experiential basis that supports teaching, as well as how this is developed.
You can find out more about Key Issues in Language Teaching here.