Competence and Performance #6 – Contextual knowledge

In the sixth post in a series on what distinguishes the very best language teachers, Interchange author Jack C. Richards explores the part played by contextual knowledge.

A key factor in understanding any teaching situation is the social and physical context – the rules, facilities, values, expectations, and personal backgrounds, which act as resources, constraints, and direct influences on teaching and learning. (Posner 1985, 2)

Sociocultural perspectives on learning emphasize that learning is situated; that is, it takes place in specific settings or contexts that shape how learning takes place. Language teachers teach in many different contexts, and in order to function in those contexts they need to acquire the appropriate contextual knowledge that will enable, for example, an Australian teacher to learn how to be an effective teacher in China or vice versa, or a Singapore teacher how to be an effective EFL teacher in Japan.

Different contexts for teaching create different potentials for learning that the teacher must come to understand. For example, a teacher might be teaching in a campus-based ESL program, in a local public school, in a community college, or in a private language institute. Depending on the context, the learners may be children, teenagers, or adults and may represent a variety of different social, economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds. Different teaching contexts hence present different notions of the process of language teaching (Zeichner and Grant, 1981). Teacher learning thus involves developing not only the skills of teaching but also the norms of practice expected of teachers in a school, both inside and outside the classroom.

Teaching involves understanding the dynamics and relationships within the classroom and the rules and behaviors specific to a particular setting. Schools have their own ways of doing things. In some schools, textbooks are the core of the curriculum and teachers follow a prescribed curriculum. In others, teachers work from course guidelines and implement them as they see fit. In some institutions there is a strong sense of professional commitment, and teachers are encouraged to co-operate with each other. In others, teachers work in relative isolation. This is reflected in many different aspects of the way the school functions, as we see in the following comments of student teachers on the schools in which they are carrying out their practice teaching.

I love the school where I am working. The teachers I have met seem real friendly and helpful, and my co-operating teacher goes out of her way to make me feel comfortable in her class. – Judy

The teachers in the school where I am teaching seem to have little contact with each other. There are a lot of part-time teachers who just teach their classes and disappear. I get a sense that there is not a strong feeling of collegiality among the teachers in the school. – Robert

The teacher I am working with is very strict about everything. Seems like the school has lots of procedures teachers have to follow and I have to do things exactly the way they like to do them. – Andrew

My first few weeks went really well, then I had to work in a different class and I found the students very difficult to work with. They didn’t seem to be interested in learning. – Anna

The notion of “context” here is hence a very broad one, since it includes issues such as the school’s goals and mission; its management style and “school culture;” its physical resources, including classroom facilities, media, and other technological resources; the curriculum and course offerings; the role of textbooks and tests; as well as the characteristics of teachers and learners in the school.

Some of these factors have to do with “structural influences” (i.e., those to do with life in the classroom and the school in general), whereas others belong to the domain of “personal influences” (i.e., they come from other persons the teacher interacts with while at the school, including the learners, other teachers in the school, and in some cases the learners’ parents). As Miller (2009, 10) comments:
Knowing the school, the possibilities of the classroom space, the students, their neighbourhoods, the resources, the curriculum and policy, the supervising teacher – these are all critical elements that affect what teachers can do, and how they negotiate and construct identity moment to moment.

Teaching in a school thus involves understanding the specific values, norms of practice, and patterns of social participation of that school. This will include understanding such things as the role of the prescribed curricula, the school culture, the routines of the classroom, the school’s procedures for lesson planning, and learning how to interact with students, school authorities, and colleagues.

It involves induction into a community of practice, Lave and Wenger’s (1991) concept for learning that takes place within organizational settings, which is socially constituted and which involves participants with a common interest collaborating to develop new knowledge and skills. In the school, teacher learning takes place through classroom experiences and is contingent upon relationships with mentors and fellow novice teachers, and interaction with experienced teachers in the school.

The teacher’s teacher education course constitutes the start of the teacher’s professional development, subsequent learning taking place in the particular context provided by the school. Learning to teach within a specific teaching context is therefore a process of socialization. Learning to teach involves becoming socialized into a professional culture with its own goals, shared values, and norms of conduct. This “hidden curriculum” is often more powerful than the school’s prescribed curriculum.

References and Further Reading

Read all the posts in this series: