In his latest series, Interchange author Jack C. Richards has been exploring what distinguishes the very best language teachers. In this post, Jack explores the move from theorizing to practice.
Mastery of teaching skills, and the specialized thinking skills expert teachers make use of, are essential aspects of teacher development. But teacher learning also involves developing a deeper understanding of what teaching is, of developing ideas, concepts, theories, and principles based on our experience of teaching (Borg 2006). The development of a personal system of knowledge, beliefs, and understandings drawn from our practical experience of teaching is known as the theorizing of practice. The belief system and understanding we build up in this way helps us make sense of our experience and also serves as the source of the practical actions we take in the classroom.
To better understand the concept of theorizing of practice it will be useful to contrast two ways of thinking about the relationship between theory and practice. The first is the application of theory. This involves making connections between the concepts, information, and theories from our teacher education courses and our classroom practices; it involves putting theories into practice. So, after studying the principles of task based instruction or collaborative learning, for example, we might try to find ways of applying these principles in our teaching.
The theorizing of practice, on the other hand, involves reflecting on our practices in order to better understand the nature of language teaching and learning and to arrive at explanations or hypotheses about them. The information we make use of is the experience of teaching, observations of how our learners learn or fail to learn, and our reflections on things that happen during our lessons. The theorizing that results from these reflections may take several different forms. It may lead to explanations as to why things happen in the way they do, to generalizations about the nature of things, to principles that can form the basis of subsequent actions, and to the development of a personal teaching philosophy (Richards 1998). The following examples taken from teachers’ narratives and journals illustrate teachers beginning to theorize from practice.
Arriving at explanations and generalizations
Children are much better language learners than adults because they are not worried about making mistakes and are much more prepared to take risks. When we begin learning a language it’s better to follow the natural way, using imitation. But when you are more advanced, then you need to know more about the grammar.
The essential thing in language learning is knowing how to say what you want to say but not why you have to say it in a particular way. Learners learn more when they work in groups because they can learn from each other and they get more opportunities to talk than when the teacher is conducting the class. Error correction works best when you ask students to monitor their own language, rather than having them depend on the teacher all the time.
Developing principles and a teaching philosophy
A further stage in theorizing from practice is when teachers formulate principles that they refer to when planning and evaluating their teaching and to the personal philosophy which guides their decision making (Bailey 1996). Here is an example of a teacher describing some of the beliefs and principles she brings to her teaching:
I think it’s important to be positive as a personality. I think the teacher has to be a positive person. I think you have to show a tremendous amount of patience. And I think if you have a good attitude you can project this to the students and hopefully establish a relaxed atmosphere in your classroom so that the students won’t dread to come to class but have a good class. I feel that it’s important to have a lesson plan of some sort. Because you need to know what you want to teach and how you are going to go from the beginning to the end. And also taking into consideration the students, what their ability is, what their background is and so on. I have been in situations where I did not understand what was being taught or what was being said, and how frustrating it is and so when I approach it I say: how can I make it the easiest way for them to understand what they need to learn?
This teacher’s philosophy emphasizes the teacher’s attitude and the need to create a supportive environment for learning in the classroom. She stresses the need for lesson planning, but her justification for lesson planning is based on helping the students rather than helping the teacher. Other examples of principles which teachers have described in journals and conversations include:
- Follow the learners’ interest to maintain students’ involvement.
- Always teach to the whole class not just to the best students.
- Seek ways to encourage independent student learning.
- Make learning fun.
- Build take-away value in every lesson.
- Address learners’ mental processing capacities.
- Facilitate learner responsibility or autonomy.
Activities in which teachers articulate their theories, beliefs and principles are an important component of professional development and journal-writing, narratives, discussion and critical reflection can all be used for this purpose. The theorizing that results from these procedures often provides the basis for interpreting and evaluating one’s own teaching as well as the teaching of others.
You can find all the references for this series of posts here.
Read all the posts in this series:
Competence and Performance in Language Teaching #1 – Introduction
Competence and Performance #2 – The language proficiency factor
Competence and Performance #3 – The role of content knowledge (i)
Competence and Performance #4 – The role of content knowledge (ii)
Competence and Performance #5 – Teaching skills
Competence and Performance #6 – Contextual Knowledge
Competence and Performance #7 – The language teacher’s identity
Competence and Performance #8 – Learner-focused teaching (i)
Competence and Performance #9 – Learner-focused teaching (ii)
Competence and Performance #10 – Pedagogical reasoning skills
Competence and Performance #11 – Theorizing from practice
Competence and Performance #12 – Membership of a community of practice
Competence and Performance #13 – Professionalism