In His Name
The English language group has made any attmpt to develop certain goals set by the educational system to help the teachers and the students in particular and educational settings in general.The main activities performed by this group are listed below:
1)Forming professional experts meetings
2)Surveying exam papers
3)Preparing and introducing educational CDs.
4)The students' general English language knowledge test
5)The teachers' professional knowledge test
6)Province wide teachers meeting
7)Preparing required articles for the teachers
8)Evaluating two of the text books
9)Evaluating university entrance exam of 1387
10)Planning in-service training course
English language group
Abdi-Ghanbari
Culture and the ‘good teacher’ in the English Language
classroom Colin Sowden
Introduction
Many readersmust sympathizewith PeterGrundy (1999)when he laments the fact that after 30 years in the ELTprofession, he still does not know how to do his job. It seems indeed that, despite all the discussion, research,
and experimentation which has taken place over that time, it has not yet
been demonstrated that there is a best way of teaching a second language.
This conclusion has been a common theme in recent writings: although
different new methods have appeared to offer an initial advantage over
previous or current ones, none has finally achieved overwhelmingly better
results. Even the Communicative Approach, which has done so much to
restructure how we as language teachers view our activities, has had its
detractors and has not proven more obviously successful than other
methods in the past. There has indeed beenmethodological fatigue, leading
many to the pragmatic conclusion that informed eclecticismoffers the best
approach for the future.
While confidence in specific methods has declined, interest in individual
learner differences, such as motivation, aptitude, family background, has
noticeably increased. If we cannot say exactly how we should teach, then
perhaps we must let our learners determine how they should learn, and
be guided by that instead. Thus has developed an interest in learner training
and self-directed learning, and in what is termed the student-centred
approach, either in its strong form, whereby the teacher and learners
negotiate the syllabus, or in its weak form, whereby the teacher tries to
ensure that what happens in the classroom responds to learners’ needs
and interests as well as to external or traditional requirements. It is in
conjunction with this shift of emphasis away from teaching and towards
learning, that there has appeared a growing awareness of the role played by
culture in the classroom.
A broad definition of culture
In the past, culture tended to mean that body of social, artistic, and
intellectual traditions associated historically with a particular social, ethnic
304 ELT Journal Volume 61/4 October 2007; doi:10.1093/elt/ccm049
ھ The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
or national group. One could talk confidently of French culture, the culture
of theMarsh Arabs, or British working-class culture. Now this termis used
much more broadly. In his analysis of the expatriate teaching situation,
Holliday (1994:29) argues that the typical teacher in that context will be
involved in a variety of cultures: those of the nation, of the specific academic
discipline, of international education, of the host institution, of the
classroom, and of the students themselves. To be effective, expatriate
teachers must take account of all these cultures and how they influence the
attitude and study styles of their students. Instead of trying to impose
cultures of their own, theymust work with the cultures that they encounter.
Reflecting on what determined the approach of local teachers whom he
observed during his time in Egypt, he comments (ibid.: 38)
the relationship between teacher and student seemed not so much
a product of explicit methodology; it was rather derived more naturally
from existing, unspoken role expectations, perhaps originating outside
the classroom.
Holliday presents guidelines forways inwhich expatriate teachers can learn
fromthis observation by becoming better informed about local cultures and
adapting their teaching styles accordingly (ibid.: 193).
Diversity of culture, though, asHoliday’s analysis indicates, is not confined
to the expatriate situation. Even when teachers of English share the
nationality of their students, it ismisleading to talk of cultural homogeneity.
Although they are likely to share many of the cultural assumptions of
their students, local teachers,who are notusually native speakers ofEnglish,
may well be seen to represent certain values that set them apart. In
implementing a national curriculumor experimenting with imported new
teaching methods, for instance, such teachers may also find a significant
gulf betweenthemselves and their classes.Canagarajah (1999) explores this
kind of situation at considerable length, analysing the way in which Tamil
teachers of English in Sri Lanka need to take account in their work of the
cultures associated with government policy, particular ethnic aspirations,
the colonial heritage of the language, and student lifestyles and objectives.
The cultures of teachers
Of course, teachersneedto be aware not only of the cultures of their students
and their environment, but also of the cultures that they themselves bring
to the classroom, whether they are nationals or expatriates. This is not
just a question of the historical and social baggage that, for example, an
American or a metropolitan from New Delhi, inevitably carries with them,
but of the particular attitudes and practices that they have developed as
individuals.Woods (1996: 196) refers to a teacher’s ‘BAK’: their underlying
beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge. These determine how what is
planned is implemented in practice. He says of course design and delivery:
‘When a [plan] is carried out, it is interpreted using familiar structures in
a way which is coherent with the teacher’s BAK. By virtue of this
interpretation, the actual curriculum—what happens to the learners in the
classroom—is different from the planned curriculum’(ibid.: 269).
Even when we are dealing with culture in the more traditional sense, this
is increasingly seen primarily as a context within which personal identity
Culture and the ‘good teacher’ 305 can be worked out. Kramsch is very clear that learning another language necessarily involves learning about the cultures with which it is associated.
She says (1993: 8): ‘If language is seen as a social practice, culture becomes
the very core of language teaching’. However, this does not mean that the
learner shouldmerely take on board wholesale all that these other cultures
offer or represent. Instead there should exist a ‘border zone’ between the
target language cultures and local cultures (represented by both teacher
and learners or by learners alone), which all parties can meaningfully
inhabit and within which everyone can interact on equal terms. Effective
language learning will take place in this way, whatever the formal
requirements of the syllabus, when teachers and learners ‘are constantly
engaged in creating a culture of a third kind through the give-and-take of
classroom dialogue’ (ibid.: 23). In similar vein, Canagarajah (op. cit.: 176)
argues that students and national teachers of English in ‘periphery’
countries should negotiate a new identity for themselves through the
language, stamping their own identity on it and modifying it in accordance
with their own needs and priorities.
The profile of a ‘good teacher’
Appropriate personal qualities, therefore, are what count most in the
development of good intercultural communicative competence. In fact,
I would argue, they are the key to overall success in the classroom, and
this has not really changed over the years, although concern with the
latest technique and method has tended to obscure this fact. As Brumfit
Culture and the ‘good teacher’ 307
(2001: 115) says ‘the ability to relate to learners, the role of enthusiasmfor the
subject and the interactionof thesewitha sense ofpurpose and organization
were as relevant in 1500 as in 2000’.
Now, in the absence of clear methodological guidelines, and with an
understanding of culture too broad to be of real pedagogical assistance,
the teacher as person is coming to be recognized as the determining factor
in the teaching process, just as the learner as person has been recognized
as the key to successful learning. This ‘good teacher’, a well-rounded,
confident and experienced individual,will be at ease in their classroomrole:
their teaching will be effective because it will be a natural product of who
they are, and be received as such by their students.
This is what Prabhu (1990: 172) refers to as ‘a teacher’s sense of plausibility
about teaching’. He goes on to say (ibid.: 173) ‘The question to ask about
a teacher’s sense of plausibility is not whether it implies a good or bad
method but,more basically, whether it is active, alive, or operational enough
to create a sense of involvement for both the teacher and the student’. It
is the exercise of these qualities which matters and gets results. In a similar
affirmation of authenticity, Brumfit comments (1982: 16) on the ideals
of Humanistic Language Teaching, by saying that ‘. . . successful affective
teaching is more likely to emerge when students join a community in
which they are provided with an example of the desired behaviour pattern
than when the patterns are built into some kind of syllabus structure’. In
other words, success as a teacher does not depend on the approach or
method that you follow so much as on your integrity as a person and the
relationships that you are able to develop in the classroom. The ability
to build and maintain human relationships in this way is central to
effective teaching, as it is to true inter-cultural communicative competence
(Byram (op. cit.: 32).
The role of teacher development
Recognition of this fact has led to the traditional idea of teacher training
giving way to the more far-reaching concept of teacher development. If
what I do in class depends mainly on who I am as a person, then I must
develop myself as much as I can if I wish to improve as a teacher. As far
as development in the classroom is concerned, teachers need to enhance
those reflective and critical skills which will allow them to assess and
appropriately modify their performance in the light of experience and of
the insights provided by research, both their own and that of experts in the
field. This process is described well by Tsui (2003: 277):
the theorization of practical knowledge and the ‘practicalization’ of
theoretical knowledge are two sides of the same coin in the development
of expert knowledge . . . and they are both crucial to the development of
expertise.
Such reflection helps prevent that ‘overroutinization’which Prabhu (op. cit.:
174) considers to be the pre-eminent ‘enemy of good teaching’. It also helps
the teacher develop an individual voice, one which does not merely echo
external criteria and concerns, but gives expression to the teacher’s own
inner dynamic.
Culture and the ‘good teacher’
what works in a given context in terms of all the various cultures which
operate there, including those represented by the teacher.
So how can we respond to Peter Grundy’s lament mentioned at the
beginning of this article? If we accept that our profession is an art rather
than a science, and if we recognize that our personal qualities, attitudes, and
experience are what finally count, providing that these are informed by
acquaintance with best current practice and research, then we language
teachers can free ourselves from the kind of mechanistic expectations that
have dogged us for so long. If we can accept this argument, we become
genuinely free agents, able to decide for ourselves not only howbest to carry
out our jobs but also how to direct our future professional development.
How do we know that we are doing a good job? Student response and
progress, which must be carefully evaluated, will provide the principal
guidance here. Peter must have had lots of positive feedback from
students during his career, and seen good concrete results from his
teaching.With apologies to Keats: ‘That is all you know in English language
teaching, and all you need to know’.
References are available in the English language group.
A recommonded book:
Second language research
Alison Mackey& Susan Gass
