Changes in English teaching 1966-2009
1. Learning processes:
Deeper understanding of and awareness of interconnection between cognitive development, emotional-intellectual feeling, role of language in learning, language development, development of writing & reading abilities & skills
thinking & language processes - importance of metacognition - of students reflecting on their learning
2. Relationship between theory and practice:
importance of teachers theorising their own practice - to be able apply relevant aspects in their teaching - intentionally explore theoretical understanding how best we learn
3. Language as a tool of learning:
we learn language by using it and we learn by using language
language is a tool of learning = language and learning (Britton 1970, Wilkinson 1971,1975)
language across the curriculum (Barnes 1976)
negotiating the curriculum (Garth Boomer 1982)
change from emphasis on language & language processes to emphasis on learning and learning processes
central importance - passing on the secrets of the curriculum to students - make explicit purpose of all that we ask them to.
4. Learning language: Brian Cambourne's eight conditions of language learning (1988) relevant to all kinds of language learning:
- immersion
- demonstration
- engagement
- expectation
- responsibility
- approximation
- employment
- feedback
Reading, writing, talking, listening = treat as a unity = ie 'whole language' 'holistic literacy development' = importance is the meanings and purposes of students literacy activities - comunicating and understanding meaning. Culturally acquired way of learning.
5. Learning about language: the contribution of linguistics
language difference is not language deficit - need to accept & positively encourage dialects of non-dominant social groups, while also teaching mastery of the standard dialect - in context of purpose, why they need mastery = to give them access to wider culture and ability to operate with more choice and power in it.
Range of language functions we use language for & different purposes language serves - work by Michael Halliday (1973) and James Britton et al (1975) - emphasis importance of organising language activities in the classroom so that students develop competence in all functions and to the highest levels of performance.
The conscious exploration of language in the classroom - textuality
Doughty, Pearce and Thornton (UK 1970s) - creation of materials for student exploration of social uses of language (genres, discourses, registers, function of languages). Further developments by Leslie Stratta, Andrew Wilkinson & John Dixon (in Patterns of Language) - hasfurther developed into classroom work on textuality - learning processes of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of texts of different kinds for students own transactive (authentic) purposes. Links with 'rhetorical model' of English teaching (Richard Andrew) & critical literacy (Hilary Janks 1993, Wendy Morgan 1996, Colin Lankshear 1994).
6. The development of a deeper understanding of the relationship between language and power
Hilary Janks 'critical language awareness' - concern with politics of meaning - ways dominant meanings are maintained, challenged and changed
7. The development of wider definitions of literature and new ways of teaching it
describes forms of writing - includes student's own imaginative writings - students write as well as read literature - rewriting eg. imaginative exploratins of alternative possibilities of texts - 'dependent authorship' (Peter Adams) - students learn the rhetorics of literature as apprentices to master writers.
8. A developing understanding of contemporary cultureal and literary theory and its porfound implications for the teaching of reading, writing and textuality
goes beyond reading different kinds of lit, to reading all the sign systems of our culture
"a literary canon is itself a cultural formation serving the specific aims and interest of the gorups who contstructed it in the first place"
The important question: 'Whose canon is it?'
'Who constructed it, and for what purposes?'
'Whose interests does it serve?'
'Our job is not to produce "readings" for our students but to give them the tools for producing their own" (Scholes 1985)
Texts, readers and reading practices culturally constructed - reading and writing two sides of same active process - students learn to read texts from a writer's point of view and to write texts from a reader's point of view - can choose to read a text in many different ways.
9. Questions for readers and stages of reading development
'What is it that I am bringing to this text that causes me to respond to/interpret/construct it as I do?'
Robert Scholes - reading - largely unconscious activity - requires as much knowledge as skill - 'our job....is to show them the codes upon which all textual production depends, and to encourage their own textual production' (Scholes 1985)
Understanding own reading is being able to answer ' what makes a story a story?', 'how does a writer construct a character?' etc
Intrepetation - understanding the cultural codes implicated in any text
Criticism - one way is "to ask them where their sympathies are in a text and where they think the author's sympathies are"...ask "is it posssible that they are by manipulated by the text?" - to generate discussion
to unpackage concealed ideologies - transpose their elements (Hollingdale 1988) eg changes of gender, race, nationality, class and age - can be entertaining & revealing e.g. imagine the character as.......
See Thompsons (1987) identifying 6 levels of response to literature
Moffett (1968) & Brittton (1975) development model of thinking from concrete experience to more abstract conceptualisation - Britton - developmental levels of transactional writing - Moffett's scale of lanaguage development
10. Developing understanding of multimedia technology and increasing mastery in using it
Students are increasingly able to read, interpret and criticise a range of multimedia technologies and use them to construct texts of their own
11. An increasingly powerful range of assessment & evaluation procedures
In the best English classrooms student's work is now being assessed by themselves and their peers, as well as by the class teacher, and larger groups beyond the classroom. Teacher's assessment more meangigul to students as it now takes place in context of negotiation in which students are fuly conversant with teachers assessment criteria - made explicit to them in advance
Students required to reflect on & evaluate own learning & performance =to understand processes of their own learning & develop practice of questioning what is hapening in classroom - active role - also student's contribution toward cooperative projects group work
12. New models of English teaching
includes older models of English teaching but extends to include:
cultural heritage model - awareness of way students own cultural history has positioned them
language skills model - mastery of all language skills - not teaching individual & unrelated skills outside of any context - but language in use (Doughty et al 1973) & critical literacy work (Hilary Janks 1993, Wendy Morgan 1996) - teaching language skills in meaningful social and cultural context
personal growth model - (Dixon 1967; Sawyer)Personal growth (PG) & development still crucial, including pleasure & enjoyment in reading & values of beauty & ethical understanding. PG extended by deeper understanding of historical, cultural and political/ideolgoical contexts
cultural studies or textuality model - English placed in wider cultural context - incorporate enlarged definition of 'literature' & range of texts - all sign systems of high,popular & mass culture that can be read for their social purposes.
= new model rhetorical and ethical model - Rhetorical, Ethical, Socio-Cultural, Political model - RESPonsible model or REPresenting humang agency (Andrews 1992; Thomson) - involves:
personal growth
full awareness of relationship between language and power
familiarity with social practices & their discourses
understanding of political & ideological formation of texts
understanding of matters of value & ethics
Thomson emphasises: "in helping students to develop the literary - and literacy - abilities to make such judgements, we want such judgements to be made by students themselves and not to be imposed on them by teachers (or by media commentators, politicians or other community leaders)
- fostering in our students a genuinely critical stance towards language & its discursive formations...active participants, not passive
Ethical teaching practices - see implications for classroom practice # 18-22
Implications for the classroom:
1. classroom activities "can be either agents of literary growth and empowerment for students or meaningless routines of industrious futility merely filling the daily time available for work in English"
2. students need to understand the point of doing them ie. within context
3. students need to be able to reflect on their learning - looking at what and how they have learned
4. students need to know their own preferred ways of learning. Teachers need to be aware of differences (individual, cultural) preferred ways of learning
5. teachers need to be able to understand and articulate what is the present theory of leanring that underpins our present practice
6. encourage students to use informal & comfortable language in talk & writing to sort, understand & share new ideas and interpretations
7. talking informally in small groups
8. writing expressively - notes, response statements, reading journals, learning logs, self reflection
9. make explict to students point or purpose of all that we ask them to do
10. accept & positively encourage dialects of non-dominant social groups
11. authenticity/context/purpose
12. extending literature from deconstructing texts to reconstructing & writing new texts of their own
13. importance to promote students to analyse, to think, to reflect, to make judgements
14. self & peer assessment
15. teacher assessment criteria made explicit in advance
16. importance of reflection & evalation of student's own learning & performance
17. cooperative, collaborative group work
18.do not teach one reading practice as if it were the only way to read
19. do not impose own value judgements on students, but be honest about your preferences when asked
20.teach students all of reading practices available in community so student can read same text in multiple ways, & choose a preferred reading
21.help students to recognise & respect point of view of other readers whose preferred interpretations arise from different repertoires (of experience, cultural knowledge, values, & historical-cultural positioning)
22. help students to understand that cultural differences be respected
23. rhetorical/ethical model
invite students to challenge and question their world
students take responsibility for their own learning
to come to understand themselves in relation to others
to learn to cooperate with others to solve problems
to make choices about what they do
to make decisions, & to understand & make informed responsible & tolerant judgments about issues of values & ethics
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