What do teachers bring to the teaching-learning

process?
(Williams and Burden (1997) Chapter 3)
Complete the blanks to obtain a summary of this chapter:
The writers of this book have a particular view of knowledge: they see it as...
Essentially constructed by individuals rather than transmitted from one person to
another. Such constructions always occur within specific contexts, mainly as a result of
social interactions.
Consequently, this is not seen as a…
Linear sequence of events but as a dynamic process whereby those with more
knowledge, known as mediators, influence and are influenced by those with less
knowledge, as occurs in parent-child or teacher-learner relationships. This is often
achieved by setting various tasks and responding to the ways in which the learner
attempts those tasks. In addition, the environment within which this occurs will itself
influence and be influenced by the teaching-learning process and its outcomes.
In 1984, Seymour Ericksen provided a definition for a “good teacher”: …
'an outstanding teacher should be an inspiring instructor who is concerned about
students, an active scholar who is respected by discipline peers, and an efficient
organised professional who is accessible to students and colleagues'
There are various studies carried out which produce lists of desirable
characteristics in teachers’ ways of behaving. These are some of them:
• Clarity of presentation.
• Teacher enthusiasm.
• Variety of activities during lessons.
• Achievement-oriented behaviour in classrooms.
• Opportunity to learn criterion material.
• Acknowledgement and stimulation of student ideas.
• (lack of) Criticism.
• Use of structuring comments at the beginning and during lessons; guiding of
student answers.
However, such factors are open to a variety of interpretations because…
Because such factors are themselves open to a variety of interpretations (e.g. What
exactly is meant by 'enthusiasm'?), but also because in the real world good teachers
come in all shapes and sizes, with a wide range of different personalities, beliefs and
ways of working.
Even after analysing descriptions and categories proposed by different
researchers, it is hard to transform them into guidelines for action. According to
Williams and Burden, a radical alternative would be…
A radical alternative involves an inner exploration of oneself rather than a search for the
outward characteristics of the perfect teacher.
Such an alternative is provided by…
Such an alternative is provided by a constructivist approach to teachers and teaching.
In such a view of the teaching-learning process, a definition of educations is
given; it is seen as …
a 'political enterprise with two main purposes - to empower learners to think for
themselves, and to perpetuate in the next generation ways of acting and thinking that
are judged the best by the present generation (von Glasersfeld 1995). TO REPEAT THE
THINGS THAT HAVE WORK.
In von Glasersfeld’s view, a constructivist approach is best put into practice by …
Presenting issues, concepts and tasks in the form of problems to be explored in
dialogue rather than as information to be ingested and reproduced. This is best
performed by what he terms the teacher's orienting function. TASK-BASED METHOD.
This theorist goes on to say that individual learners are motivated to learn when
they possess…
Feelings of competence and self-efficacy, which can best be gained by working out
one's own solutions to problems.
In this respect, for von Glasersfeld nothing succeeds like success:
The motivation to master new problems is most likely to spring from having enjoyed the
satisfaction of finding solutions to problems in the past... The insight why a result is
right, understanding the logic in the way it was produced, gives the student a feeling of
ability and competence that is far more empowering than any external reinforcement... If
students do not think their own way through problems and acquire the confidence that
they can solve them, they can hardly be expected to be motivated to tackle more.
On their part, Thomas and Harri-Augstein (1985) state that all approaches to
teaching can be seen as…
An organised attempt to help people bring some kind of meaning to their lives.
And they further pose that for education to be an enriching experience the
meanings that emerge must…
Become personal, and they must be significant and important in some part of the
person's life. Meanings must also be viable; that is they must prove useful and effective
in mediating one's transactions; transactions with stored knowledge, with people and
with the world around.
Now, if we hold a constructivist view of teaching, we will agree on the fact that
there’s never any one right way to teach.
Constructivism cannot tell teachers new things to do, but it may suggest why certain
attitudes and procedures are counter-productive, and it may point out opportunities for
teachers to use their own spontaneous imagination.
as teaching, like learning, must be concerned with teachers making sense of, or
meaning from, the situations in which they find themselves.
Louden (1991) summarizes the struggle that newly qualified teachers go through
when establishing professional competence:
From a practitioner's perspective...teaching is a struggle to discover and maintain a
settled practice, a set of routines and patterns of action which resolve the problems
posed by particular subjects and groups of children. These patterns, content and
resolutions to familiar classroom problems are shaped by each teacher's biography and
professional experience. The meaning of these patterns of action only becomes clear
when they are set in the context of a teacher's personal and professional history, her
hopes and dreams for teaching, and the school in which she works.
Language teachers’ horizons will be shaped by…
Thus a language teacher's horizons will be shaped in part by her own personal
experiences, but also by traditional ways in which other language teachers throughout
have made sense of what it means to be a language teacher.
However, understanding is not merely recreating someone else’s meaning…
Understanding is not merely the recreation of someone else's meaning, but is in
principle incomplete and continues to grow with every new experience. It always
involves the creation of meaning from those experiences in the light of the meaning-
maker's preconceptions and the tradition of interpretation within which he or she acts.
Perhaps the most helpful interpretation of a constructivist approach to
to teaching is offered by Salmon (1988) in a book which is both powerful and
deceptively simple. Although she does not object to traditional studies of teacher
effectiveness, teaching for Salmon involves far more than this. She describes it 'not as
the passing on of a parcel of objective knowledge, but as
the attempt to share what you yourself find personally meaningful' (Salmon 1988:37).
She argues as a consequence that teachers are indivisible from what they teach.
The differences between teachers, therefore, are not simply a question of
Within a constructivist approach, teachers do not only convey what they know,
but also…
As teachers we do not just act as gateways to knowledge because we ourselves
represent and even embody the curriculum. We convey not just what we know, but our
position towards it, the personal ramifications and implications which it has for us. At the
same time, teachers experience an engagement with their learners out of which further
constructions emerge.
At the same time, teachers experience…
Engagement with their learners. and so further constructions emerge.
Teachers need to become self-aware of…
their beliefs and the ways in which they make sense of the word, particularly with regard
to their views about education.
they need to be aware also that they themselves are being construed by their learners
and that their words, their actions and their interactions form part of every individual
learner's own construction of knowledge.
particularly with regard to their views about education and how those views come
to be shaped. And they also need to be conscious about the fact that they are
being construed by …
their learners and that their words, their actions and their interactions form part of every
individual learner's own construction of knowledge.