TEFL task : English Teacher as Profesional

INTRODUCTION

A Professional is broadly speaking, someone whose work involves performing a certain function with some degree of expertise. But a narrower definition limits the term to apply to people such as doctors, teachers and lawyers, whose expertise involves not only skill and knowledge but also the exercise of highly sophisticated judgement, and whose accreditation necessitates extensive study, often university-based, as well as practical experience.

This notion of professionalism can be further clarified by contrasting it with others that it is often set in opposition to: concepts such as lay, amateur, technician, academic. Each contrast offers an understanding from a different perspective.

PROFESSIONAL VERSUS LAY

A ‘lay’ population is a population that does not belong to a specified professional group. Members of the professional group possess certain skills, knowledge, and conventions that the lay population do not have. Typically, they communicate between themselves employing vocabulary that is not readily comprehensible to a layperson (in our case, examples would be cloze, LI, L2, ESP etc). These qualifications make them into a ‘club’ for initiated to which others do not belong: a professional community.

Like many others, the professional community of English teachers has developed means of consolidating relationships between its members and created opportunities for them to benefit from each other’s knowledge. It holds courses and conferences: locally or nationally, increasingly, internationally (LATEFL, TESOL etc). And it sets up organs through which members can exchange ideas and publish innovations (journals, newsletters, internet sites, etc).

PROFESSIONAL VERSUS AMATEUR

The distinction between the professional and the amateur is based on consistent differences in performance in the field, involving the quality of preparatory and ongoing learning, standards and commitment. The amateur does things for fun, for the love of it: thus someone who knows English may have a go at teaching it, as an amateur, without any particular training or commitment. He or she may do it well, or badly. But the professional cannot allow himself or herself to ‘have a go’ at teaching or to do it badly.

Professionalism means preparing oneself to do a competent job through learning. This learning may take the form of preservice or in-service courses, reflection on experience, reading, observation, discussion with colleagues, writing, research- the means are numerous.

The distinction between professional and amateur is one of general principle, and may in individual cases, be blurred or nonexistent. As in many fields, a gifted amateur may outperform a professional. And the amateur may become a professional, provided he or she adopts the professional approach just describe. Many excellent teachers in fact began as amateurs, and developed their professionalism over the course of time.

PROFESSIONAL VERSUS TECHINICIAN

The techinician, craftsman, or artisan performs certain acts with skill and becomes more skillful as time goes on, through practice. The professional has not only to acquire certain skills, but also to be able to take courses of action that are based on knowledge and thought, as distinct from automatic routines. Beyond this, he or she has to understand the principles underlying both automatic and consciouly designed action, and be able to articulate them, relate them to each other, and innovate.

The native English speaker is a techinician, in the sense that he or she is skilled in speaking English. The English teacher is in principle a professional: he or she cannot only the speak the language, but can also explain why it works the way it does and what different bits of it mean, and knows how to ‘mediate’ it to learners in a from that they can grasp and learn. The teacher also knows how to manage classrooms and relationship: again, these are not just unthinking skills but thoughtfully evolved and flexible sets of professional behaviours. The combination of these kinds of knowledge enables the experienced teacher to make informed and appropriate real-time decisions when – as often happens – different, equally valid principles appear to conflict in a particular situation.

One important implication of this is the professional autonomy of the teacher. Because the teacher has a deep understanding of the principles of professional action, enabling him or her to innovate and to relate critically to the innovations of others, it follows that he or she may not just carry out instructions or adopt, unthinkingly, the recommendations of ‘experts’. We ourselves are the experts. We should certainly listen to other people’s ideas, but we should adopt them only in so far as we find them acceptable in terms of our own thinking and experience.

PROFESSIONAL VERSUS ACADEMIC

An academic can be defined as a researcher, lecturer, and writer, usually based in a university. According to the contrasts defined up to now, the academic comes under the category of ‘professional’, and many academics would so define themselves. But there is an essential difference between the occupation of the doctor, architect, teacher on the one hand, and the research scientist on the other. The professional is, first and foremost, a bringer-about of real-world change: the doctor cures patients, the architect designs buildings, the teacher brings about or catalyses learning. Essentially, the professional prioritises real-time action, whereas the academic prioritises thought – though of course the professional also thinks about his or her actions, and the academic acts in order to develop his or her thinking. The distinction is thus one of emphasis and priorities rather than of substances.

The following list summarises the differences, as well as one important similarity.

The Academic ·         Is primarily occupied in thinking and researching ·         Acts (researches) in order to refine thinking ·         Is interested in finding out the truth or more information ·         Is not an immediate agent of real-world change ·         Is evaluated in the short term by his or her publications ·         Is evaluated in the long  term by his or her influence on the thought and action of both academics and professionals (and sometimes of the lay public)

The Professional ·         Is primarily  occupied in real-time action ·         Thinks in order to improve action ·         Is interested in finding out what works ·         Is an immediate agent of real-world change ·         Is evaluated in the short term by the extent to which he or she brings about valuable change ·         Is evaluated in the long term by his or her influence on the thought and action of both academics and professionals (and sometimes of the lay public)

The similarity is in the last item: whatever they do during their active careers, the work of both will be judged ultimately by how they have contributed to their field in a way that can benefit future generations.

The English teacher is essentially a professional engaged in bringing about real-world change, who may on occasion undertake academic research. The two endeavours are different, but mutually beneficial and equally to be respected.

WE ENGLISH TEACHERS....

Thus, to say that we English teachers are professionals is to imply that:

·         We are community

·         We are committed

·         We publish

·         We learn

·         We are autonomous

·         We are responsible for training new teachers

2. Developing Our Professional Competence : Some Reflection

I find myself reflecting on the implications of this realization for me as an adult ESL educator. Like many adult ESL educators, I recognize that my role is multifaceted. We also no doubt recognize our fundamental and pivotal role in facilitating the development of our students' communicative competence. I have been influenced by a definition provided by Tedick and Walker (1994). They suggest that communicative competence is the ability to communicate and understand messages across linguistic and cultural boundaries. I like this definition because of the reciprocal nature of communication and the fundamental context of culture it portrays.

if my goal is communicative competence it behooves me to ensure that I have the requisite principles, knowledge, and skills to accomplish it.

What those principles, knowledge, and skills are will no doubt also reflect the particular conception of teaching I hold and the implications of my other roles. However, three things are clear:

1.      If I am to be a professionally competent educator, I must be principled and knowledgeable in addition to skillful;

2.      My professional needs and interests have changed over time and continue to evolve;

3.      My commitment to professional development must be ongoing and personal.

Principles, Knowledge, and Skills

Principles, knowledge, and skills are fundamentally integrated in the professionally competent teacher. If I am to be professionally effective, I believe I must ensure a balance in my expertise. To be knowledgeable and principled without the appropriate skills necessary to apply this knowledge is limiting. The knowledgeable teacher who is also skillful is a powerful educator, and the adult ESL profession has a substantial number of knowledgeable, skillful teachers. Skill, too, in the absence of knowledge is of limited value. Skillful teachers, who have amassed an effective array of activities and techniques that they can and do employ but who have not developed a parallel level of knowledge, limit their effectiveness. Unfortunately, the application of their skill is constrained by the limitations of their cognitive framework.

The growing body of knowledge on topics such as learning styles and language learning strategies, the role of discourse in communicative language teaching, adult ESL / literacy, and the cultural dimensions of language learning and teaching beg for exploration. Even "old" stand-bys such as linguistics cannot be neglected, for surely knowledge about English, its vocabulary, and its grammar is a fundamental requirement of adult ESL teachers.Teachers regularly claim  that the ability to speak English is insufficient preparation to teach English, yet some contradict this by saying that, because they do not overtly teach grammar, there is no need for them to acquire grammatical knowledge. I would counter that assumption: if we are not relying on a grammar syllabus, we must be particularly knowledgeable and skillful so that the necessary range of topics is addressed appropriately and sufficiently.

Some have also suggested that teachers do not need to know much linguistic information if they "just" teach beginners. I wonder how effective teachers would be in teaching reading to grade 1 students if they had no background in teaching reading, or how competent they would feel if they only read at a grade 1 level themselves. In addition, experience tells us that our students' language encounters in the real world are unlikely to follow the hierarchical organization presented in many classrooms. When a beginner student asks a teacher to explain the grammar of Smoking is not allowed, the teacher will no doubt want to provide a more appropriate explanation than "That's just how we say it," and needs to draw on linguistic knowledge to do so.

Changing Needs

Every workshop presenter I know has at one time or another received contradictory feedback. I've received comments, such as "Really practical!" versus "Not enough meat!" for the same workshop or, conversely, "Provocative ideas" versus "Too theoretical" for another. What does this tell me? Generally I conclude that I could have done a better job of describing my workshop, and there was a mix of experienced and novice teachers in the crowd.

It is no surprise that novice teachers and experienced teachers have different needs. Research into this shows that novice teachers tend to be concerned with What-to-teach questions, whereas experienced teachers want to explore How-to and Why questions to a greater degree (Freeman, 1982). If this is so, then logically teachers will naturally seek out different types of professional development activities and a different content focus as their careers progress. If we find ourselves always seeking the same "practical" content or classroom activities type of workshop after 10 or 15 years of teaching experience, shouldn't we explore the reason and seek more balance in our profes-sional development (PD) pursuits? Don't get me wrong. I love to get new activities or techniques to use in a class. However, I also love a professional development activity that challenges and changes my conceptual framework, and it is learning from these endeavors that enables me to make better andragogical decisions about those new activities and techniques.

Personal Commitment to Professional Development

Development of teaching competence is our professional responsibility, and we can undertake a wide range of activities in fulfillment of this obligation. As Crandall (1996) pointed out in her keynote address at the TESL Canada Conference, there are courses to take, journals to read, colleagues to talk with and observe, classroom research to conduct, textbooks to review, and workshops to attend. This range of professional development opportunities allows us to develop a comprehensive, yet personal PD plan, and I am convinced it must be a personal plan. Employers and professional organizations may support our pursuit of PD by funding us to the occasional conference or organizing a workshop, but as educators we must make a personal commitment to our own ongoing professional growth.

As I tell my son, sometimes he carries out a chore at home because he is paid for it. Then I am satisfied because the chore has been done; he is happy because he has done a good job and put some money into his wallet. However, I cannot possibly pay him for every job that needs to be done around the house, nor should I have to. He lives there; he has a stake in its maintenance and improvement. When he sees something that needs to be done and he takes it on unasked and without pay, he is demonstrating his sense of responsibility to our family's well-being in addition to his own. I think it is the same for those of us engaged in the adult ESL profession. Going to the occasional workshop because it is organized for us, or because we are funded by employers, although mutually beneficial to a degree is not enough for our own and our profession's well-being. Each of us, I believe, must be personally committed to seeking out additional opportunities to learn and develop. If we continue to argue that adult ESL is an area of educational expertise, we must ensure that we indeed have that expertise. Knowledge and principles without skill or, conversely, skill without knowledge or principles are professionally unacceptable states. There is no place for professional complacency in the field of adult ESL instruction. The students and our profession deserve more.

REFERENCES

Barrow, R. (1984). Giving teaching back to teachers. Brighton, Sussex: Wheatsheaf.

Shulman, L.S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching, Educational Researcher; 15(2), 4 – 14.