As a part of my research program I am working on improving the model of teacher education at the B.Ed level. Here the teachers are learning the theoretical and practical aspects of teaching English to their learners while they also actually teaching. The teachers selected are both graduates with a degree in Education from Osmania University. One of them holds a B.Ed in Social Studies with English as his second subject of specialization while the other one has a B.Ed in English from the same teacher education college.
The current B.Ed English curriculum aims to provide the teacher-interns an understanding of the four language skills i.e. Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing and also of the two elements of Grammar and Vocabulary. There also exists units on 'Communicative methods of teaching English' but the delivery of lessons is so theoretical and rote based that even the teachers who graduate as specialized teachers of English are not able to think of language learning/ teaching as a skill.
At no point during the tenure of teacher education are they made to realize the ideas of integrating the language skills and elements for making the learning of English more naturalistic and a wholesome experience. In fact their own English language proficiency is very low. Expressing their own feelings, ideas, difficulties and views on a given topic in English impromptu is a struggle for many of these trained graduate teachers.
Sample Selection: The sample chosen for the study is small and not representative of the entire fraternity of Trained graduate para-teachers and to be able to generalize the findings of this study the study will have to be replicated at a larger scale. The participants as mentioned are TGTs working as Vidya Volunteers at the Zila Parishad Schools in Hyderabad. They were chosen on the basis of their Education background and communication skills in English. Before commencing the field work, formal interactive sessions were held with them to know how they feel in general about language teaching- learning at the primary levels in the government schools' set up. They were also given a set of questions to be answered on the basis of the education they received at the B.Ed college and understanding gathered through personal experiences as teachers.
The day in general begins with discussions between the researcher (who is also a teacher educator here) and the teacher where they are given handouts or exercises to perform. And lesson plan for that day is put in place. The teachers also decide on their respective roles for e.g. of the three teachers teaching who will initiate the lesson, ask questions, conclude etc. A support system is built as we three try to sit and discuss our viewpoints about an issue. For this kind of system to succeed the most important factor that needs to be developed is 'trust'. All the people involved in this process should feel valued and the notion of being judged is to be completely removed as the tendency to perform not for themselves or the benefit of the students will otherwise be taken over by the feelings of showcasing the teaching skills to the other two people involved.
It can be termed as an on-the-job training of teachers but as the stakes of students too are involved in this process it has to serve the dual role of enabling the students through the agency of aware and qualified teachers.
Given the findings of numerous researches conducted upon the effect of teachers own language proficiency on his/her ability to teach communicatively; through my research I wish to fill this void that currently exists. The basic linguistic structures that the teachers are required to know in order to give routine classroom instructions, were in the beginning discussed and given in the form of a handout to them. Time-to-time or whenever they ask, they are also given structures in English that they aren't able to create by themselves comfortably like- how to express to children that they can guess the story they are about to read by looking at the title and the pictures etc. The idea is to make them feel confident and empowered. And what can be a better way of doing this than by giving them a helping hand in the form of structures(handouts) that they can always keep with themselves for quick reference.
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The current B.Ed English curriculum aims to provide the teacher-interns an understanding of the four language skills i.e. Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing and also of the two elements of Grammar and Vocabulary. There also exists units on 'Communicative methods of teaching English' but the delivery of lessons is so theoretical and rote based that even the teachers who graduate as specialized teachers of English are not able to think of language learning/ teaching as a skill.
At no point during the tenure of teacher education are they made to realize the ideas of integrating the language skills and elements for making the learning of English more naturalistic and a wholesome experience. In fact their own English language proficiency is very low. Expressing their own feelings, ideas, difficulties and views on a given topic in English impromptu is a struggle for many of these trained graduate teachers.
Sample Selection: The sample chosen for the study is small and not representative of the entire fraternity of Trained graduate para-teachers and to be able to generalize the findings of this study the study will have to be replicated at a larger scale. The participants as mentioned are TGTs working as Vidya Volunteers at the Zila Parishad Schools in Hyderabad. They were chosen on the basis of their Education background and communication skills in English. Before commencing the field work, formal interactive sessions were held with them to know how they feel in general about language teaching- learning at the primary levels in the government schools' set up. They were also given a set of questions to be answered on the basis of the education they received at the B.Ed college and understanding gathered through personal experiences as teachers.
The day in general begins with discussions between the researcher (who is also a teacher educator here) and the teacher where they are given handouts or exercises to perform. And lesson plan for that day is put in place. The teachers also decide on their respective roles for e.g. of the three teachers teaching who will initiate the lesson, ask questions, conclude etc. A support system is built as we three try to sit and discuss our viewpoints about an issue. For this kind of system to succeed the most important factor that needs to be developed is 'trust'. All the people involved in this process should feel valued and the notion of being judged is to be completely removed as the tendency to perform not for themselves or the benefit of the students will otherwise be taken over by the feelings of showcasing the teaching skills to the other two people involved.
It can be termed as an on-the-job training of teachers but as the stakes of students too are involved in this process it has to serve the dual role of enabling the students through the agency of aware and qualified teachers.
Given the findings of numerous researches conducted upon the effect of teachers own language proficiency on his/her ability to teach communicatively; through my research I wish to fill this void that currently exists. The basic linguistic structures that the teachers are required to know in order to give routine classroom instructions, were in the beginning discussed and given in the form of a handout to them. Time-to-time or whenever they ask, they are also given structures in English that they aren't able to create by themselves comfortably like- how to express to children that they can guess the story they are about to read by looking at the title and the pictures etc. The idea is to make them feel confident and empowered. And what can be a better way of doing this than by giving them a helping hand in the form of structures(handouts) that they can always keep with themselves for quick reference.
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