Tom Flaherty: Doing it by the book

APAC ELT Convention 2019

Tom Flaherty: Doing it by the book

One of the first sessions of the conference, providing some serious food for thought. The flurry of twitter activity is always a good indication of how thought-provoking a session is. Tom on twitter: @tom_flaherty
 

Photo credit @usoasol

 

In this session, Tom summarised some research he has done into teachers’ attitudes to grammar teaching, exploring the tensions between classroom practice and beliefs. His study involved 42 students and 4 coursebook writers, and 3 teachers whom he observed and interviewed

To start off, Tom asked us to consider the following questions:

 

Something to think about

 

Tom referred to the interplay of different types of discourse that teachers have to bear in mind when making decisions about what and how to teach:

TOP-DOWN: Theoretical discourse (Pedagogic discourse & research-based discourse). This could emerge from our training, professional development input sessions (like this conference), or reading (of methodology handbooks or academic research).

BOTTOM-UP: Personal discourse, e.g your previous experience as a learner (what Lortie [1975] calls the ‘apprenticeship of observation’), our classroom experience.

In Tom’s study, he aimed to observe how these discourses influence our beliefs and classroom practice, with focus on the teaching of grammar, broken down thus:

The teachers in his study used 3 different coursebooks (English File, Outcomes and Voyage). He suggests that a teacher’s degree of dependence on the coursebook is inversely proportionate to their ‘agency’ (feeling that they have control over their own choices). Teachers had mixed feelings about the books they were using. Tom introduced the terms coined by Shawer (2010): curriculum transmitter (a teacher who follows the book exclusively for grammar presentation) and curriculum developer (a teacher who supplements the grammar explanations).

In all three cases, the coursebook dictates the focus of the class and how the grammar is taught. One teacher suggested that in this context there is a cultural belief that language depends on grammar, so learners will expect explícit grammar explanation. Local teachers at the session seemed to agree, as in this tweet.

 

 

Consequently, many learners prefer the English File approach (rule-based, explícit, PPP), to other approaches (inductive, pattern-based), but found there was not enough speaking. In all cases, the book dominates, suggesting that the materials writer (the only agent not present in the room) has the greatest control over classroom practice (however, the agency of writers themselves is subject to the demands of their editors /publishers / markets).

Tom concluded with some key takeaways:

 

 

And some questions to consider:

Teachers need to

· be comfortable with the cousebook approach
· identify learners’ needs
· manage learner expectations

Coursebook writers should consider...

· whether one size fits all
· whether integrated approach equals agency
· providing more explanation of approach

Schools need to...

· provide specific teacher training
· create a “culture of research”
· analyse coursebooks first

Publishers should consider...

· do holistic approaches need a holistic design?
 · ...and a holistic procedure?
 · the need to incorporate more research

And perhaps the most important question to consider:

· Are CBs inadvertently deskilling teachers?


The slides for Tom’s presentation are available at:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w5x87l24dzygpoy/APAC_Convention_2019_DoingItByTheBook_31012019.pdf?dl=0