CHAPTER TWO: FRAMING THE RESEARCH
This chapter begins with a general review of the sociocultural framework. A few compatible concepts which help to elucidate the essence of this framework will then be discussed. They are situated learning, the notion of community of practice, and multiple and distributed expertise. I will also review research on (a) teachers’
professional growth (including a discussion of the current conceptualization of teacher image and teacher learning, collaboration as a vehicle for professional development, and novice teachers’ professional development); and (b) team teaching (including a general description of team teaching and a review of team-teaching studies conducted in Japan and Hsinchu).
The Sociocultural Framework
A General Description
The current study draws on the Vygotskian sociocultural theory to understand teachers’ learning experiences in the team-teaching mechanism and the larger teaching context. Sociocultural theory begins as a theory of human development.
Vygotsky (1986) argues that a child’s development cannot be fully understood by studying the individual alone. Rather, the external social world in which the child’s life has developed must be examined closely. In this view, learning is seen as embedded within social activities and occurring as a child interacts with the objects, events, and people in the social environment (Vygotsky, 1986). Moreover, development should not be portrayed as a smooth and linear process with predetermined stages. Instead, it is “a much more dynamic, socially mediated process” that takes place “as a direct result of participation in social activities that are structured and gain meaning in historically and culturally situated ways”
(Golombek & Johnson, 2004, pp. 309-310).
In recent years, the sociocultural framework has been applied to the research on teacher learning (Hawkins, 2004; Johnson, 2006; Johnson & Golombek, 2003).
According to Johnson and Golombek (2003), sociocultural theory is not just a theory of learning as commonly understood; it is a theory of higher cognitive development, capable of providing adequate explanation for the process of teacher learning. As aforementioned, at the core of this theory is the idea that development depends on interaction with others and the surrounding environment (Cross & Gearon, 2004).
In terms of teacher development, this means that the interactions which teachers have with the people, objects, and events in their external environment will help to shape their thinking and behaviors. The current study hopes to probe into how these different interactions influence each participating teacher’s professional development.
Sociocultural theory is not one single theory; instead, a few compatible concepts have helped clarify the nature of this perspective (Johnson, 2006). The next section is devoted to a discussion of the following concepts—situated learning, the notion of community of practice, and multiple and distributed expertise.
Situated Learning
An important tenet of the sociocultural framework is that learning cannot be
studied without considering the contexts such learning takes place. Lave and
Wenger (1991) argue that “there is no activity that is not situated” (p. 33). For
them, the term “situated” does not merely mean that people’s actions and thoughts
are social (i.e., involving other people) and located in space and time. Their
concept of situated activity implies an “emphasis on comprehensive understanding
involving the whole person rather than ‘receiving’ a body of factual knowledge
about the world; on activity in and with the world; and on the view that agent,
activity, and the world mutually constitute each other” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 33).
As Watson-Gegeo (2004) further expounds, a situated learning perspective “rejects the notion that there can ever be decontextualized knowledge or a decontextualized activity” (p. 338).
A situated view on learning stands in sharp contrast to traditional cognitive perspectives, in which learning is typically described as “an individual’s acquisition of knowledge, change in knowledge structures, or growth in conceptual understanding” (Peressini et al., 2004, p. 69). Cognitive theorists also argue that while some learning may occur in a social context (e.g., in-service workshops for teachers), what is learned can be independent of the setting in which it is learned (Anderson et al., 1997). On the contrary, a situated view on learning conceptualizes the learning process “as changes in participation in socially organized activity” (Peressini et al., 2004, p. 69). In this perspective, the focus is no longer solely on what knowledge or skill is acquired during the learning process.
Instead, the physical and social contexts which learning takes place are also an essential part of the learning activity. As Hanks (1991) explains, instead of just asking what kinds of conceptual structures and cognitive processes are involved, Lave and Wenger further question “what kinds of social engagements provide the proper context for learning to take place” (p. 14). In terms of teacher learning, it can take different forms and occur in various contexts, such as participating in school meetings or in-service workshops, and engaging in brief hallways conversations with colleagues. As Borko (2004) sums up, “To understand teacher learning, we must study it within these multiple contexts, taking into account both the individual teacher-learners and the social systems in which they are participants”
(p. 4).
One example to illustrate the situated nature of teacher learning is provided by
Tsui (2003), in which she delineates the developmental path of Marina, one of the
four ESL teachers who participated in her study. In order to perform her new role as the head of the English panel at her school and to implement a new project on process writing, Marina constantly sought professional input from different contexts (e.g., consulting her principal and colleagues, observing how colleagues taught, seeking advice from an online teacher network, and participating in various educational programs). As Tsui (2003) maintains, this kind of interaction provides Marina with more than stimulation and encouragement; it affords her opportunities to learn the “cognitive tools” (Putnam & Borko, 2000, p. 5) of a community, including ideas, theories, and concepts, and to make sense of her own experiences.
Community of Practice
Rather than depicting learners as lone investigators, the sociocultural framework views learning as a complex social phenomenon. Lave and Wegner (1991) conceptualize learning as coming to know how to participate in a community of practice. Communities are everywhere, and we are usually involved in a number of them—whether it is at work, home, school, or in our interest groups (Wenger, 1998). According to Wenger (1998), a community of practice denotes a sense of joint enterprise—a group of people participating in a set of communal activities, experiencing and constantly creating a shared identity from engaging in and contributing to the practices of their community. Sergiovanni’s (1994, as cited in Thomas et al., 1998) definition of communities is in accordance with Lave and Wenger’s idea—“Communities are defined by their centers of values, sentiments, and beliefs that provide the needed conditions for creating a sense of we from a collection of I’s” (p. 217, italics in original).
In this perceptive, learning involves a novice moving from what is referred to
as “legitimate peripheral participation” (LPP) toward full participation within a
given community. In this view, newcomers’ participation in a certain community is
at first “legitimately peripheral” (i.e., they perform minute but necessary tasks that contribute to the overall goal of the COP; these tasks are usually simple and carry low risk to the community) but gradually increases in engagement and complexity.
In other words, as the newcomers become old timers, their activities become more and more central to the overall functioning and well-being of the community (Lave, 1996; Morrell, 2003).
The word “peripheral” deserves more discussions. Contrary to the common understanding of the word (“at the edge”), “peripheral” is used by Lave and Wenger (1991) to suggest the many ways a newcomer engages in a community of practice (Haneda, 1997). To be more specific, the newcomer does not merely occupy “a particular role at the edge of a larger process”; rather, he/she participates in the community “by simultaneously performing in several roles—status subordinate, learning practitioner, sole responsible agent in minor parts of the performance, aspiring expert, and so forth,” and each role implies “a different sort of responsibility, a different set of role relations, and a different interactive involvement” (Hanks, 1991, p. 23).
Hanks (1991) further elaborates, “If learning is about increased access to performance, then the way to maximize learning is to perform” the task at hand (p.
22). In other words, learning proceeds from action, and for newcomers to become
legitimate and full members of a community, it is important that they participate in
the activities which are taking place in the community and learn and grow from such
experiences. In the educational setting, an example might be the professional
development of student teachers. Teaching practicum is typically a requirement in
most teacher preparation programs around the world. Working in tandem with
their mentor teachers during the practicum, the emerging teachers are expected to
gradually become full members of the teacher community (Butler et al., 2004; Street,
2004), who have appropriated a “shared repertoire” (Wenger, 1998) of communal resources, such as teaching routines, sensibilities as classroom practitioners, and values and beliefs shared among members in the teaching community.
As Haneda (1997) summarizes, examining the learning process from the COP perspective brings about two shifts in perspective: “a shift away from the notion of learning as the simple acquisition of knowledge in isolation to the idea of learning as a mode of participation in the social world”; and “a shift away from the traditional focus on individual learners to an emphasis on their shared membership in the community” (p. 14). In this perspective, the transmission models of learning and the role of explicitly taught declarative knowledge in human learning are both de-emphasized.
Multiple and Distributed Expertise
A closely related concept of COP is that of multiple and distributed expertise (Tsui, 2003; also see El-Okda, 2005; Hung et al., 2005). In her study of four ESL teachers in Hong Kong, Tsui (2003) attempts to clarify the nature of expertise in language teaching. One of her conclusions is that teachers may have developed expertise in some aspects of their complex work (e.g., ESL instruction and establishing classroom rules), but not in others (e.g., disciplining misbehaved students and providing leadership in curriculum reform). Tsui argues (2003, p.
279):
…it is perhaps more meaningful to talk about expertise in areas of
specialization rather than to use general terms like expert doctors and
expert teachers because they tend to mask the multiple expertise that
is required in professions that are as complex as medicine, and
professions that are not only complex but also ill-defined, such as
teaching.
In other words, common terms such as “expert doctors” and “expert teachers” seem to imply it is possible for individual doctors or teachers to attain a high level of expertise in each aspect of their work. However, as Tsui contends (2003), such terms are misleading because they fail to portray the multi-dimensional nature of expertise in a profession. Instead, the term “expertise” should be understood as encompassing multiple areas of specialization.
Another reconceptualization of the concept of expertise is that of distributed expertise, i.e., expertise is distributed across or “stretched over” (Lave, 1988) individuals in a given community (Tsui, 2003). To accomplish a task at an expert level, the expertise of many individuals often needs to be pooled together. An oft-cited analogy for the notion of distributed expertise is provided by Hutchins (1990). He described how navigating a U.S. Navy ship is a joint effort of all the crewmen. The expertise for successfully piloting the ship is distributed among the crewmen. It is only through their cooperative effort that such a highly complex task can be accomplished.
As Benner et al. (1996, as cited in Tsui, 2003) further explain, “Expertise is both deliberately and informally pooled. Knowledge is produced not by private individual knowers, but in dialog with others with different vantage points and perspectives” (p. 195). Distributed expertise connotes more than a sum of individual talents. Rather, Butler et al. (2004) argue that the knowledge constructed transactionally in a community is richer than the knowledge an individual can construct alone. Individuals also benefit from opportunities to contribute their expertise to a common pursuit because they can check and refine their ideas and personal theories during the process of accomplishing the task (Putnam & Borko, 2000; Tsui, 2003).
An example to illustrate the concept of multiple and distributed expertise is
provided by Thomas et al. (1998), in which they describe a two-and-a-half-year teacher development project that brings together teachers from the English and history departments of a large urban high school in the U.S. Meeting twice a month, the participants read books, designed an interdisciplinary curriculum, and discussed their teaching together. As Thomas et al. (1998) comment, “The individual teachers in our group bring with them very different areas of expertise;
some are extremely knowledgeable about the subject matter, whereas others bring specialized knowledge of students, including linguistic minority students and students enrolled in special education programs” (p. 23). The collective understanding of the teacher development group is enhanced as a result of drawing on each individual teacher’s different pedagogical and disciplinary expertise.
Thomas et al. (1998) also describe the nature of distributed expertise as representing more than a sum of individual understandings. According to them, the group discussion sessions in their study provide “the means by which individual contributions are taken to levels that no group member could attain individually” (p.
23).
Summary
In this section, several core concepts of the sociocultural framework and their relation to teacher development were discussed. The next section will be devoted to a review of issues related to teachers’ professional development.
Teachers’ Professional Development
Current Conceptualization of Teacher Image and Teacher Learning
In recent years, issues around language teacher education have come to the fore
with the recognition that without qualified teachers, students’ learning is likely to
suffer. In the literature, teachers are no longer portrayed as flat characters or empty
vessels, “waiting to be filled with theoretical and pedagogical skills” (Freeman &
Johnson, 1998, p. 401). Instead, they are now seen as individuals who enter classrooms with different experiences, beliefs, and expectations. As Crookes summarizes (2003), it is important to “see teachers as actively involved in constructing knowledge and making meaning, through their own actions (that is, not being mere receivers of knowledge, whether pedagogical or concerning content/subject matter)” (p. 194).
In addition to their image, teacher learning has also been given a new interpretation in the past decade—it does not stop once teachers graduate from teacher education programs or complete their practicum. Professional development is now reconceptualized as a normative and lifelong process, “emerging out of and through experiences in social contexts: as learners in classrooms and schools, as participants in professional teacher education programs, and later as teachers in institutions where teachers work” (Johnson & Golombek, 2003, pp. 729-30; also see Bailey et al., 2001; Freeman & Johnson, 1998).
To understand how teachers learn to teach and how they evolve into teaching professionals, one must probe into their cognitive worlds and personal teaching practices (Velez-Rendon, 2002). To date, research of this line is rather scarce. In her critique of the field, Velez-Rendon (2002) asserts that “we need to know more about language teachers: what they do, how they think, what they know, and how they learn” (p. 465). What is also needed, according to Velez-Rendon (2002), is more research on the possible contextual factors affecting teachers’ ongoing professional development, such as school culture, colleagues, parents, and students.
This viewpoint is shared by Tsui (2003) who contends that the knowledge and skills teachers develop are closely related to their personal histories as well as their teaching contexts, i.e., the situated nature of teacher learning (Lave, 1988; Lave &
Wenger, 1991). The current study is a response to Velez-Rendon’s call, as it
intends to inquire into the possible individual and contextual factors influencing the professional growth of team teachers teaching in the Hsinchu Program.
A General Review of Literature on Teachers’ Professional Development
There are many reasons for teachers to pursue professional development (Bailey et al. 2001; Knight, 2002). The reasons range from the need to acquire more knowledge and skills to cope with changes to a possible increase in income and/or prestige as a result of participation in professional development. In addition to these reasons, Bailey et al. (2001) suggest that “continued professional growth and excitement can also help us to combat negativity in our teaching contexts” (p. 7).
Moreover, teachers can meet like-minded people when taking part in professional development activities. As a result, they will feel less isolated and establish their membership in the larger community of teachers who are devoted to their personal and professional growth.
The literature of teacher learning abounds with discussions on the types of different approaches to professional development. The current consensus seems to be that the traditional top-down, “event-delivery” models of professional development activities (e.g., one-stop workshops) are not the optimal type for teachers to engage in. According to Knight (2002), the problems with these traditional models include the cost and the inconsistency in the quality of such provision. Also, there is often a mismatch between what is provided and teachers’
real needs. The models favored by Johnson (2006) are those who would “allow for
self-directed, collaborative, inquiry-based learning that is directly relevant to
teachers’ classroom lives” (p. 243). The examples discussed by Johnson include
teacher inquiry seminars, peer coaching, cooperative development, teacher study
groups, narrative inquiry, lesson study groups, and critical friends groups. These
alternative professional development structures, as Johnson (2006) argues, create
more equitable social roles among the participants; they also recognize the classroom where teachers spend much of their time as a legitimate site for teacher learning.
The recognition of classroom as a legitimate site for teaching learning is of crucial importance to move the research on teacher development forward.
Participating in formal professional development opportunities (e.g., workshops, conferences, or government-sponsored projects) is just one way to induce teacher growth, and as aforementioned, the effectiveness of such activities has been challenged recently. Teachers probably learn more good lessons and gain more valuable experiences from their daily teaching, and there is a need to look into the teachers’ growth as situated in their own working environment. Such investigation also corresponds to the conception of teacher knowledge as situated knowledge (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991), which sees “knowledge as contextually developed as practitioners respond to the specific context in which they operate”
(Tsui, 2003, p. 48).
Dimensions of Teachers’ Growth
As stated in the first chapter, the current study adopts Lange’s (1990) definition of teacher development as “a process of continual intellectual, experiential, and attitudinal growth of teachers” (p. 250). Implied in this definition is that teacher development is not only a continual process (as discussed earlier), but also involves change and growth in different aspects—knowledge, experience, and attitude. In other words, teachers’ professional growth is multidimensional, and this conceptualization of teacher development will be utilized in the current study to examine the personal and professional development of teachers participating in team teaching.
Having recognized the multidimensional nature of teachers’ growth, the next
step is to try to identify the many dimensions which help define such growth.
Literature on the scope and components of teachers’ knowledge base can help shed some light. According to Fradd and Lee (1998), the term “knowledge base” refers to the “repertoire of knowledge, skills, and dispositions that teachers require to effectively carry out classroom practices” (pp. 761-62). Although the field of second language teacher education has not reached a consensus on the core components of teachers’ knowledge base, efforts to define what teachers should know have been undertaken in the past two decades (Velez-Rendon, 2002). For example, Shulman (1987) proposed a generic framework to account for the components of teachers’ knowledge; to this date, this model is still oft-cited. The components identified by Shulman (1987) include (a) content knowledge; (b) general pedagogical knowledge; (c) curriculum knowledge; (d) pedagogical content knowledge; (e) knowledge of learners; (f) knowledge of educational contexts; and (g) knowledge of education ends, purposes, and values.
In addition to Shulman’s generic model, recent efforts to define the knowledge base specifically for second language teaching include Day and Conklin (1992, as cited in Day, 1993), Freeman and Johnson (1998), and Richards (1998). In Day and Conklin’s (1992) model, teachers’ knowledge base includes (a) content knowledge; (b) pedagogic knowledge; (c) pedagogic content knowledge; and (d) support knowledge. On the other hand, Richards (1998) sees such knowledge base as encompassing (a) theories of teaching; (b) teaching skills; (c) communication skills and language proficiency; (d) subject matter knowledge; (e) pedagogical reasoning skills and decision making; and (f) contextual knowledge.
Of special interest among the different classifications is that of Freeman and
Johnson (1998). In their article written for the special issue of TESOL Quarterly
on English language teacher education, Freeman and Johnson (1998) propose a
tripartite framework for teacher knowledge base which encompasses knowledge about (a) the nature of teacher-learner: teacher as a learner of teaching; (b) the nature of schools and schooling: the social context within which teacher-learning and teaching take place; and (c) the nature of language teaching: the pedagogical process, the subject matter and content (also see Liou, 2000).
Compared this model to others mentioned above, one can easily identify one crucial difference: While components like content knowledge are indeed important, Freeman and Johnson (1998) argue that the central figure in any teaching activity, namely teachers themselves, cannot be neglected when configuring a knowledge base for teachers. In their framework, teachers are reconceptualized as dynamic figures who bring their prior experiences, personal values, and beliefs into classrooms and continually construct their identity in their teaching context.
During the process of constructing their identity, teachers’ experience is enriched, and their attitudes towards teaching may also undergo significant changes.
Following the spirit of Freeman and Johnson’s framework, Gingerich (2004) studied three American teachers in Lithuania and developed a knowledge base for teachers who are native speakers of English and teaching in an international setting (see Figure 1, reproduced from Gingerich, 2004, p. 122). An important component of this framework is the knowledge that teachers bring from their home context (general pedagogical knowledge) and how this knowledge is utilized and transformed in the new context to develop a set of knowledge needed for English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teaching (pedagogical content knowledge;
also see Watzke, 2007). Like Freeman and Johnson’s (1998) framework,
Gingerich’s conceptualization of EFL teacher knowledge base also highlights the
need for teachers to understand the multiple contexts surrounding their work,
including that of the classroom, the school, and the larger society (pedagogical
context knowledge).
Figure 1. Framework for EFL teacher knowledge (reproduced from Gingerich, 2004, p. 122)
To summarize, Freeman and Johnson’s (1998) tripartite framework will, as it focuses on teachers’ learning experience in their teaching context and includes a wide range of components of teachers’ knowledge, be used in the current study to examine teachers’ growth. Under this framework, teachers’ growth will not be limited to gains in pedagogical knowledge. Rather, gains in different aspects of teachers’ knowledge, experience, and attitude will serve as evidence for teachers’
growth. Gingerich’s (2004) framework will also serve as a guideline to understand how the foreign teachers in the current study responded to the new teaching assignment in the Taiwanese setting.
EFL context Home context General
Pedagogical Knowledge
Teacher as Learner
Educational background
Teaching experience
Language learning experience
Personal philosophy of teaching
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Pedagogical Context Knowledge
The Activity of Teaching &
Learning
Arriving with a plan
Making
Adjustments
Knowledge of the Contexts
The classroom context
The school context
The societal
contexts
Collaboration as a Vehicle for Professional Development
Teacher collaboration can take many different forms, such as staff development projects (Akyel, 2000; Butler et al., 2004; Jenlink & Kinnucan-Welsch, 2001;
Thomas et al., 1998), teacher discussion groups initiated by researchers (Farrell, 1999; 2001), collaborative action research (Burns, 2005; Smith, 2005), teacher research groups (Fairbanks & LaGrone, 2006; O’Donnell-Allen, 2001), informal meetings initiated by teachers themselves (de Oliveira & Richardson, 2004), and of course, team teaching (Bailey et al., 1992; Mann, 2005; Shannon & Meath-Lang, 1992; Sturman, 1992). No matter what form teacher collaboration takes, such efforts serve as a powerful medium for participants to reflect on their personal beliefs and teaching practices. Without such reflection, teachers’ knowledge is likely to remain tacit, and teaching is always guided by impulse, intuition, and routine (Richards, 1990, as cited in Knezevic & Scholl, 1996).
Collaboration between a native and a non-native English teacher represents a special case of teacher collaboration. Although studies on team teaching are not hard to locate both in the fields of TESOL (e.g., Anstrom, 2002; Knezevic & Scholl, 1996) and general education (e.g., Anderson & Speck, 1998; Chazan et al., 1998;
Craig, 1998; Roth et al., 1999; Sandholtz, 2000), research which specifically addresses the collaboration between a native and a nonnative English teacher is rather scarce. The JET literature from the Japanese context has somewhat filled this research gap, but it has not fully addressed the professional growth of the participating teachers. Perhaps one exception is Gorsuch (2002), which investigated how a frequent contact with foreign teachers influenced local Japanese teachers’ perception of their English speaking ability and approval of communicative activities. However, this study did not look into Japanese teachers’
growth in great detail and in other realms (e.g., their experiential growth), nor did it
investigate foreign teachers’ perceptions and their growth (see the following section on team teaching for a more thorough discussion).
According to de Oliveira and Richardson (2004), the benefits from collaboration between native and non-native English-speaking teachers are rather unique. Since they were graduate students in a MA TESOL program in the U.S., de Oliveira (a non-native English-speaking teacher from Brazil) and Richardson (a native English-speaking teacher from the U.S.) had formed a close collaborative relationship, which extended well beyond their student life. Their collaboration mainly took the form of frequent informal meetings to discuss matters related to their learning and teaching. For de Oliveira, the single most important benefit from their collaboration was that Richardson was able to help her learn the “nuances of American English” (e.g., idioms, vocabulary, and pronunciation) and improve her sociolinguistic competence (e.g., how to respond appropriately to “What’s up?”) (p.
300). de Oliveira felt that having a trusted colleague assist her with the language made her grow into a more knowledgeable and confident teacher.
Likewise, Richardson also benefited from her collaboration with de Oliveira.
From her partner, Richardson was able to acquire an in-depth understanding of the
Brazilian culture and, in the process, gain “more insight into the cultural needs of
students studying in the U.S.” (2004, p. 301). Also, helping de Oliveira with the
English language made Richardson become aware that she probably needed to use
more language modification strategies (e.g., giving clear definitions) in her English
classes to assist her students with unfamiliar idioms and vocabulary. With regard
to this heightened awareness, these two authors wrote, “Even though the necessity of
defining unfamiliar vocabulary is mentioned in the ESL methods classes and
textbooks, it is only through the experience of working with a nonnative colleague
(who will question the meaning of unknown lexical items, unlike many ESL students)
that this awareness becomes internalized” (p. 302). For them, the true value of collaboration is greatly enhanced “when it involves a native speaker and a nonnative speaker” (p. 300).
de Oliveira and Richardson call for more research on collaborative relationships between native and nonnative English-speaking teachers. According to them, “Further research in this area would be of great value to the community of TESOL educators, as would further literature on the specific benefits of native and nonnative collaboration” (p. 304). As more non-native-English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) join the TESOL profession and more native speakers travel to EFL countries to teach English, collaboration between these two groups of teachers has become the norm in many parts of the world (e.g., the EPIK Program in South Korea, JET in Japan and Primary NET in Hong Kong; see Carless 2006a & 2006b; Lin, 2006). However, as aforementioned, we do not have sufficient understanding of such collaboration and its impacts on the individuals involved. The current study intends to continue this line of research by investigating the unique benefits of the collaboration between local and foreign teachers which takes the form of team teaching in the context of elementary school English classes in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
The Professional Development of Novice Teachers
One of the important issues for the current study is the socialization of English teachers who are novices in team teaching. Learning to teach is a complex process, and much literature on novice teachers has focused on examining teachers’
experience in their first year of teaching. The transition from a student in a teacher education program to a teacher in a classroom is often characterized by a feeling of
“reality shock” (Eldar et al., 2003; Farrell, 2003; Johnson, 1996; Numrich, 1996).
In fact, the first year for a beginning teacher has been described as a “sink-or-swim
experience” (Varah et al., 1986). While some manage to survive and even thrive,
others decide to quit the teaching profession for good after their first year.
According to Hulling-Austin (1990), about 30% of new teachers in the U.S. drop out of the profession during the first two years of their career; some of these teachers are identified as the most talented and capable among the new teaching force.
Likewise, Mor (1993, as cited in Eldar et al., 2003) reports an average dropout rate of 40% among novice teachers in Israel during the first three years of work.
Therefore, the experience during the first year of teaching has a strong impact on beginning teachers’ future careers.
Two major lines in the research on novice teachers are (a) the conceptual and practical difference between novice and expert teachers; and (b) the personal and contextual factors which influence novice teachers’ induction to the new environment. In the first research line, the consensus seems to be that expert teachers have a more elaborated knowledge base than novices; they are also more capable of integrating their knowledge into their daily teaching (Angell et al., 2005;
Meskill et al., 2002; Tsui, 2003). With regard to the second research focus, researchers have provided detailed documentation of new teachers’ journeys through their first year and the unique factors which influence their success or failure (Eldar et al., 2003; Farrell, 2003). As Sabar (2004) summarizes, “Novices are like immigrants trying to understand a strange culture whose rules are unclear.
Through trial and error, novices unravel the social puzzle within which they need to function” (p. 155). The literature also abounds with discussions on ways of assisting novice teachers in their socialization process (e.g., Goldstein, 2005; Green, 2006; Normore, 2005; Pitton, 2006; Street, 2004).
The current study intends to continue the second line of research by portraying
the journeys which English teachers who are novice to team teaching go through in
the elementary school English classes in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Following Sabar’s
metaphor (2004), these teachers are like immigrants to the new culture of team teaching. Unsure of the rules of the new culture, these teachers first need to adjust to the new organizational arrangement before they are able to grow and thrive.
This study will address these teachers’ growth in different aspects (e.g., growth of knowledge about their students and of attitude toward team teaching) and the personal and contextual factors which affect their growth (for a detailed review of the so-called “learning-to-teaching” literature, refer to Kagan, 1992).
Next, the discussion will focus on team teaching, including a general description of team teaching and a brief review of research conducted in Japan and Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Team Teaching
General Description of Team Teaching
As stated in the previous chapter, Richards and Farrell’s (2005) definition of team teaching is adopted in the current study—team teaching is seen as involving “a cycle of team planning, team teaching, and team follow-up” (p. 159). According to Bailey et al. (2001), the pre-instructional planning is an essential part of team teaching, as only a small part of team teaching actually takes place with team teachers working together in the classroom. The pre-instructional planning includes macro- (e.g., the planning of an entire curriculum or the syllabus for an entire semester) and micro-level (e.g., the planning of a specific lesson plan) of planning.
There are many ways to categorize team teaching, for example, according to
their organizational patterns (authority-directed, self-directed, or coordinated teams)
or the fields that are involved in team teaching (single-disciplinary, interdisciplinary,
school-within-a-school teams; refer to Buckley, 2000, for more details), or how the
members relate to each other and work together. Eisen (2000) adopts the metaphor
of the family system and identifies six types of team member relationships (see Table 1). According to this classification, the team teachers of the Hsinchu Program belong to the “blind date” category when they first practice team teaching together. Because these teachers do not form into teams by choice and they cannot choose who they want to work with, more challenges are placed on all the parties involved.
Table 1
Team Types Based On Member Relationships (reproduced from Eisen, 2000, p. 13)
Team Type Description
Committed marriage Team members select each other voluntarily and commit to working closely over time.
Extended family Individual teachers or separate teams exchange ideas and materials periodically, observe each other’s class, or commiserate.
Cohabitants Each team member does own thing with own class; classes come together for convenience (for example, to cover for an absent teacher, share guest speakers, or view videos jointly).
Blind date Strangers are matched by a third party, such as an administrator. This could lead to a committed marriage—or a one-night stand.
Joint custody Two instructors share one section. Teachers representing
distinct disciplines may be in class together, using a serial
presentation or debating format, or they may teach
alternating classes. Multidisciplinary partners, who agree
to share most or all class sessions, may develop a blended presentation format.
The village (or nontraditional family
The team is composed of learners and teachers who seek to foster a broad-based learning community.
The literature abounds with discussion on the benefits of team teaching.
Some of the oft-mentioned advantages of teaching with a partner are (a) combined expertise: the quality of scholarship and teaching is enhanced as different teachers’
strengths and perspectives are pooled together (Anderson & Speck, 1998; Buckley, 2000; Richards & Farrell, 2005); (b) collegiality: team teaching provides abundant opportunities for teachers to build a stronger professional and personal relationship with one another; this may boost the morale of teachers as they become less isolated (Buckley, 2000; Sandholtz, 2000); and (c) professional development opportunities:
team teaching becomes a convenient form of in-service training since it provides a
“ready-made classroom observation situation, but without any evaluative component” (Richards & Farrell 2005, p. 161). In language classrooms, learners also benefit from team teaching because they may hear two language models (i.e., two different accents depending on where the teachers come from) and experience two teaching styles (Bailey et al., 2001; Richards & Farrell, 2005). Moreover, team teaching allows for more individual interaction with a teacher.
In terms of teacher development, team teaching is also an especially effective
means to make teachers’ tacit knowledge explicit, allowing teachers to make
informed and well-calculated decisions for their daily teaching. When comparing
teaching alone and teaching with a colleague, Knezevic and Scholl (1996, p. 79)
note:
The need to synchronize teaching acts requires team teachers to negotiate and discuss their thoughts, values, and actions in ways that solo teachers do not encounter. The process of having to explain oneself and one’s ideas, so that another teacher can understand them and interact with them, forces team teachers to find words for thoughts which, had one been teaching alone, might have been realized solely through action.
In other words, because of the need to communicate one’s thoughts as clearly as possible to the other teacher, working in a team provides abundant opportunities for team teachers to express their ideas, which in turn help them to become more aware of their personal beliefs. As they become cognizant of their own beliefs, they can then begin to “question those beliefs in light of what they intellectually know and not simply what they intuitively feel” (Johnson, 1999, p. 39).
However, team teaching is not problem-free. When discussing it in the
context of pre-service teacher training activities, Wallace (1991) categorizes it as a
type of “shared professional action” (p. 91) in which teachers have to work together
to make teaching happen. Compared to other teacher training procedures such as
analyzing lessons on film, team teaching involves a higher risk and cost because
teachers need to work in realistic teaching contexts (p. 89). As Wallace (1991)
notes, the first risk/cost is to the clients, i.e., the students. He writes, “It is
obviously wasteful, and even harmful, for students to be taught by incompetent
teachers” (p. 89). The second risk or cost of using team teaching as a teacher
training procedure is to the trainee. Wallace comments, “The trauma of being
thrown unprepared into a full classroom situation is not calculated to ensure any
kind of rational professional development, and has probably on many occasions led
to the choice of another career!” (p. 89). Following the same vein, in-service
teachers will also do the same kind of harm to their students if team teaching is not
executed effectively in the classroom. The experience of being thrown into team teaching without adequate preparation can also be a traumatic experience for in-service teachers; perhaps the most detrimental aftermath is the decision to quit the teaching profession for good.
As mentioned earlier, one of the advantages of team teaching is the pooling of different perspectives. However, this can also be a disadvantage at times. In fact, as Schamber (1999) describes, team teaching can be a “double-edged sword”; she writes, “Diversity among team members is a major benefit in allowing multiple perspectives in dealing with students and other issues, but it can also be very problematic in daily decisions and practices of teaming—a double-edged sword” (p.
18). How to maintain the delicate (and sometimes fragile) balance between being an effective team member and retaining one’s individualism is an issue which many team teachers need to deal with on a daily basis.
Along the same vein, another major disadvantage of team teaching is incompatible teammates. As Buckley (2000) suggests, this is probably the most serious problem of team teaching, as some teachers have a rigid personality and others may be “wedded to a single method” (p. 13). Also, for team teaching to work, there is usually a higher demand on teachers’ time and energy; not every teacher is ready for such a heavy load. From students’ point of view, having two teachers present in the classroom may add unintended confusion (Buckley, 2000).
Such confusion is most likely to result when the teachers do not work cohesively or professionally as a team.
In the next section, four previous studies which focus on team teaching in the
Japanese context will be discussed, followed by a review of studies conducted in
Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Team-Teaching Studies in Japan
Studies conducted in Japan were chosen to be reviewed here because of the highly similar nature of team teaching in the Japanese and Hsinchu context—namely, in both EFL contexts, local English teachers have to collaborate with foreign English teachers to conduct English lessons; Carless (2006a) refers to this arrangement as
“intercultural team teaching.” As aforementioned, having teachers with different cultural background work together poses different challenges to team teaching when compared to other collaborative teaching assignments, such as two Americans teaching the Spanish language in the U.S. (e.g., Knezevic & Scholl, 1996) or ESL teachers collaborating with content teachers in different educational settings (e.g., Anstrom, 2002; Arkoudis, 2006; Creese, 2002 & 2006; Davison, 2006; Gardner, 2006).
The Japanese studies reviewed in this section address different aspects of the well-known Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. Since its inauguration in 1987, the JET Program has been a much discussed subject both in Japan and around the world (e.g., Lai, 1999), and a sizeable amount of literature has accumulated to guide those involved in team teaching. With an annual budget of around 400 million US dollars in 2002 (Butler, 2004) and recruitment of about 6,000 foreign teachers every year (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, Japan, 2006), the JET is an ambitious project aiming to “internationalize Japanese students” and build the English language skills of both students and the local teachers (Crooks, 2001). The recruited foreign teachers, referred to as Assistant English Teachers (AETs) or Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs), 9 are usually
9
The JET Program offers three types of positions. The most well-known is the ALTs, who are
usually placed in public schools to teach foreign languages, including English, French, German,
Chinese, Korean, and Russian. More than 90% of the positions offered by the program are of this job
type, and 90% of the ALTs teach English. The second job type is the Coordinators for International
Relations (CIRs); these people usually work in local authorities in Japan and help with different
placed in public schools around Japan to co-teach with local English teachers (known as the Japanese Teachers of English, or JTEs). The AETs are expected to provide students with native speaker input. Also, required by the national curriculum guidelines (i.e., the Course of Study) reviewed and issued by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (known in Japan as the Monbusho) every few years (Honna & Takeshita, 2005; Koike, 2001), they also need to help JTEs to move from the grammar-translation approaches to a more communication-oriented methodology of teaching English (Crooks, 2001; Sasaki, 2006).
The first Japanese study focuses on JTEs and AETs’ perceptions of the roles played by the two groups of teachers in team teaching (Mahoney, 2004). This study was part of a nation-wide survey on team teaching which involved more than 1,400 JTEs and AETs working at junior and senior high schools in Japan. The data for Mahoney’s study came from the participating JTEs and AETs’ answers to an open-ended question which stated “JTEs and ALT/AETs are supposed to play different roles in team teaching. Please describe briefly your perception of these roles in the space below” (p. 226). Mahoney identified some gaps between the two parties’ perception of the roles they expected themselves and the other to play. For example, while 50% of the AETs stated that their main role was to act as language models for their students, the JTEs most often perceived their AET partners as models of “authentic English culture” (p. 234).
Some discrepancies also existed among AETs working at the two school levels (junior and senior high schools) in their perceptions of JTE roles. At the junior
internationalization activities (such as assisting in planning and implementing international exchange
programs). The third job type is the Sports Exchange Advisors (SEAs); these people are involved in
internationalization activities through the instruction of sports. Refer to the official website of the JET
program (Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, Japan, 2006) for more information.
high school level, 26% of AETs felt that the most important role played by their Japanese partners was to maintain discipline. On the contrary, 28% of senior high school AETs stated that the major responsibility for JTEs was to provide translation.
In the conclusion, Mahoney suggests that the findings of his study should provide valuable information on how AETs should be employed and how to help reduce stress and unnecessary conflicts caused by unfulfilled expectations on all parties.
To solve role controversy among team teachers and many other problems in the JET Program, Crooks (2001) calls for more professional development opportunities for the JTEs and AETs. According to Crooks (2001), only “a minimum of preparation” for both JTEs and AETs are in place (p. 32), and many team teachers have expressed the same frustration and concerns about team teaching and their partners as was the case when the JET Program first started in the late 1980s. The national exam system and textbooks used in Japan are also found to be incongruent with the Monbusho’s aim to develop students’ oral communication skills in English.
As Crooks comments (2001), the Monbusho “seems to be sending mixed messages to JTEs and AETs,” and “an overall policy to link the stated aims and the practical aspects of teaching is not yet in place” (p. 37; also see Hiramatsu, 2005).
Working as the Chief Advisor for the Sendai Board of Education, 10 Crooks (2001) also provides a detailed description of Sendai City’s in-service training system for JTEs and AETs. According to his observation, many AETs in Sendai City enjoy participating in seminars and conferences, and on these occasions, they often enthusiastically discuss issues “in a manner akin to that in Western higher education classrooms” (p. 41). On the contrary, JTEs seem to have more
10
Sendai is the capital of Japan’s northern Tohoku region. According to Crooks (2001), the city has
“an exceptionally proactive attitude towards the JET Program and English education within its
schools” (p. 38).
reservation about participating in the same events. In fact, many sessions are attended by less than 10 JTEs (the total number of JTEs in the district is about 260).
There are many causes of such low attendance, including lack of time to attend the seminars due to heavy workload, negative attitude of senior teachers and administrators toward JTEs’ professional development, and negative experience from previous training sessions. JTEs may also become reluctant to participate in seminars because of their concerns about their level of English proficiency. Many JTEs teaching in Sendai City have commented that they have difficulty with following the English presentations given by AETs and with taking part in English discussions in the seminars.
In conclusion, Crooks (2001) calls for more support and encouragement for in-service training for all the team teachers in Japan to optimize the effectiveness of the JET Program. One key of achieving this seems to lie in upgrading JTEs’
English skills. Crooks (2001) explains, “Not only would improved English language skills give JTEs greater access to and understanding of English teaching materials and resources, but this development would also promote the professional and personal relationships that the JTEs have with their AETs” (p. 42). Crooks’
detailed documentation of the JET Program of Sendai City certainly has much relevance to other similar team-teaching programs worldwide.
Unlike the two previous studies, Gorsuch’s research (2002) focuses solely on
JTEs and their responses to team teaching with ALTs. Gorsuch explains that
although JTEs are the major stakeholders in the JET Program, the potential effects
of ALTs on JTEs have not been fully explored. Two of the research questions are
of special interest here: (a) Do JTEs’ self-reports of English speaking ability differ
according to their level of contact with ALTs in English I and II classes? 11 ; and (b) Do JTEs’ level of approval of communicative, audiolingual, and yakudoku (a traditional Japanese grammar-translation method) activities differ according to the level of contact with ALTs in English I and II classes? (Gorsuch, 2002). Like Mahoney’s study (2004) discussed earlier, Gorsuch also developed a questionnaire, which was then completed by 884 high school JTEs from nine prefectures in Japan.
With regard to JTEs’ self-ratings of their English speaking ability, Gorsuch (2002) found that teachers who reported teaching with ALTs at least once a week (about 20% of the 884 teachers surveyed) gave themselves a higher rating of their English ability. Also, these teachers had a higher approval of a communicative information gap activity compared to the JTEs with less or no ALT contact. 12 In other words, the JTEs with high ALT contact were experiencing positive changes in their professional abilities in at least two aspects: (a) their ability (and probably confidence) to communicate in English; and (b) the approval of communicative activities, suggesting that these teachers might be more willing to diversify their instructional practice by trying more communicative activities. Gorsuch (2002) writes, “I believe that ALTs are indeed changing the way English is taught in Japan, and that they are changing it for the good” (p. 24).
With a focus on Japanese public elementary schools, the fourth study under review here (Aline & Hosoda, 2006) represents a unique voice in the literature of team teaching in Japan. Unlike its two neighboring countries—Taiwan and South Korea—which have officially extended English education to elementary schools,
11
According to Gorsuch (2002), English I and English II are the two required four-skills English courses for high school students in Japan.
12
