ARTICLE REVIEW

The article entitled Making Sense of Language Teaching: Teachers Principles and

Classroom Practices was written by Michael P. Breen from University of Stirling; Bernard

Hird, Marion Milton, Rhonda Oliver and Anne Thwaite from Edith Cowan University,

Australia. This article was added in Applied Linguistics Volume 22/4 in 2001, consisting of

page 470 501 and was published by Oxford University Press 2001.

Introduction

The article was to examine how a group of teachers in Australia visualize their teaching

principles in their classroom. The study was set to investigate the existing relationship

between teachers thinking and actions in a particular teaching situation. An interesting

approach in this study compared to other studies was that the observation of experienced

teachers response to classroom behaviour whereas other previous study involved reflections

on recalled or idealized practices.

This article is written for educators as reference on how certain habitual actions being carried

out by experienced teachers in certain classroom situations. However, the authors went

beyond the definition of beliefs and principles of certain educators whereby the initial beliefs

or principles of an educator might be altered through a period of becoming teachers. The

journal from Munby (1982) and Clark and Peterson (1986) proved that teachers principles

will change with the increasing of experience.

Another question that must be looked upon is how many years of experience should be

enough? The experience teachers might get influence from other experience teachers and

react to the situation subliminally. The response might not be genuine and rehearsed over

time. Calderhead (1988) suggested that principles are implicit and it could emerge from trial

and error practices.

I believe that the article was conceptual as the lacking of empirical evidences to support such

stance. The authors made assumptions through logic where teachers are most likely to think

about their work through spontaneous reflection upon more immediate context. For elements

as implicit as those being studied, empirical evidences should support the adopted theory as

the trial and error practices as quoted by Calderhead (1988) might influence the whole

process.

Brief Summary of the Article

The article was written in accordance to explore the reaction of teachers in situated

interactive classroom occurrence. The researchers tried to relate teachers actions or practices

in a classroom practice with their principles in which the principles are expected to guide the

teachers actions. The researchers are keen on identifying the specific pattern used to link the

teachers action and thinking based upon the situated classroom practice.
Results

The 18 teachers observed has infused various degrees of conceptualization which can be

adopted into five broad categories; learners learning process, learners attributes,

optimization of human and classroom materials, subject matter, and teachers contributions. A

profile comparison between teachers had shown some discrepancies despite some similar

principles.

In terms of common practice, teachers tend to place high value on group dynamics in the

classroom. On the contrary, the common practice of explicit teacher modelling and

explanation were mostly different among the 18 teachers. However, the researchers have

concluded that despite the individual differences between teachers, the teachers practices

might be similar under the same principle.

Contributions

The initial aim of this research is to describe and interpret the teachers action apart from

summarizing the result of the study based upon the researchers observation and

interpretations. In my opinion, a lot of contributions can be defined by the actions of the

teachers as some actions cannot be falsified because the situations were not created under any

control by the researchers.

Researchers would be able to construct a study based upon what really happened and not on

theoretical-based interpretation. Although the researchers were able to cross-refer to their

notes, the actual action portrayed by the teachers under specific situation can become a

foundation of the researchers interpretation. Hence, the teachers commentary, field notes

and observation by the researchers will provide rich data for a more accurate interpretation.

Foundation

Upon Garfinkle (1967) research, this study focused on identifying a work-related attitude

among teachers with their teaching situations. Through this, the study wished to explore the

habitus of practitioners in a specific social field. As Bourdieu (1990, 1991) quoted whether

such habitus can be infused through specific or variety of teaching practices. Although it

varies between the educationists, habitus of practitioners can be studied and interpret

individually.

On the contrary, the researchers selected teachers from a varying time of service. Compared

to other researches being carried out before by Garfinkle (1967) and Bourdieu (1990, 1991), a

difference in years of experience teaching will result in different habitus of teachers to certain

situation. However, since that the principles of teachers are commonly similar, the years of

teaching experience did not provide any significant diversification.

General Critique

In general, the study managed to uncover the complex relationship between thinking and

action in teachers work. Although the study needs to make a closer approach to the

participants, the relationship only occurs among experienced teachers compared to less

experience teachers. Hence, the researchers were able to make recommendation of how these

actions will affect the curriculum innovation and teachers education.

On the contrary, the researchers need to put in mind that years of teaching create the teachers

of whom they are. In other words, in the next ten to fifteen years; the action of the same

teachers will be adjusted as their experience grows resulting in a change in the implications

for curriculum innovation and teachers education as well. So, it is best if the researchers

were able to make a comparison-contrast analysis between less experience teachers and

experienced teachers data collection of the findings.

The second view of this study should bear in mind that the teachers principles and actions

towards classroom engagement will change in due time. According to Munby (1982), with

the increasing experience among teachers, teachers will be able to commit spontaneous

actions upon more immediate context. Therefore, it reveals the action comes from trial and

error practices and not specifically from guided principles which the teachers uphold.
Rachal (2002) quoted that teaching a child is considered as pedagogy whereas teaching an

adult is andragogy. Andragogy teaching poses different motivation whereby learning is

voluntary and the level of motivation is higher compared in vice versa for pedagogy. This fact

again proves that the action and principles by teachers in both area of teaching will definitely

be different. So, it would be inaccurate if the researchers are to group both types of teachers

in one sample study.

The whole 5 weeks of data collection was ample for the researchers to meet the objectives of

the study. The first observation and interview conducted where the teachers offer their

reasons for each action taken might disturb the flow of the lesson. On the contrary, during the

second interview where teachers recapitulate their actions and reasons was original although

adapted from Munby (1984) , Russell and Munby (1991), Cronin-Jones and Shaw (1992) and

Day (1996) and the grid prepared was able to match the actions and reasons perfectly.

On the contrary, critical incidents that happened during classroom sessions need to be paid

particular attention. This is because; teachers will not be able to falsify their act as

unplanned incidents are considered as original as quoted by Calderhead (1988). The

researchers were supposed to collect more data regarding critical incidents because it would

confirm the teachers underlying principles wealthily.

The usage of video-recording approach during the second observation and third interview has

its own drawbacks whereby students and even the teachers would be acting instead of being

natural during classroom lessons. However, the recording can be viewed and re-viewed for

a number of times and the teachers would be able to recall their actions and reasons more

finitely. On the contrary, the participants were also able to re-emphasize their principles based

upon the data collected as in Kates case.

During the analysis stage, each participant was analysed individually. Later, their profiles

were compared to identify the matching relationship between each teacher. Although some

possible relationships between teachers were linked in terms of shared principles and

particular classroom practices, the habitus practice between andragogy teachers and

pedagogy teachers should not be placed in the same set.

Issues

The first issue would be that the approaches of andragogy-based teachers are not the same as

pedagogic-based teachers. I believe this issue is important because in the case of Ngaire, she

is still confused whether to use to make the lesson in a formal aspect or informal aspects.

Ngaire consulted other colleagues which again re-draw her initial principles of teaching. The

focus now is to find an efficient way which altered her teaching principles. In order to resolve

this issue, I suggest that the researchers focus only on one level of teaching with participants

of years of teaching differences and not the different level of teaching as well.
The second issue here would be data collection through observation whereby the researchers

were in the classroom together with the learners and the teacher. I believe this issue is

important because the teacher and learners will have all the opportunity to act their way

throughout the lesson thus making the data analysis to be inaccurate. The researchers did

observed more than 200 classroom sessions over the 5-week period providing them rich data

to make appropriate conclusion of the study. I would suggest the learners and teachers to be

more natural despite acting their way of planned classroom lessons.

The last issue at hand would be to group the participants according to what level and who

they teach. I believe it is important because although the participants shared the same

principles and career, that does not qualify them to be placed in the same category. The

researchers had identified 63 practices consisting of eight patterns which concluded that some

principles overlapped each other but different actions taken for each principle.

Conclusion

Theoretically, each educator who had the same training would start their career in teaching

based upon the same principles. However, those principles will be altered in time due the

different surroundings each educator ventured into. Each educator is unique in their own way

of taking actions and sometimes the actions denied the principles which the teachers withheld

for a long period of time. The researcher might only look for similarities but the differences

are the things that make teaching so lively.

References

Clark, C. and P. Peterson. (1986). Teachers thought processes in M. Whitrock (ed.):

Handbook of Research on Teaching 3rd edition. New York: Macmillan.

Day, R. (1996). Case studies of preservice secondary mathematics teachers belief: Emerging
and evolving themes. Mathematics Education Research Journal 8/1: 5-22

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

MUnby, H. (1982). The place of teachers belief in research on teacher thinking and decision
making, an alternative methodology. Instructional Science 11: 201-25.

Rachal J. R. (2002). Andragogys detectives: A critique of the present and proposal for the
future. Adult Education Quarterly, 52(3), 210-27. Extracted online from
www.insightjournal.net/.../Andragogy%20and%20Pedagogy%20as%20F...