Changing Methodologies in TESOL: The Author Interviews the Author
Jane Spiro, UK
Jane Spiro is Reader in Education and TESOL and runs an MA in TESOL at Oxford Brookes University, UK. She has written Creative Poetry Writing and Storybuilding with Oxford University Press, and Changing Methodologies in TESOL (Edinburgh University Press). Her interests include creative approaches to language teaching and teacher development. She also writes poetry and fiction. E-mail: jspiro@brookes.ac.uk
Changing Methodologies in TESOL
Jane Spiro
May 2013
Edition: 1
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9780748646197
Price: £19.99
www.euppublishing.com/action/doSearch?AllField=Jane+Spiro&x=0&y=0
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Q 1 There are many books in the field about methodology. How is this one different?
Q 2 How do you manage to bring together these different elements – up-to-date understandings and teacher stories?
Q 3 Since you are committed specifically to creativity in language education, it has been suggested you should have spent more time focusing on this in your book. Literature and creative writing are only mentioned briefly in the book.
Q 4 Can you give a specific example of an activity in the book which you think develops creative approaches to learning and teaching?
Q 5 Some teachers may feel that research and theory have nothing to do with them. How do you make research and theory interesting and relevant to teachers?
Q 6 There is an online resource in the book. Why is this there, and how do you envisage it being used?
Q 7 Are you using the book yourself with students and if so, how is it working?
Q 8 Who do you think would find this book useful and why?
References
There are two distinctive aspects to the book. The first is the focus on 21st century understandings about language and language learning, and what these mean for teachers: for example corpus linguistics, language globalisation and ‘glocalisation’, digital technologies and social networking. How have all these changed our ideas of methods and methodologies? I address this question in practical, meaningful ways that are generative too so readers can find answers for themselves. The second distinctive feature of the book is that it starts with teachers themselves, so each chapter includes case studies from all over the world. The book asks: what do these teacher stories tell us about methods that do and do not work? I take the view that a historical, chronological, or prescriptive analysis of methods simply is not meaningful or practical for a teacher. For them, the important thing is: what actually works – for learners in their learning context, for teachers according to their own criteria for effective teaching?
Each chapter includes case studies from teachers themselves: for example, critical incidents about moments that have and have not worked in teaching settings, or scenarios which have proved challenging for teachers. These are taken from 27 different countries, and include both examples already in the public domain, and others which come from my own data or those of my book contributors John Eyles, Liam Murray and Paul Wickens. In addition each chapter introduces research studies and examples from the teaching world, with practical activities that invite readers to try out ideas for themselves, ask the same questions as researchers and consider how these apply to their own setting. It suggests there is no hierarchy between teachers, materials writers and researchers. On the contrary, it is essential that teachers consider themselves to be all three, teachers, materials writers, researchers of language learning and teaching, for us to move forward as a profession.
My perspective is that the whole book advocates creativity both in the teacher and in the learner. It encourages a ‘noticing’ approach to language, in which both teacher and learner are constantly researching new language and responding to it experimentally and creatively. So I don’t see ‘creative approaches’ as an add-on that needs a separate section, but absolutely as an integral part of what a teacher needs to be and develop. Nor do I see it specifically as attaching to creative writing and literature. For me, a ‘creative’ approach means both learners and teachers are looking beyond rules and prescriptions and asking the question of all new learning: What does it specifically mean to me? How can I draw on this new learning (new word, new skill, new resource, new activity) to share meanings and make messages of my own?
Yes, for example the section on reading skills uses as an example a text from a Hungarian short story writer Istvan Orkeny, who wrote ‘one minute stories’ during the Communist/Soviet era in Hungary. These were ‘coded’ stories about life under the Communists, but on the surface appear to be very clear text types, such as recipes, instructions or classified ads. This text is used to illustrate that generic features alone do not lead us to deeper meanings, and that we deploy both surface and deeper level skills as readers. It suggests ways that a teacher’s questioning can lead readers from one level to the other. But at the same time, it opens up the opportunity for creative ‘reinvention’, as readers themselves can construct and subvert ‘found’ texts such as these to convey deeper meanings.
Within each topic I identify questions which make a difference for teachers, invite teachers to find their own answers and show how researchers have looked for answers. These are very practical questions such as: What should I do when students ask me the meaning of an unknown word? Does error feedback help student writers? What should teachers know about pronunciation? The chapters aim to show that we never finish answering these questions: that there are many answers as we keep learning from one another as teachers, learners, and researchers. In a way, I am suggesting that readers join in the conversation, rather than offering them ‘research and theory’ as finished thoughts, or as questions which can only be answered by other people in large-scale scientific ways.
As I was writing the book, linking teacher stories with the research, involving readers in activities, introducing them to key readings to ‘answer’ for themselves, it became a very big manuscript. Yet we didn’t want this to be a daunting tome that might be difficult to carry about, let alone navigate as a reader. So then I had the idea of placing in a separate resource, support reading and follow-up activities, This would have several advantages. It would be both a free, and a free-standing resource so readers can have a ‘taster’ of the book. It would also give the reader of the book a second ‘wave’ so you could read it at one level, and then go back to it again and follow up more deeply at a second level. Thirdly, it meant online links to talks, real lessons, websites, videoclips, could be gathered together in one place for easy and immediate access. As you read this, do go and explore the online link on
www.euppublishing.com/page/TESOL/AdditionalResources/Spiro
Yes, I use the 10 chapters of the book to structure 10 sessions on my MA and BA programmes in language teaching. We do the activities in the chapters together in class, and I give students some of the grids and thinking charts in the chapters partially completed, and in groups they add to these from their own lives, insights and readings. Then we use the online readings as follow-up, and I open online discussions for students to develop their thoughts about these. A recent very successful session looked at the 3 tables in Chapter 9 related to three different approaches to culture, contrastive, ethnographic and ‘transmissable facts’. Students developed charts based on their own cultures in each group, thought about the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, chose one and developed a short teaching activity which they trialled with one another. Then we followed up with the online resource for homework which included two case studies of English teaching in the Congo and the Cameroons. The session went really well. Having said this, the book is actually a honed version of materials I have developed over 10 years running this TESOL programme, so all the sessions and every activity is tried and tested by multiple cohorts of very discerning teachers!
I would recommend it to students and teachers on teacher development courses such as diplomas, CELTAs, MA in TESOL. The 10 chapters cover key areas teachers need in methodology programmes: for example, understanding the learner and learner contexts, understanding the language, teaching vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation. I think it would also be a useful book for an experienced teacher who wanted to refresh their approach to teaching, as it brings into the picture more recent thinking and throws a new and fresh light on familiar questions. Finally, I think it could be a user-friendly introduction for people who want to know more about the teaching profession as I have taken care not to make assumptions about what the reader knows, but to be clear, interesting and relevant. Overall, in every chapter, section, and paragraph, I was asking myself: why should this matter to a teacher? What is there in this idea that can make a difference to them?
Orkeny, I. (1998) (trans. Sollosy, J.) One Minute Stories, Budapest, Corvina
Spiro, J., (2013) Changing Methodologies, Edinburgh University Press
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the How to be a Teacher Trainer course at Pilgrims website.
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