Mentor Development in the Education of Modern Language Teachers (Modern Language in Practice)

MODERN LANGUAGES IN PRACTICE 18 Series Editor: Michael Grenfell

Mentor Development in the Education of Modern Language Teachers Carol Gray and Partners in The University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD Clevedon • Buffalo • Toronto • Sydney

For Dad for all he did for Mum, and with thanks to Rob for his assiduous proofreading

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gray, Carol Mentor Development in the Education of Modern Language Teachers/Carol Gray and partners in The University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership. Modern Languages in Practice 18. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Language teachers–Training of. 2. Mentoring in Education. I. University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership. II. Title. III. Series. P53.85.G73 2001 410’.71–dc21 2001031575 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1-85359-552-7 (hbk) ISBN 1-85359-551-9 (pbk) Multilingual Matters Ltd UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH. USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA. Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada. Australia: Footprint Books, PO Box 418, Church Point, NSW 2103, Australia. Copyright © 2001 Carol Gray and Partners in The University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. Typeset by Florence Production Ltd. Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press Ltd.

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Contents

Glossary of Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Introduction: Or Why Another Book on Mentoring? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Part 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4

1: The Context A Local and National Context with International Implications What Makes a Good Language Teacher? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learning to be a Language Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Intuitively Theoretical Mentor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part 2: Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Mentoring Introduction to Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 2.1 Keeping Pace with Development Through the Weekly Meetings . . . . . . 71 2.2 Providing Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 2.3 Towards Departmental Consistency of Good Practice in Observing Student Teacher Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 2.4 Focusing on the Learner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 2.5 Good Teachers Can Wear Turquoise Socks or When Good Mentoring is Simply Not Enough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Part 3: Mentors in Action Introduction to Part 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Reassuring the Student Teacher That Everyone Difficulties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Being There . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Reflective Practice and Collaboration . . . . . . . 3.4 Probing Theories in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 A Tutor in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part 4: Towards a Better Future? 4.1 Towards a Better Future? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 iii

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Glossary of Abbreviations

ACCAC A Level AT

CATE

DES DfE DfEE

FLA GCSE HE HEI ICT/IT ITE ITT KS3 KS4 NC

Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales Advanced Level (post-16 qualification, usually taken at the age of 18) Attainment Target (aims and assessment criteria for the National Curriculum, consisting for Modern Foreign Languages of four ATs: Listening and Responding, Speaking, Reading and Responding, and Writing. Each AT provides a series of Level Descriptors outlining expected achievement by pupils at the different stages of linguistic development) Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (forerunner to the Teacher Training Agency, established by the Department for Education and Science in 1983 to take over control of teacher education from Higher Education Institutions) Department for Education and Science, government ministry, forerunner of the DfE and then the DfEE Department for Education (successor to the DES) Department for Education and Employment (successor to the DfE, and, since 2001, re-organised as the Department for Education and Skills) Foreign Language Assistant General Certificate in Secondary Education (16+ qualification, offered in two ‘tiers’, Foundation and Higher) Higher Education Higher Education Institution Information and Communications Technology, formerly Information Technology Initial Teacher Education Initial Teacher Training Key Stage 3 (years 7, 8 and 9, i.e. pupils from the age of 11 to 14) Key Stage 4 (years 10 and 11, i.e. pupils from the age of 14 to 16, usually studying for GCSEs) National Curriculum for England and Wales (established in 1992 but v

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Glossary of Abbreviations

undergoing frequent reform; England and Wales have separate versions since the establishment of the National Assembly for Wales in 2000) NQT Newly Qualified Teacher (teacher in their first year of post-training employment and entitled to induction support) OFSTED Office for Standards in Education (inspection team responsible for monitoring quality in schools and teacher training institutions) PCM Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring (course of higher degree level study offered to partnership mentors to accredit and extend their initial training and ongoing work as teacher educators) POS Programme of Study (component of the National Curriculum which defines what must and should be taught in schools in England and Wales) PGCE Postgraduate Certificate in Education (normally refers to the one year post-degree teacher training course offered by a Higher Education Institution/School Partnership and leading to the Higher Education Postgraduate Certificate plus recommendation for award by the DfEE of Qualified Teacher Status. For student teachers in England, the award of QTS is subject in addition to successful completion of the Skills Tests in Numeracy, Literacy and from 2001 ICT) QCA Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (oversees public examinations and examination syllabuses in England) QTS Qualified Teacher Status (awarded by the Department for Education and Employment upon successful completion of an appropriate course of training and of the Skills Tests in Numeracy, Literacy and from 2001 ICT) SCITT School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (a school or consortium of schools given approval by the Department for Education and Employment to provide an Initial Teacher Training course without Higher Education input – normally leading to recommendation for Qualified Teacher Status though not necessarily to a Postgraduate Certificate in Education) SEN Special Educational Needs SOW Scheme of Work TL Target Language TTA Teacher Training Agency (established 1994 to take over from the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education to oversee teacher training)

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Introduction: or Why Another Book on Mentoring

Summary of a Personal Journey So much has been written throughout the world in recent years about schoolbased teacher education, and in particular about mentoring, that it often seems there is nothing left to say. Furlong and Maynard (1995: 55) describe research and writing on the role of the mentor in Britain, for example, as a ‘boom’ industry. It is impossible even for a university-based tutor whose contractual duties include reading and research to keep up with everything that has been and is being written; what hope is there for the school-based mentor? Relevant publications range from practical handbooks such as those by Hagger et al. (1995), Stephens (1996), Bleach (1999b) and Fletcher (2000) to more in-depth investigations into and discussions of the processes involved in learning how to teach (e.g. Arthur et al., 1997; Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997; Fish, 1995a & b; Tomlinson, 1995) as well as debates about the most appropriate models of teacher education (e.g. Furlong & Smith, 1996; Roth, 1999b). In addition there have been moves to ground the professional development of mentors at secondary school level in a subject-specific context. For modern linguists the early transition to partnership between schools and higher education institutions in Britain was supported by the timely publications of Thorogood (1993) and Fletcher and Calvert (1994). Further useful volumes for mentors wishing to gain greater insight into language teacher education range from the earlier works of Richards and Nunan (1990) and Wallace (1991) to more recent publications by Freeman and Richards (1996), Roberts (1998) and Grenfell (1998). Of these, Grenfell’s (1998) account of the development of language student teachers is particularly enlightening, and Roberts’ (1998) volume on language teacher education provides some useful insights for ‘trainers’ working with both pre-service and experienced teachers anywhere in the world. A developing source of useful practical information and suggestions for language mentors is the website of the European-funded Mendeval project, to be found at: http://www4.open.ac.uk/Mendeval Why then another book for language mentors? And why written by a university tutor who cannot claim, like Stephens (1996: 2) that ‘being a teacher and mentor myself, I know and understand the world in which you work’ or to be writing a 1

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Introduction

‘ “hands on, can do” handbook’. I shall try to answer the second question first. Unlike our school-based colleagues, the posts and reputations of university and college tutors like myself in England in particular depend upon the provision of good quality mentoring for student teachers in schools. People who join partnership courses to learn modern foreign languages teaching spend two-thirds of their course in local schools under the guidance of school-based educators; nevertheless the higher education employees are the ones who are held responsible for the quality of support and training provided in those schools. If my colleagues and I fail to convince Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) inspectors that we are fulfilling government requirements and improving the quality of teaching, it is not the partner schools who are ‘named and shamed’ but the higher education institution. If recruitment falls or target numbers are reduced due to poor inspection outcomes, it is not teachers’ jobs which are at risk, but those of the people who have invested their careers in teacher education. Higher education tutors in England therefore have a very deep personal as well as professional interest in understanding and improving school-based mentoring for the student teachers whom they recruit. Many of those tutors were also, like me, recruited directly from school and appointed on the basis of their teaching references. Having worked in a variety of different types of school environment I arrived at the School of Education in 1993 on a one year part-time contract; it was time to do something new, to reinvigorate my enthusiasm for teaching which was beginning to wane under the pressure of everyday routine. Temporary part-time somehow became a new career, enjoyable dabbling became a serious business and new challenges replaced the old. The main challenge was that of developing a new identity as a teacher educator rather than a classroom practitioner. It was a much harder transition than I had expected. Allied to that challenge was another, the challenge of developing a partnership with local schools based on the concept of mentoring. A vital part of my role as tutor on the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course was to liaise with and support those modern language teachers who had, willingly or not, taken up the mantle of teacher educator, and who looked to myself and my colleagues for guidance in carrying out their role. Enabling them to be good mentors would, in fact, be the key to maintaining and improving the quality of our course. This supplies the answer to the first question: why another book on mentoring? The years since my appointment represent a period of extensive work by all involved in partnership at the University of Birmingham and its Partner Schools to develop our understandings of the role of the mentor with a view to improving the quality of education offered to our student teachers. This book is a collection of personal theories specific to language teacher mentoring developed as a result of that work. It brings together understandings gleaned from research undertaken by the initial teacher education team at The University of Birmingham; from my own personal work with language mentors and student teachers; from my involvement in the generic Initial Mentor Workshops and Postgraduate Certificate in 2

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Mentoring (PCM) offered within the School of Education; and from work carried out by language teacher-mentors themselves to achieve the latter qualification. It offers no ‘quick fixes’ or ‘definitive answers’ – because we believe there is no such thing in education. What it does offer are a few snapshots representing years of hard work by a collection of individuals all with the same aim: to develop their own in-depth understandings of teacher education, and of school-based language teacher education in particular so that they can carry out their respective roles with greater insight and sense of purpose. Although the contents of this volume represent a case study of mentoring in a British, and indeed specifically localised English setting, the experiences described here and the principles which emerge have implications far beyond the local and national context. It is hoped, therefore, that our anecdotes and deliberations may help colleagues working within a wide range of systems and cultures internationally to reflect upon their own personal journey in becoming better informed and thus more effective teacher educators. Each chapter is followed by a series of focused questions under the heading Thinking About Your Own Practice, in order to assist that process of reflection.

What You are About to Read It is extremely difficult to represent the depth and scope of so many years of work by so many individuals in a single book, to attempt to give it meaningful shape and to ‘tell a story’ as well as taking into account the many different contexts within which mentors work. What follows has been divided into five distinct sections to provide a framework for busy teachers to decide what might interest them most. Part 1 provides a context for the mentor’s work. As language teachers we are constantly aware of the world beyond our own boundaries, and Chapter 1.1 looks beyond the confines of the specific local and national context of the work described here to acknowledge international interest and implications. It also attempts to define the local context so that readers can make clearer comparisons with their own situation and assess the transferability of ideas and suggestions. Since it is impossible to teach effectively without goals and at least some informed concept of how the learner might achieve those goals, Chapter 1.2 discusses what we as educators of language teachers are trying to achieve, while Chapter 1.3 suggests parallels between the role and understandings of the language teacher and those of the teacher–mentor. Chapter 1.4 discusses the implications of those chapters for the role of the school-based mentor. In Part 2 school-based mentors describe stages in their own development as teacher educators. Much of the work included in this section was originally presented by the authors in the form of assignments for the Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring. Teachers begin this course with varying degrees of experience in mentoring. It might be useful and perhaps encouraging for readers to see how others had developed their understandings from different starting points; in particular what 3

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Introduction

evidence they had investigated, what they had read and what interim conclusions they had drawn about their work. I am extremely grateful to the mentors concerned for permission to include their work in this collection, and even more so for their commitment to developing their own skills as teacher educators. All of them have continued to push at the boundaries of their understandings and as such present an excellent professional role model for the student teachers with whom they work. Part 3 moves into another area of practical work. Whereas Part 2 gave voice to practitioners themselves and the development of their understandings, Part 3 takes snapshots of practitioners’ ideas in practice, analysing several series of meetings between individual mentors and their student teachers to look at the style and content of mentoring. Some of the data used as a basis in this section was collected during a research project undertaken by a cross-curricular team of initial teacher educators at The University of Birmingham during the period 1994–1997; the material collected was later supplemented by further subject-specific work. The original research team was led by Anne Williams, with subject specific input from Graham Butt, Sue Butterfield, Sue Leach, Allan Soares and myself and with Alan Marr as Research Fellow collecting evidence. Various publications emerged from the project and might provide interesting reading for those concerned with developing their mentoring skills (for example, Williams et al., 1997; Soares et al., 1997; Williams et al., 1998; Gray et al., 1998). In the interests of research ethics the participants cannot be identified nor their schools described, but their willingness to be involved in various stages of the work is much appreciated. As in Part 2, examples have been selected to illustrate various stages of mentor development, and although constructive suggestions are made about possibilities for improvement these in no way constitute a criticism of the mentors involved. Their very willingness to take part in the work illustrates their committed and professional approach to their work with student teachers and their desire to do their best. Each one of them has continued to move on and to develop their work. Part 4 reflects upon the work which has been described and looks to a vision of the future. It presents no more than a personal interpretation of the evidence collected so far along this journey of exploration, but as such it might appeal to other individuals engaged in a similar process, or even prompt them by its naivety into a public revelation of their own understandings. What is important is to continue the debate about what makes a good language teacher and a good language teacher educator, and about what processes we need to develop and what mountains we need to move to maximise the potential of both. I hope that this book may have contributed in some small way to that debate.

Terminology One of the difficulties of talking about teacher education is the confusing variety of terms used to describe the different people involved in the process. Those learning to teach are variously referred to as ‘trainees’, ‘interns’, ‘associates’, ‘associate 4

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teachers’, ‘trainee teachers’, ‘novice teachers’, ‘beginning teachers’ or ‘student teachers’. ‘Mentors’ and ‘tutors’ abound in the literature and in discussion circles, along with the prefixes of ‘subject’, ‘professional’ or ‘senior’. There is great diversity in the organisational set-up of partnership and school-centred systems of teacher training, not only between countries but also within. At a recent international conference, ‘Mentoring in Modern Languages’, run by the Mendeval group mentioned above and hosted by the University of Oxford (30 March to 1 April 2000) it became evident that there was almost as much variety within the UK system and even specifically within the English system as there was across Europe. Literature tracing recent developments in teacher education highlights the emergence of a whole new language, particularly centred on the change from ‘education’ to ‘training’ (see for example, Fish, 1995b: 19; Furlong & Smith, 1996:1; Roth, 1999: 191), and the infiltration of the language of the marketplace into teacher education conversation in England (Ducharme & Ducharme, 1999: 52–53). Pimm and Selinger (1995: 47) write of ‘The Commodification of Teaching’. Fish is not alone in interpreting such changes as ideological attempts to determine the nature of teacher preparation and to tighten the grip of political control of the teaching profession (see also, for example Clemson, 1996: 92). Such arguments, though important, go beyond the scope of this publication. It seems vital, therefore, to clarify the terminology which will be used throughout this book, not only for a potentially international audience but also for those working within the English teacher education system which forms the contextual background for the work described. It is first of all important to clarify that the UK does not operate as a united system in terms of teacher education; devolution has opened the way to considerable diversity. The author and contributors describing and discussing their work here can only talk with confidence, and in detail, about the English system within which they work. Colleagues in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will attest to similarities but also to significant divergences. The fact that reference is often specifically made to the ‘English’ system is therefore intentional in order to acknowledge such differences; those of us working in England often look enviously across the borders where professional colleagues appear to be treated with more respect. It will no doubt be interpreted as a political stance when I insist that I was ‘educated’ rather than ‘trained’ to become a language teacher by an inspirational PGCE tutor, and that I prefer to retain what I see as ‘good’ in those traditions which helped my personal growth as a professional: ‘substitution of language in any institutional context is never innocent’ (Pimm & Selinger, 1995: 48). Furlong and Smith (1996: 1) discuss the qualitative difference between the two terms, writing of being ‘educated in the sense of being offered a wider intellectual challenge and enrichment’, and Roth (1999: 191) sums up the difference as ‘simply stated, training provides for instructing, educating provides for teaching’. I therefore prefer to talk about initial teacher education (ITE) rather than initial teacher training (ITT) and about student teachers or students rather than trainees or even associate teachers. 5

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Introduction

I recognise that the latter term allocates status which the learner teachers desperately desire, but it also emphasises their role as ‘performers’, potentially at the expense of their role as ‘learners’. It is difficult enough to be an adult learner in a school environment, and my experience of working with mentors on the Initial and Postgraduate courses leads me to believe that it is often hard for new mentors and their departmental teams to think of the student teacher primarily as a learner with very individual learning needs. As partnerships develop mentors are becoming more willing to accept their share of responsibility for the student teacher’s learning, but it is still not uncommon for students to be expected to have ‘learnt’ at the higher education institution and to be able to ‘perform’ in school like an additional member of staff. For clarity school learners will be referred to as ‘pupils’ whatever their age group in order to avoid possible confusion between student teachers and school students. I shall endeavour to be as consistent as possible with such terminology, though in the interests of style it may be necessary on occasion to relieve the reader’s boredom by introducing a little variety. Perhaps more important than such considerations are the terms used to describe the range of teacher educators working in schools and in higher education institutions (HEI). Roles differ within each system and even within each local interpretation of a system, with the particular context defining the meaning of a word. For clarity, therefore, I shall briefly describe The University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership and the terminology which it employs to describe the partners. In comparison with certain other partnership systems which have been developed in England, the one within which most of the contributors work is a fairly simple model and might be regarded as quite a traditional one. Whereas other partnership models have opted for the principle of a university-based tutor being responsible for providing a central link with a small group of schools regardless of subject specialism, ours works on a system of direct contact. In other words the university subject tutor tracks his or her tutees across schools working directly with the subject mentor in each school where the students are based. Although comparatively expensive in terms of university staff time, this model encourages the development of close professional links between subject mentors and subject tutors; links which are deepened with time and which both sides of the partnership value as one of the most effective ways to support the learner teachers. This system is supported by the work of a senior tutor at the university and a senior mentor in each partnership school whose roles are to coordinate and manage the implementation of policy – or more realistically, to manage the individual tutors and mentors and attempt to draw them together as a team. Thus the term tutor is always used here to mean a subject tutor based at the university and a mentor is a teacher working with student teachers in their specialist subject.

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Contributors Although I must take full responsibility for the selection of evidence and of ideas expressed within this book and for its conceptual limitations, due gratitude must be expressed to both named and un-named travelling companions who have pushed and pulled along the learning journey; perhaps especially to those who have stopped both my colleagues and myself in our tracks and made us think again. It is impossible to unpick a learning process and acknowledge all those who have contributed to it. The list includes, of course, those who have contributed to the book by name and all those who have taken part in the outlined projects, both school-based and university-based collaborators working within The University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership. However, we have also learnt from all of the mentors and student teachers with whom we have worked over the years, from the many books and articles we have read, also from the formal and informal conversations we have had with fellow teacher educators and teachers, locally, nationally and internationally. At a personal level I would need to include my own PGCE tutor, Peter Willig, plus colleagues I worked with as a teacher, OFSTED inspectors, external examiners, and even friends and relations who have listened patiently (or impatiently) whilst I used them as sounding boards for pet theories and frustrations, and in talking to them clarified my own thoughts and feelings. The difficulty of analyzing, attributing and in particular ‘controlling’ learning will be a thread running through later chapters. We have tried conscientiously to acknowledge written sources of information, but it is also important to acknowledge the professional, social context within which we work and the input, both formal and informal, of partnership colleagues from both school and university across subject boundaries. Without the ongoing goodwill and collaboration of every tutor, mentor, teacher, student teacher, and pupil involved in that partnership, not to mention the all-suffering support staff of the School of Education, none of this work would have been possible. It is a privilege to work with so many dedicated individuals.

Thinking About Your Own Practice What terminology is used to describe people and their functions by the system within which you work? Does this have any implications for the way in which you work as a mentor? Do you see yourself as a teacher trainer or a teacher educator? What do you think is the difference, and what implications does this have for your work as a mentor? Which of the chapters briefly described above do you feel would be of greatest interest to you in seeking to develop your own work?

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Part 1

The Context

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Chapter 1.1

A Local and National Context with International Implications

The National and International Importance of Teacher Education ‘The initial training of teachers is a matter of profound significance to the quality of educational provision in schools’ (Menter & Whitehead, 1995: 4). Although no one could disagree with that statement it might be more difficult to reach consensus on an interpretation of the word ‘quality’. Education has increasingly become a political instrument; throughout the western world and beyond education is seen as an essential tool in improving the productivity of a nation state and increasing its competitiveness in the world market (see Ambrose, 1996). This places enormous pressure on the teachers: ‘the results of this belief will be a constant demand from politicians for evidence of improved performance from the education service’ (Barber, 1996: 68). The controversial introduction of performance related pay for teachers in England at the time of writing underlines the truth of Barber’s statement. The question is, who defines ‘quality’ and ‘performance’? Political intervention into the professional world of the teacher has in recent decades become the norm. Galton and Moon (1994) highlight the increasing concern of governments in Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s to direct innovation both in the school system itself and within the associated structure of teacher education. This European trend is paralleled throughout the developed world (McNamara, 1996: 180), eliciting indignant responses from those traditionally concerned with teacher education: ‘teacher education has also become embroiled in economic and political arguments’ (Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997: 3); ‘the meaning of education should not depend on the vagaries of national interests’ (Goodlad, 1999: 1). Goodlad even goes on to say that ‘the socio-political nature of schooling places in jeopardy the aims of education’ (1999: 2). Sidgwick (1996: 97) argues that many of the major issues which have been generated by policy changes in the English teacher education system ‘can be understood as instances of the tensions and problems which have emerged in other sectors of the welfare state as a consequence of government attempts to introduce market principles into the provision of public services’. 11

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Part 1: The Context

Beneath the Politics of Control Green (2000) urges educationalists to take a breath, take stock and work out what is really important, commenting that: During the past 15 years the education system has been subjected to unprecedented intervention from central government, through a bewildering series of demands, targets, inspections, assessment tests, guidance, circulars and the like. Each has seemed more urgent than the previous one, and barely has time been taken to draw breath than the next one arrives. There has been little time for judicious evaluation and measured research before the headlong rush to the next panacea. (Green, 2000: vii) We may well accuse politicians of vote-hunting and of meddling without real understanding, but beneath the political debate over control of the education system and in particular the teacher education system lie some extremely important questions which are being posed by politicians and educationalists alike across the world: • What do teachers need to know? • How can they best learn what they need to know? • Where can they best learn what they need to know? Different countries are addressing these key questions in a variety of ways and reaching diverse conclusions (see Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997; Darling-Hammond, 1999; Galton & Moon, 1994; Roth, 1999a; Tannehill & Coffin, 1996; Tinning, 1996; Wideen & Grimmett, 1995). England, the Netherlands and the USA have been among the first to introduce ‘standards’ defining what the teacher must be able to do, though the shelves of any education department or bookshop reveal an intensive debate over how such ‘standards’ should be interpreted, whether it is possible to ‘teach’ them and indeed whether any list can ultimately capture the essence of what makes a ‘good’ teacher. The discussion over performance versus understanding will be taken up in Part 1, Chapter 2. In terms of the how and the where, many European countries seem to be supporting the centrality of postgraduate-level educational studies in the preparation of teachers, whereas England, the USA, Australia and the Netherlands are moving rapidly towards an increase in school-based work, a trend which Grimmett warns us is inappropriate in the modern world: Currently, many countries are re-introducing nineteenth century modes of teacher-training with the United States, Australia and England in the vanguard. The rush to provide school-based training in these countries indicates scant critical examination of government motives for introducing such measures. Nineteenth century industrialists made no bones about their motives. They wanted a work force skilled enough to operate their machines but not capable of questioning their place in the socio/political system. The idea of teaching children to think critically, to ask questions and solve problems would have 12

Local and National Context with International Implications

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seemed to be a recipe for disaster. They made sure that did not happen by their control of the school system and its funding. Have things changed? Does it matter where teacher education takes place? (Grimmett, 1995: 204–205) The divergence highlights the underlying difficulty hounding teacher education throughout time and space, that of defining the appropriate roles of ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ in the education of teachers. Tradition associates ‘theory’ with the university department, college or other HEI, and ‘practice’ with the realities of life in school; the site therefore becomes representative of the dimension. The emphasis in certain regions of the world on a substantial increase in school-based teacher training is therefore interpreted as undermining the role of theory in teacher education and simultaneously justifying the overriding importance of practice. In such an interpretation, ‘current policies seem to be undermining the beliefs and values of many teacher educators and appear to be ignoring what we know about learning, teaching and curriculum design’ (Clemson, 1996: 92–93). Much of the literature produced by teacher educators in response to the new climate by contrast underlines the interrelationship of theory and practice, of particular interest to language mentors being discussions by Green (2000), Grenfell (1996 and 1998) and the contributors to Partners, edited by Thorogood (1993). Stone, for example points out that ‘students need to be exposed to more than a “lucky bag” of useful language teaching techniques. Without the development of a principled framework for using such techniques, practitioners will be swept along by each new trend’ (1993: 18). The effects of theory may not be seen instantly as it works ‘indirectly and slowly through the development of teachers’ understandings’ (Ashton, 1999: 211), and thus in the beliefs and personal theories which form the basis for their action (see Williams & Burden, 1997). It can be difficult, therefore, to justify the role of theory in a modern society which increasingly demands instant, measurable results. Ashton insists that ‘the answer, however, is not to eliminate theory from teacher preparation programs. Rather, innovative approaches are needed that embed psychological knowledge in contexts that enable teachers to understand the relevance of theory to practice’ (Ashton, 1999: 212). The challenge for teacher educators seems to be this integration of theory and practice. The extent to which it is possible would seem to be determined by the extent to which ‘practice’ can become part of the ‘theory’ learnt in the higher education site and ‘theory’ can become part of the ‘practice’ learnt in school. Where pre-service teacher education takes place solely in school, as sanctioned by the government in its patronage in England of School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) and related schemes, the challenge would seem to be even greater.

School-Based Teacher Education Teacher educators throughout the world have their doubts about school-based teacher education. Darling-Hammond, discussing American experiments with 13

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alternative, employment-based routes into teaching reports that ‘the evidence strongly suggests that “on-the-job” pre-service training leaves teachers seriously underprepared’ (1999: 13), and that ‘most alternative routes sponsored by school districts, states and other vendors have been found to be significantly less effective at preparing and retaining recruits than university-based teacher education programs. Furthermore, these truncated programs tend to feature regressive approaches that are seriously out of synch with new standards for student learning’ (1999: 14). With reference to increasingly popular employment-based routes into teaching, Goodlad reminds us that: The daily circumstances of schooling do not lend themselves well to easing teachers gradually into their responsibilities, especially those that relate to the whole school. The notion of experienced teachers mentoring new ones is an appealing myth; the experienced teacher down the hallway is fully occupied with his or her own responsibilities. . . . New teachers must be off and running at the outset. An ill-prepared beginner is likely to be the ill-prepared experienced teacher. (Goodlad: 1999: 5) Murray echoes these reservations with respect to the practical, school-based components of university-led programmes: The paradox is that while teachers universally praise their student teaching experience as the most valuable part of their teacher education program, university faculties often find it the most distant and intellectually regressive aspect of the program because many student-teachers quickly conform to the traditional and prevailing practices of their supervising teacher. (Murray, 1999: 71) He goes on to say that ‘until recently, student-teachers rarely have had the opportunity to put into practice a novel, cutting edge, or counterintuitive teaching technique’ (1999: 71) and that ‘under the stress of teaching on their own, often for the first time, they invariably fall back on a set of novice teaching behaviors they possessed long before they entered teacher training’ (1999: 71). Learner teachers therefore need much more than just ‘practice’ if the overall quality of teaching in our schools is to improve in line with political demands. Constable and Norton (1994: 129) point out the potential dangers of reducing external input: ‘the most telling criticism of school-based training is the way students may be confined not only to existing practice but also to thinking about their practice in terms defined only by their own experience or the experience of the few models they come across’. Galton and Moon similarly warn of the danger of producing ‘inflexible teachers who are not able to adapt to innovations in the future and who are not real professionals’ (1994: 108). In fact, it is precisely this status of the teacher as a professional which is felt by many to be at risk: ‘Given the government’s view of teaching as operating routines, the fact that many see teachers as deliverers of a curriculum decided by those outside the profession, the changing of teachers’ pay and conditions, the fact that teachers are not permitted a professional body to regulate their 14

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affairs, and the fact that preparation for the profession is now referred to as training, it is certainly doubtful whether teaching is regarded as a profession’ (Fish, 1995b: 35; see also Goodlad, 1999). There also seems to be a lack of logic in government drives towards school-based training for new teachers; if society is dissatisfied with current teaching and insists that it must improve, then does it make sense to have future teachers ‘trained’ by those very people under attack? Clemson highlights this inconsistency within the English system, attributing it to ‘the tensions inherent in government driven by a particular ideology. . . . This means that it is possible to castigate teachers (and parents) and then enact policy which gives teachers the major responsibility for teacher training, and parents the “power” of choice’ (1996: 89). The 1999 round of regional meetings to summarise and discuss the findings of OFSTED inspections of all English teacher education courses in modern foreign languages clearly highlighted the role of teacher educators in colleges and universities as ‘agents of change’, yet the power of schools in initial teacher training continues to be strengthened to the detriment of the influence of these agents. In Scotland there has been stronger professional resistance to the idea of control of the teacher education system moving into schools (Brown, 1996: 39). Whatever the political and power constellations, most pre-service teacher education throughout the world entails time spent in schools. The timescale and the locus of responsibility for overseeing this portion of the student teachers’ work varies substantially from one country or region to another, but overriding issues remain as to how best to use this time to develop skills and understandings and how best to integrate the ostensibly separate phases of ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ – in other words, how do we help a student teacher to learn from practice? Whatever the balance of emphasis between higher education study and practical work in schools, and however long student teachers spend in a practical teaching site, the quality of their experience and in particular of their learning during that time is the key to their development as a skilled practitioner. Furlong and Smith pointed out in 1996 that ‘students’ school-based learning is far more complex than the government circular implies’ (1996: 5). It is during student teachers’ time in school that they will either see the potential of or reject the ideas about teaching and learning presented to them by teachers, by higher education tutors and even by government directives. The beliefs and attitudes of the people with whom they work in schools are inevitably highly influential, and could well make the difference between a ‘good’ teacher who strives for excellence and one who accepts mediocrity and the status quo, aiming for no more than survival. As Wallace reminds us, ‘not all professionals automatically continue to develop in the practice of their profession, nor do they all develop to the same high level of expertise. The inference from this might be that the process of reflection cannot be taken for granted, that one cannot assume that it will develop simply by doing the job’ (1991: 165). Those learning to teach need good professional role models who make them think, yet ‘traditionally schools have been the places where teaching practice – not teacher 15

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education – has taken place’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 39). Recent developments in England mean that ‘how teachers are trained has been modified in such a way that the majority of the time is spent in schools under the tutelage of the school-based mentor’ (Towell, 1998: 49); teacher educators have thus turned their attention to defining and developing the role of the mentor in an attempt to turn what Fish (1995b: 12) describes as a ‘response to political agendas and financial constraints’ into a new and dynamic way to resolve the ‘long-standing dilemma of theory versus practice’ (Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997: 195). The magnitude of the responsibility which this places upon the busy school teacher who takes on the role of mentor was underlined in a question posed at a recent meeting by a new mentor recruit: ‘is it possible for a student teacher to fail the course because they had a “bad” mentor?’ The answer is, of course, yes; just as it is possible for a pupil to fail a language exam because they had a ‘bad’ teacher. School-based teacher education, whether it forms part or the whole of the preservice course, will only work if those teachers designated as mentors understand their role and are able and committed enough to fulfil it. The nature of that role will be explored more fully in Part 1, Chapter 4.

Exploring International Problems within a Local Situation It is perhaps reassuring to know that so many teacher educators and politicians in so many countries throughout the world are battling with the same fundamental questions, and simultaneously encouraging and frustrating to witness the lack of consensus. A brief glance at the huge amounts of literature, both political and academic, generated by these issues confirms the plurality of approaches, beliefs, experiments and interpretations. Every attempt to address them is bound by the context within which its originators work, and by their own personal beliefs and values. That applies equally, of course, to the work described here. Its value, if any, consists not in establishing transferable truths, but in its potential to ‘stimulate thinking about similar situations elsewhere’ (Bassey, 1995: 111). The framework within which the projects and explorations outlined in later chapters have been carried out is hide-bound by political directives, perhaps at their keenest in England (see Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997), by the local traditions and relationships into which those directives had to be introduced, and by the personalities and beliefs of those operating them and the relationships between these factors. In order to understand and evaluate a local response to these international themes, the reader needs to be aware of its contextual pressures. For those unfamiliar with the situation in England the background detail which follows might help to explain the intensity with which teacher educators in England have investigated and discussed the role of the mentor in school-based teacher education and why it has formed such an important focus for the work described in later chapters.

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Improving Teacher Education Standards in England: The Government’s Approach Wilkin (1996b: 143) refers to the ‘state of shock’ among teacher education circles in England at the ‘temerity of the government in intervening so forcefully in the training curriculum and at the subsequent speed of reforms to initial training’. Mawer too points out that ‘although many of these changes are also being felt in other countries, it has been the speed of change that has characterised the UK context (Mawer, 1996: 1). The background to political intervention in the English teacher education system has been described in detail by several authors (for example, Blake, 1995; Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997; Fish, 1995a & b; Furlong & Smith, 1996; Glover & Mardle, 1995; Husbands, 1996; Mawer, 1996; Pimm & Selinger, 1995; Wilkin, 1992, 1996a & b; Williams, 1995). What follows is therefore only a brief résumé. Direct governmental involvement in the education of new teachers began in the 1980s, with the emergence of the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE), a new body invested with powers to regulate the provision of teacher education. Many writers regard this as the first major offensive in a long and determined attack on the higher education institutions involved in teacher education and on the autonomy of the teaching profession (see for example, Fish, 1995a & b; Furlong & Maynard, 1995; Furlong & Smith, 1996; Menter & Whitehead, 1995; Wilkin, 1992 & 1996a; Williams, 1995). By 1992 the Council had developed detailed new requirements for what had now become labelled ‘teacher training’, greatly strengthening the influence of schools to the detriment of that of universities and colleges. The majority of secondary school teachers enrol for a PGCE as preparation for entry into the teaching profession after studying their subject to degree level; it is this course which forms the focus for the work described here. The conditions introduced for this one-year course required student teachers to spend a minimum of 24 of their 36 weeks of study in school. In addition a set of generic ‘competencies’ was introduced to standardise the assessment of practical performance on completion of the course (DfE, 1992). The latter provoked much argument from HEIs about the apparent reduction of the art of teaching to a mere list of mechanical items without due regard for the attitudes, qualities and understandings needed to carry out the teacher’s role. Furlong and Maynard, for example, describe the emergent model of teaching as ‘highly contentious’ because it favours a behaviourist, reductionist view of the professional (1995: 30). Similar reservations are expressed by Blake et al. (1995), Fish (1995a and b), McIntyre et al. (1994), Wilkin (1996a) and Grenfell (1998). Moreover, schools were no longer to be allowed to play a passive role by simply providing classes for the student to practise on; under new ‘partnership’ regulations teachers were committed to major involvement in the actual ‘training’ of the new teachers, for which they were to be funded by the universities and colleges. Fish interprets the document as meaning that ‘in other words the schools will do all of the work with the students and the HEIs will do 17

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the administration’ (Fish, 1995b: 28); Pimm and Selinger claim that ‘although the language is of partnership between schools and colleges, devolution might be more accurate (1995:54). Encouragement was also provided for schools to establish their own wholly school-centred initial teacher training schemes (SCITT), without any obligation for input from higher education; financial incentives for establishing such schemes were far greater than those for involvement in partnership arrangements and as Pimm and Selinger remind us, ‘the financial incentives that are now being offered to schools are hard to resist in a time of local school management and financial cuts’ (1995: 53). Simultaneously employment-based routes into teaching, similar to the kind of schemes operating in various states of America (see Roth, 1999b) were set up, through which appropriate candidates could be employed by schools without the relevant teaching qualifications and ‘trained’ on the job. Schools embarking on such projects found that it was harder work than they had expected (see Downes, 1996: 86; Fletcher, 1995). Jennings makes a particularly interesting comment on the speed of reform: It is not surprising that Kenneth Clarke and Roger Scruton and, more recently, John Patten (currently Secretary of State for Education) acquired an over-simplified view of how people learn to teach: in the same way that observers in classrooms, in the absence of theory, attend only to the superficial features of teaching processes, so observers of teacher training attend only to the immediately obvious features of that process. In this case what has been visible is the progressive movement in the colleges and university departments towards more school-based work for student teachers. What has been missed is that this has been only the overt evidence of a determination to integrate experience of classrooms into a coherent course in which practice-related theory drives the learning. What is surprising is the rapid interpretation of unprincipled assertion into legislation. (Jennings, 1994a: 49) Moves to strengthen employment-based routes into teaching coincided in England with the establishment of greater government control over the work of practising teachers, i.e. the imposition of a National Curriculum defining content and, specifically in modern foreign languages, the processes by which pupils ‘should’ and ‘must’ be taught. This curriculum has so far undergone two reforms since its original implementation in 1992. Government reforms not only of curricula and examination procedures for all sectors of the education system but also of teachers’ working conditions and pay have continued apace, despite vociferous protests from many sides. Particular causes of intense debate have been the introduction and use of published league tables of school examination results and the role of OFSTED inspectors in judging the quality of teaching in schools and on teacher education courses (see for example Mitchell, 2000). The flurry of reform fever has left many teachers breathless and may well have contributed to the current recruitment crisis. Reduction of the leading role of higher education in teacher preparation was intensified in the 1994 Education Act with the establishment of the Teacher Training 18

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Agency (TTA) to replace CATE. Whilst teachers and teacher educators were engaged in implementing revised National Curricula and reformed public examination syllabuses at all levels, responding to increasing pressures to develop use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the classroom, and getting used to new relationships with each other within the framework of partnership schemes, the TTA was busy producing its next set of requirements. In October 1997 a new government circular introduced a still more rigorous set of ‘Standards’ which the student teachers must achieve by the end of their Postgraduate year along with a further set of regulations governing the roles of partners; the circular was reissued in revised format in April 1998 (DfEE, 1998). The Agency also declared that the ICT skills of student teachers must be audited and by 1998 developed to the levels of proficiency envisaged for all in-service teachers by the year 2002. Here again there was a difficult anomaly for teacher educators to solve, in that the in-service teachers with whom the student teachers were to spend 24 of their 36 weeks were by implication to guide student teachers in the acquisition of ICT skills which they themselves had until 2002 to develop (see Gray and Hood, 1999). At the time of writing teacher education institutions in England are developing strategies to cope with the newly introduced ICT, numeracy and literacy tests which all student teachers must pass in order to attain Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and bracing themselves for the introduction of further teacher education reforms such as the devolvement of funding for teacher education direct to schools rather than through the controlling channel of the higher education institutions. As mentioned in the Introduction, devolution has created an anomaly whereby Scotland has its own independent education system and the Welsh Assembly has evolved its own version of Circular 4/98 in Circular 13/98 issued by the Welsh Office; other constituent members of the United Kingdom appear on the whole to be taking a much more measured approach to teacher preparation reform than does England itself. For example, at the time of writing only those trained in English teacher education institutions are required to have passed the numeracy, literacy and ICT skills tests: two Newly Qualified Teachers (NQT) trained in different UK institutions can therefore work alongside each other in the same school yet having been subject to quite different requirements in order to achieve QTS. As Furlong and Smith express so clearly, ‘one principal difficulty – and in many ways a point of interest – in writing about higher education (HE) and the training of teachers is that none of the parts will stand still’ (Furlong & Smith, 1996:1). We can only hope that future interventions by the English government in particular will not disrupt the sometimes fragilely balanced professional relationships which have developed between schools, universities and colleges in recent years, partly as a result of official prompting. Too much intervention and in too aggressive a manner might risk destroying what good already exists; even willing horses can be pushed too far, as Husbands warned in 1996: ‘the development of perspectives on school-based teacher education during the 1970s and 1980s was far from straightforward, and the increasingly ideological tone of some of those perspectives generated hostility, 19

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confusion and in some cases alienation, even from those whose intellectual and personal predilection was towards the enhancement of the role of teachers in the task of training’ (Husbands, 1996: 19).

Implementing Legislation: The Practicalities of Partnership? Commenting on the implementation of such far-reaching government legislation Pring wrote in 1996 that ‘no amount of claims to “partnership” with schools, or books written about mentoring, can disguise that most partnerships are a sham, or that most books on mentoring are written by people who have had little experience of it or conducted little relevant research’ (Pring, 1996: 21). Since ‘partnership’ as a whole-scale solution to the perceived problems in teacher education was only imposed in the early 1990s, and the emergent role of school-based ‘mentor’ was also in its nascence, this is perhaps hardly surprising. Just as teaching is not merely delivery of a pure curriculum received whole by the learner, genuine partnership is not an instant entity created by legislation, documentation and the theoretical definition of roles and responsibilities. As Furlong, Whitty et al. emphasise, ‘adopting a partnership model is in itself no necessary guarantee of quality in initial teacher education’ (Furlong et al., 1996: 30). An organically grown partnership is negotiated: it takes into account the strengths and needs of individual partners, their respective levels of commitment to the agreed work, and the time and resources available to them to fulfil that commitment. Brooks and Sikes are careful to recognise that ‘every school is, in many respects, a unique community. Specific details vary, as do personalities. What works in one setting will fail in another’ (1997: 2). In 1993 Stone warned us that a ‘shared notion of “good practice” and a “shared understanding of teacher education” may take time and patience to achieve’ (Stone, 1993: 19). Shared understandings can only come from close collaborative work underscored not by documentation but by genuine open and honest discussion of each others’ ideas, values and potential. The timescale available for implementation of government directives did not allow for such organic growth, and it is only with time that ‘the interpretation of partnerships is becoming increasingly more sophisticated’ (Shenton & Murdoch, 1996: 9). There is always what McBride refers to as ‘the “slippage” that separates policy and practice’ (McBride, 1996: 2) and ‘a need to implement partial solutions’ (Husbands, 1996: 20). The models of partnership adopted are dictated primarily by pragmatics, and in any case there seems to have been an early tension between the concept of partnership as promoted by the TTA based on documentation, and the model encouraged by OFSTED based on collaboration (see Whiting et al., 1996). Thorogood reminds us that ‘Initial Teacher Training (ITT) has always been a partnership between schools and higher education’ (Thorogood, 1993: 2). My personal experience confirms this to some degree: as a student teacher at The University of Birmingham in 1980–81, I spent the equivalent of 20 weeks working in schools. This comprised two placements in different schools and a number of 20

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days and half days spent observing, teaching and discussing teaching not only in local schools but also in distinctive schools across the country such as a prestigious public school, a large comprehensive school in Central London, and a school for pupils with visual impairment. These opportunities were not defined by a legal contract with financial implications, but were the result of an informal partnership between the tutor and his school-based colleagues throughout the country. Legislation has since enhanced the role of the schools but not necessarily made it easier to build genuine partnerships; in fact in some ways it makes it more difficult to provide student teachers with such a wide range of experience. In addition, statutory regulations and increased student numbers oblige HEIs to work intensively with more schools and language departments than personal contact can provide. As mentioned in the Introduction, those higher education establishments are held responsible for quality control; if the courses which they provide are deemed to be failing or do not comply with any item of the appropriate legislation, it is the reputation of the higher education establishment which suffers, not that of the un-named partnership schools which are ‘fully and actively involved in the planning and delivery of ITT, as well as in the selection and final assessment of trainees’ (DfEE, 1998: Annex D, C 3.1.1). Schools can simply opt out of involvement in ITE or offer to work with alternative higher education establishments. In fact, it is not unknown for schools to take advantage of the mentor training and support provided and funded by universities and colleges, only to withdraw subsequently from partnership and set up their own SCITTs, potentially in competition with their erstwhile contractual partners. Thus whatever partnership operations are set in place, it is difficult for the HEI, with its reputation at stake, not to be seen as ‘cracking the whip’ or ‘imposing new ideas’ on the cooperating schools, and yet it is simultaneously difficult for them to do so in case they lose valuable placements for their student teachers (see Husbands, 1996). Theoretically, higher education departments select schools with which to work; in practice those departments are dependent upon local schools for the existence of their courses and selection is often a myth (see Whiting et al., 1996; Glover & Mardle, 1995). Whiting et al. point out that despite the careful creation and documentation of criteria for the selection of schools as partners, the most common criterion cited by respondents was ‘willingness’ to be a partner and to sign up to the contractual obligations (1996: 20). Towell highlights the dangers of such a system for the continued survival of languages other than French in secondary schools in the UK (Towell, 1998: 49); higher education departments wishing to maintain teacher education in other languages may well be under even greater pressure to bypass any selection criteria. In such a climate, and with partner schools adopting major responsibility for the development and assessment of student teachers, the language teaching methodology and management style adopted by new teachers is likely to be dependent not upon careful selection of up-to-date and forward-looking departments with appropriate attitudes to teacher education but rather upon the existing cultures of those schools which offer themselves as partners. If staff in higher 21

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education institutions try to change or even challenge those cultures, they will be accused of high-handedness and lack of commitment to genuine partnership. If they do not, they will be accused of not doing enough to improve teacher education or to raise standards in schools. As teacher turned higher education tutor, I face that particular dilemma with trepidation; as an equal partner and fellow professional, what right have I to impose alternative views of language teaching and teacher education on school-based colleagues? To a certain extent the intensity of government direction in England in particular alleviates the situation in that goals and criteria are established for us. On the other hand, there is still a tendency to attribute the pressure created by such documentation to the unreasonable demands of the higher education institution (see Gray, et al., 1998: 82) than to the real originators, as well as to blame higher education tutors for any deficiency on the part of the student teachers. I firmly believe that it is only long-term professional relationships on a one-to-one basis between individual tutors and individual mentors which can resolve the inherent contradictions and power struggles created by partnership legislation and thus create an appropriate atmosphere for student teachers to learn best how to teach.

The Mentor Role and Partnership Throughout the literature prompted by recent reforms and developments on both sides of the Atlantic, the central role of the mentor is undisputed, and is not only a product of government initiatives: ‘“mentoring” – that is, the appointment of designated teachers to undertake the training of students in school – has become both a professional and a political issue and, as implied here, much of what is proposed by the government appears to coincide with current professional aims and practice’ (Wilkin, 1992: 18). As a result, ‘both the scope and the scale of teachers’ new roles and responsibilities are little short of “revolutionary” ’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 40). Many publications have tried to define the role, qualities and skills of the mentor and to provide advice and support for those carrying out the role; several such volumes are included in the bibliography and referred to throughout this publication. An emergent theme has been the attempt to identify distinctive roles for the higher education tutor and the school-based subject mentor, contrasting the specific classroom expertise and contextual knowledge of the mentor with the neutrality and overview of the tutor (as in Fletcher & Calvert, 1994: 9). However, as Wilkin pointed out in 1992, ‘the nature of mentor training – and if there is consistency across the mentoring system as defined above, then also the practice of mentoring – is likely to be a product of the context within which it is developed’ (Wilkin, 1992: 24) and is therefore likely to be very difficult to define in essence. Taylor and Stephenson conclude that ‘there really is no definitive answer to the question “What is mentoring?” – or even to the one that is more pressing for most mentors, “What do I have to do if I am a mentor” ’ (Taylor & Stephenson, 1996: 35). Local variations of partnership will support different degrees of cooperation 22

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between HEI and school, and in the entirely school-based courses encouraged in England the mentor must somehow achieve the whole alone. Even within partnerships, ‘while an administrative consistency is ultimately applied to schools by partnership management processes, experience suggests that a more fundamental, and intangible diversity of approach and belief, in large part embedded in subject differences, flourishes beneath this surface’ (Evans, 1995: 115). What, then, is the context which defines the parameters of the mentor’s role as perceived within this publication? As mentioned above, the way in which partnership has been organised at The University of Birmingham emphasises direct contact between the university-based subject tutor and the school-based subject mentor. Furlong et al. attest to the importance, but also the expense in terms of both tutor and teacher time, of developing close personal relationships (Furlong et al., 1996: 30–31). The course is organised into what appear to be traditional blocks of time rather than the split weeks prevalent in many other PGCE courses, though practical group work in schools supported by both tutor and volunteer mentors is heavily integrated into the ‘university-based’ blocks and forms an essential focus for seminar discussion. In this way student teachers are helped to develop basic confidence and skills before they begin individual work with mentors and there is a strong drive to overcome the perceived ‘theory-practice’ divide of the ‘stereotypical ITT courses’ challenged by Stone (1993: 18). The success of this is of course dependent upon how individual mentors approach the issue during subsequent ‘school-based’ blocks, a subject which will be discussed in greater detail in a later chapter. Tutors continue to visit their students during placements, albeit far less frequently than in pre-partnership days and with the additional focus of supporting the mentor rather than simply providing appropriate feedback to the student teacher. All subject mentors are required to attend the equivalent of two full days per year of briefing and planning meetings as a subject team; the modern language mentors have declined the invitation to take over leadership of such meetings for themselves, thus leaving the university tutors with the main responsibility for organisation and innovation. One of the most difficult aspects of successful teaching for new teachers to achieve is the secret of balancing the needs of a whole class with the needs of each individual within that class. The leader of a mentor team faces similar difficulties: in the interests of equality of opportunity for the student teachers there must be coherence and consistency of approach within the team; however, each member of that team is an individual with their own strengths and needs. It would be too easy to fall into what Fish describes as a ‘deficit model of teacher-mentors’ (Fish, 1995b: 139) and to overlook the potential which many of our teaching colleagues bring to their work with students. Whatever roles are imposed by government legislation and the pragmatics of the situation, as educators we should aim to create as rich an environment as possible for our learners. In practice this means exposing student teachers to many points of view and a wide range of strategies from many different 23

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sources, and therefore implies overlapping rather than neatly prescribed roles. I am aware that this approach contrasts with such current thinking as exemplified by Brooks and Sikes who maintain that ‘a detailed and comprehensive description of roles and responsibilities, which has been understood and agreed by the different parties, is fundamental to success’ (1997: 42). Lambert and Totterdell insist, however, that ‘we should explicitly acknowledge that both schools and HE are responsible for generating and nurturing the intellectual dimension of being (becoming) a teacher’ (1995: 15); a clear separation of roles might undermine this awareness. Over the past seven years of learning about teacher education from and with the mentors, tutors and student teachers of The University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership, I have come to regard the relationship between tutor and mentor as a kind of ‘distance team-teaching’. In team-teaching colleagues learn to live with each others’ strengths and weaknesses, each learning about the ways in which the other thinks and acts and comparing those ways with their own. The information gleaned is used not to criticise one another, but to complement each other’s work more effectively so as to provide students with the best possible learning opportunities. Even though colleagues may have the shared notion of ‘good practice’ and the shared understanding of teacher education referred to by Stone (1993: 19), each interprets and enacts those notions in very different ways. When team-teaching, I often wonder what prompts most learning in our students: the ways in which we agree, the ways in which we disagree or perhaps more importantly the ways in which we acknowledge and handle those differences as professionals, respecting each other’s viewpoint and acknowledging the validity of different approaches, with a view to learning from one another. Each colleague is an individual and each team-teaching experience is different; we are influenced by one another, feed off one another and ideally try to maximise what is offered to learners not by restricting each other to limited roles but by engaging with one another in an open dialogue which can provide different perspectives on an issue. Reality is of course somewhat different from the ideal. Due to the inevitable infrequency of contact between tutor and mentor it takes longer than with in-house colleagues to establish sufficient mutual knowledge and understanding to maximise the potential benefits for student teachers. The rapid turnover of partnership schools and of individual subject mentors, estimated by Furlong at about 25% per year nationally (Furlong, 1996: 157, see also Menter & Whitehead, 1995: 11) and the fragility of the system as a whole (see Whiting et al., 1996: 20–26; Lambert & Totterdell, 1995, 13) restrict the process of developing genuine working partnerships between individuals. Diminishing resources and the increasing demands on both sides in other areas of partners’ work also limit the extent to which this ideal can be realised. Nevertheless, progress towards such genuine partnership, in which roles are negotiated between individuals, rather than imposed by structures, is the underlying principle for the following work. There will be no attempt to define a specific and separate role for either tutor or mentor. The aim here is rather to present what I, from my own context-bound perspective, interpret as important 24

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aspects of the information available to me, with a view to helping colleagues involved in language teacher education to understand both each other and the whole process better, and perhaps thereby in some small way to work together more effectively as real partners in a demanding yet rewarding enterprise. Before any roles can be negotiated, partners need to be aware of what it is they are aiming for and potential means of achieving it; hence it is time to enter the confusing debate about what the end product of mentoring should be.

Thinking About Your Own Practice How would you define the context within which you are working as a teacher trainer/ educator? What implications does that context create for your role? What are the similarities and differences between the context described here and that within which you work?

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Chapter 1.2

What Makes a Good Language Teacher?

Everyone Knows a Good Teacher, and a Bad One What, then, is a good language teacher? Everyone seems to know what a good teacher is; any teacher will confirm that they have only to walk into the local pub or into a party (during those many hours of leisure which they enjoy) to receive expert advice on how to teach from the plumber, postman, accountant, bank manager and even the pub landlord or landlady. As learners ourselves we have all experienced good and bad teachers; explaining what it is that made them good or bad, however, is quite a different matter. The teacher whom I remember best and who turned me into a lifelong language learner would not comply with many of the expectations which we impose upon our student teachers today. My most salient memory of his excellent teaching, apart from his vain attempts to teach me the German words for the intricate parts of a motorcycle, is of Friday morning sixth form lessons in the school library surrounded by monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, grammar books and my own notes, faced with the challenge of translating a Cambridge University final year unseen prose into good German. We were expected to translate at least a sentence a week in the 35-minute lesson. Our teacher pounced gleefully upon basic mistakes for which we had no excuse – dare I tell student teachers that I was labelled ‘cretinous creature from the murky depths’ for using nach with the accusative? No other input to or evaluation of our work was provided. We were told that we had access to the same resources as our teacher, and that we were therefore just as capable of finding and checking solutions as he was and must learn to refine and rely upon our own judgement. Thank you, Mr Roberts, for turning me into an independent learner. However, I am not sure that my peers appreciated the experience to the same extent. Everyone has a similar anecdote encapsulating a model of either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ teaching, often based upon the personal influence exerted by a charismatic or an ineffective individual. Opinions seem to vary considerably, however: how often have we heard heated debates between old school pals demonstrating that one teenager’s ‘ideal teacher’ is another’s ‘tyrant’? Is it at all possible to create an overall picture of the good teacher which can embrace such anecdotes and therefore guide 26

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learner teachers along with teacher educators and assessors? Politicians and professionals throughout the developed world spend considerable time and resources in attempting to define such a good teacher in order to replicate it (see Harris, 1999; DfEE, 2000); I use the word ‘it’ deliberately, as any attempt to measure and reproduce an entity inevitably removes the personal, individual element of teaching which many of us intuitively cling to, whether this is justified or not.

What Are the Official Criteria? In the current environment, one might be forgiven for assuming that there is no need for teacher educators to concern themselves with defining their own criteria for assessing teaching; statutory legislation in the USA, UK and the Netherlands for example has already done this for them. As mentioned above, teacher educators in the UK at the time of writing work with 70 cross-curricular Standards for the Award of Qualified Teacher Status (DfEE, 1998), referred to here as the Standards, which define what candidates for entry to the teaching profession ‘must demonstrate when assessed’; Standards which are likely to be rewritten many times during the teaching careers of those currently struggling to demonstrate them. For their own purposes the modern foreign languages team of tutors and mentors at The University of Birmingham tried to crystallise the current Standards into a manageable set of course aims which would not overwhelm either the incoming student teachers, or indeed the mentors and tutors working with them (Figure 1). It is perhaps interesting to note that whereas the emphasis in the 70 Standards themselves is upon behaviours which candidates ‘must demonstrate’, the wording

• Awareness of and ability to cater for the needs of pupils of all ages, abilities and origins • Awareness of a variety of teaching and learning styles • Ability to use a range of techniques and strategies to create and maintain a positive and productive learning environment • Knowledge and understanding of national requirements with relation to assessment, recording and reporting • Understanding and appreciation of the interrelationship between pupils’ personal, social, spiritual, moral and cultural development and their learning • Understanding of the role of self-evaluation in fostering expertise as a teacher and as a subject specialist

Figure 1 Working summary of the Standards for the Award of Qualified Teacher Status (DfEE, 1998) 27

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negotiated by the teachers and tutors themselves focuses more on awarenesses and understandings, perhaps as an intuitive reaction that understanding is a prerequisite for doing. The 1992 list of ‘competencies’ (DfEE, 1992), the forerunners to the Standards, was criticised by many as being sterile and behaviourist (see, for example, Blake, 1995; Fish, 1995a & b; Pring, 1996). The prescriptive tone of the newer Standards, exemplified in the statement that ‘successful completion of a course or programme of ITT, including employment-based provision, must require the trainee to achieve all these standards’ (DfEE, 1998: 1) has diverted attention away from a very important statement in the introduction to the list itself: Professionalism, however, implies more than meeting a series of discrete standards. It is necessary to consider the standards as a whole to appreciate the creativity, commitment, energy and enthusiasm which teaching demands, and the intellectual and managerial skills required of the effective professional. While trainees must be assessed against all the standards during their ITT course, there is no intention to impose a methodology on providers for the assessment of trainees against the standards. (DfEE, 1998: 2) Whole books have been written about the assessment of teachers against competence statements, for example Hustler and McIntyre’s Developing Competent Teachers: Approaches to Professional Competence in Teacher Education (1996). It is tempting to think that the list of Standards itself has been interpreted far too literally and narrowly, both by course providers anxious to maintain their status as teacher educators and by government bodies charged with implementation and quality control, without due regard to the ‘spirit’ of the documentation. Tomlinson questions the ‘million tick box’ profiles which have begun to proliferate in UK teacher education, apparently modelled on the American system, and surmises that ‘there seem to have been some serious slips between what was intended by the designers of such approaches and the practices which actually got adopted in their name’ (Tomlinson, 1995: 145). Are there lessons to be learned here? A similar situation existed when the National Curriculum was first introduced in England and Wales, with school departments frantically creating tick lists to record the progress of their pupils against the hundreds of attainment statements provided, until the whole system became unmanageable. The statements were subsequently reorganised into a much smaller number of ‘best fit’ level descriptions. Coyle describes a further scenario specific to modern foreign languages, where the concept of ‘communicative language teaching’ has been interpreted to impose a narrow transactional approach which ignores the depth and complexity of developing communication skills (Coyle, 1999 & 2000: 159). The Standards are generic and make no specific reference to modern foreign language teaching; at the time of writing the Mendeval Project Team in collaboration with colleagues across interested countries is attempting to define European standards for language teaching, against the background of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework (Council of Europe, 1996). In England and Wales the 28

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National Curriculum for Modern Foreign Languages in its current incarnations (DfEE/QCA, 1999 and Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales (ACCAC)/ The National Assembly for Wales, 2000), more or less defines an approach to teaching which is officially deemed ‘good practice’, to which all language teachers, new or experienced, are expected to adhere and against which all modern language teacher education courses are measured. The political imposition of methodology is often criticised in the literature, for example by Blake et al. (1995: 124), Fish (1995b: 5) and Maynard (1996: 102–3). Calderhead and Shorrock point out that ‘recent educational policy documents in the UK, and in many other countries, have tended to become more prescriptive in the views of teaching which they support – often construing teachers as the deliverers of a prescribed curriculum, necessitating the acquisition of particular skills and competences’ (Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997: 1). In fact, regular reforms since the first introduction of the National Curriculum in 1992 reflect uncertainty, for example, about the role of grammar in particular within that model of teaching and learning. Despite differences in detail and expression, both Welsh and English versions of the National Curriculum at the time of writing emphasise the teaching and learning of language as a means of communication. Pupils are expected to progress in their understanding of the language as spoken and written by others, and in their own use of it as a means of personal expression. Knowledge of the structures of language and their appropriate application are seen to be vital in achieving this goal and the status of this knowledge has been enhanced in comparison with earlier versions of documentation. Pupils are also expected to develop their cultural awareness through contact with the countries and communities where the target language is spoken, either by personal means or through the use of authentic materials. Use of the target language is to predominate: ‘Pupils are expected to use and respond to the target language, and to use English only when necessary (for example when discussing a grammar point or when comparing English and the target language)’ (DfEE/QCA, 1999: 16). Such documentation, therefore, dictates a certain type of methodology based on a communicative approach, and in official terms the good language teacher is one who adheres to this methodology. There are, however, problems with its implementation in the secondary school system (see Dobson, 1998), and Mitchell warns us as a profession against accepting such a model uncritically: ‘we are still a good distance from establishing a sound basis for evidence-based practice in areas of pedagogy which are distinctive to our subject’ (Mitchell, 2000: 11). Nevertheless, teacher education, or ‘training’ as it is now called in England and Wales, is judged on the extent to which it supports implementation of the National Curriculum. As Grenfell (1998) and Brown (2000) point out, there is a vital distinction between methodology and pedagogy; it is possible to employ a ‘good’ methodology without actually connecting with the pupils and therefore without being a ‘good’ teacher. One might also argue that the type of methodology encouraged in UK secondary language classes can only be employed by a very good teacher due to its highly 29

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interactive nature and consequent dependence upon good relationships and a high degree of motivation on both sides. Both mentors and student teachers at Birmingham regularly comment upon the perceived difficulty of teaching modern languages in comparison with other subjects; student teachers pursuing a professional option in other curriculum areas, for example English, History or Mathematics, are in particular acutely aware of the challenges.

What Does Research Say About the Good Language Teacher? Speaking from a Scottish perspective, Sally Brown argues that the imposition of models by the government ‘inhibits teacher educators from thinking in creative and constructive ways about what it means to be a teacher, how learning to be a teacher takes place and what particular contribution to teacher education is appropriately offered by higher education’ (Brown, 1996: 46). Calderhead and Shorrock similarly fear that ‘the textbook, the National Curriculum, established schemes of work and curriculum packages may have collectively removed the need for teachers to think about subject matter in anything other than layman’s’ terms’ (Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997: 208–209). Official Schemes of Work have also recently been produced to guide the work of teachers in implementing the National Curriculum, which might seem to further reduce the need to think (QCA/DfEE, 2000a & b, for example). If writers are critical of officially imposed criteria, how do they themselves define the good teacher? Harris attempts a definition of the effective teacher in her summary of research into school effectiveness: ‘Effective teachers teach pupils how to synthesise and refine information and make it their own’ (1999: xvii). She maintains that ‘an effective lesson is one in which the teacher knows exactly what he or she wants to achieve and can relay this with confidence and enthusiasm to pupils. Experienced teachers have a store of wisdom concerning the components of effective lessons, which enables them to spend much less time planning than is the case for inexperienced teachers. However, the elements of planning a lesson are the same for all teachers, whether novice or expert’ (Harris, 1999: 56). Grauberg’s The Elements of Foreign Language Teaching (1997) might help us as language teachers to reflect upon what those elements might be. As far as teaching style, however, Harris warns us that ‘in summary, whatever the relative merits of different teaching approaches or styles, the research findings reveal little concrete evidence in favour of one teaching style in terms of overall effectiveness (Harris, 1999: 37). Furlong and Maynard point out that teaching performance is both multifaceted and highly dependent on context (1995: 31); this is echoed in much of the generic literature, for example: ‘in many respects, teaching is a relatively individual activity. So much of what teachers do and how they do it depends upon the personalities and circumstances involved’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 154). Tomlinson points out that ‘as an open, complex, skill, teaching admits of many “right” ways’ (1995: 29); his 30

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conclusions are echoed by Berrill: ‘in short, there is no “right way” to teach: there are no simple pathways to teaching excellence’ (1992: 158). His findings reflect those of many teacher educators writing in the 1990s: While it has always been possible to identify good teaching by the quality of learning outcomes it produces, actually specifying what effective teachers do and thereby providing ourselves with guidelines for development, has been far more difficult. Years of research have failed to identify even the simplest regularities of effective practice. Good teachers, it seems, achieve their results by using a wide variety of approaches that are rarely transferable to other people or other situations. Clearly there are teaching strategies that should logically promote learning – sequencing of material, progressive revision, feedback of results – but the crucial and yet intangible factor is always judgement. (Berrill, 1992: 157) It is judgement too which is at the foundation of the model of the good teacher offered by Pring: Most people recognise the good teacher – the teacher who works intelligently, imaginatively, sensitively, displaying knowledge of subject and of the many and varied ways in which that subject might be represented in an intelligent and fruitful mode. Such a teacher displays an understanding not only of the individual’s learning pattern but of how that pattern fits into the mosaic of learning patterns within the larger group. (Pring: 1996: 16) Such definitions of teaching in cognitive rather than behavioural terms have formed a great deal of the defence for maintaining a higher education input into teacher education (see, for example, Fish 1995a & b; McIntyre & Hagger, 1996; Roth, 1999a; Tomlinson, 1995). Murray (1999) and Darling-Hammond (1999) both highlight the difference between the natural, spontaneous or intuitive teacher and the true professional who learns to understand others (Darling-Hammond; 1999: 25), and to create the conditions in which the client achieves understanding (Murray, 1999: 74). Darling-Hammond maintains that ‘individuals who have had no powerful teacher education intervention often maintain a single cognitive and cultural perspective that makes it difficult for them to understand the experiences, perceptions, and knowledge bases that deeply influence the approaches to learning of students who are different from themselves. The capacity to understand another is not innate. It is developed through study, reflection, guided experience, and inquiry’ (DarlingHammond, 1999: 25). Jennings summarises that ‘the crucial determinant of sensitive and effective teaching is the quality of thinking, based on the power to analyze what is required and to make and justify judgements’ (Jennings, 1994a: 11); the course which she and her colleagues have developed is based on a ‘cognitive apprenticeship model’ (Jennings, 1994b: 11). The language education community seems to hold similar views. Recent decades have seen a wealth of international research into effective teaching and effective 31

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schools (see Williams & Burden, 1997; Harris, 1999; Mitchell, 2000 for an overview); however despite this: Defining teaching quality, and effective classroom practice, is an extremely complex business, by no means solely a technical matter, but value-laden and connected to differing views of the goals of education and the means by which children learn (Mitchell, 2000: 9). Williams and Burden similarly argue that there are ‘no simple answers to the question of what makes a good teacher’ as the constructivist view of teaching which they adopt maintains that ‘there is never any one right way to teach’: ‘education becomes concerned with helping people to make their own meanings’. This includes the teacher too: ‘teaching, like learning, must be concerned with teachers making sense of, or meaning from, the situations in which they find themselves’. Since teaching is essentially about the creation of meanings rather than about observable behaviours, ‘studies which focus exclusively on what good teachers do or even on what learners and others think that teachers do appear to be surprisingly unhelpful to individual teachers wanting to improve their own practice’. They suggest that a more helpful focus would be on ‘teachers’ beliefs; about themselves, about learning and its educational relevance and about learners’ as well as on ‘the consistency with which teachers’ actions reflect what they claim to believe’ (Williams & Burden, 1997: 63). These views are echoed and emphasised by Roberts (1998). Pachler and Field (1997) support the need for a personal approach, and emphasise the development of the ability to make professional judgments in their advice to student teachers. Brown (2000) goes further, pointing out that language student teachers must be helped to move towards a ‘strong sense of their own individuality in the classroom, with a strong rationale of their own’ (Brown, 2000: 188). She goes on to say that ‘it is this sense of the individuality of teachers which distinguishes pedagogy from methodology’ (188) and ‘it is the difference that an individual teacher can make in helping pupils to learn or understand their subject more effectively through explanation and example, through talk, that distinguishes pedagogy from methodology’ (189). This echoes the generic literature as summarised by Harris: ‘effective teaching and learning in the classroom predominantly takes place through interpersonal communication between teachers and pupils’ (Harris, 1999: 65). What exactly is pedagogy? Pedagogy specifically refers to the role of the teacher in bringing a subject alive: the way in which a teacher might explain fundamental concepts in their subject area, or make links for pupils or help them to spot patterns. Methodology tends to stay on the page, while pedagogy implies a sense of energy; it tells us how the teacher interacts with the methodology to engage pupils in their learning. (Brown, 2000: 188) As an example, Brown picks up Grenfell’s 1998 description of the student teacher whose flight into methodology reflected an avoidance of the pedagogic discourse 32

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which ‘has to be created and maintained by the teacher’ (Grenfell, 1998: 82). Lodge warns against a dependence upon methodology as opposed to pedagogy; although he is writing about higher education, his comments are equally valid throughout the different sectors of language teaching: Over recent decades foreign language teaching in Britain, at all levels, has been at the mercy of violent oscillations in fashions of language pedagogy. . . . Teachers and administrators alike seem constantly on the lookout for a new panacea which will eliminate the “language problem”. The very belief that such a panacea could exist is indicative of a misunderstanding of the complexity and mysteriousness of natural languages. Its prevalence implies a level of theoretical understanding of the nature of language which is less than adequate – even among teachers of modern languages themselves. (Lodge, 2000: 112–113). Despite the first impressions, then, that our student teachers seem to gain from watching good practitioners, the good language teacher is not the all-singing, alldancing, energetic performer who enthrals us by their charisma. This does seem to be a persistent element of many good language teachers; after all, in Britain the first challenge is to ‘sell’ the language! Yet the good teacher is not simply a collector of tips and strategies to provide almost infinite variety in the classroom, or someone who adheres fanatically to the latest methodology or the statutory curriculum. It is someone who understands pupils, language, learning and language learning, and is capable of interacting with the pupils in order to promote their learning processes; in the words of Grenfell, ‘good teachers teach through the activities and techniques at their disposal rather than with them’ (Grenfell, 1998: 180). Again this reflects the conclusions of Harris who maintains that ‘effective teachers are not simply charismatic and persuasive presenters, but they engage their pupils in cognitive and social tasks that teach the pupils how to use them productively’ (Harris, 1999: 33). Williams and Burden give a useful description of the kind of learning atmosphere which the good language teacher needs to be able to create: Language classrooms in particular need to be places where learners are encouraged to use the new language to communicate, to try out new ways of expressing meanings, to negotiate, to make mistakes without fear, and to learn to learn from successes and failures. Emotionally, a suitable environment for language learning would be one that enhances the trust needed to communicate and which enhances confidence and self-esteem. (Williams & Burden, 1997: 202) This, of course, demands a high level of confidence, skill and professional knowledge on the part of the teacher, and ties in with Brown’s emphasis on the need for a strong sense of self-belief (Brown, 2000).

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What Do Language Teachers Themselves Expect of a New Colleague? Sidgwick (1996: 99) refers to the DES 1988 report on probationers in school which reported that ‘Fifty-three per cent of all schools had appropriate expectations of their new teachers. Forty per cent had expectations which were too high or rather high, and about 7 per cent had expectations that were too low or rather low’ (DES, 1988: 62, paragraph 5.53). By 1992 official reports claimed that the situation had improved; at least within the sample investigated: ‘most heads recognised that new teachers are not fully fledged practitioners and responded, where they could, by giving reduced assignments. There was a small number of secondary schools where expectations were too demanding’ (OFSTED, 1993: 15). What interests us more, however, is what schools expect of their new language teaching colleagues. Each year at The University of Birmingham we induct approximately 70 new mentors into our partnership across the 8 subject areas offered. Before we introduce them to official documentation in the form of the Standards, we ask these new mentors to define for themselves the qualities, skills and abilities which they would expect of a new colleague joining their department straight from a teacher education course. Many of their answers reflect the official line, such as ‘evidence of experience in assessment, recording, creating worksheets etc.’, ‘reasonable classroom management’, ‘ability to energise and motivate pupils’, ‘set clear objectives for themselves and their pupils’. There is a strong emphasis, however, on personality, the ability to learn, and in particular the ability to engage with the child. A few of my personal favourites from the comments collected over the years have been: ‘pride in being a teacher’, ‘willingness to go to the pub’, ‘having a life’ and the heartfelt comment, written in capital letters on the flipchart, ‘we don’t like people who tell but don’t do!’ – I hope the latter wasn’t actually a comment about the way in which we were conducting the workshop! After this brainstorming activity, the new mentors are introduced to the official documentation against which our courses are measured and invited to make a comparison with their own ideas. No one has yet won the chocolate bar offered to the first person to find a mention of ‘sense of humour’ in the official wording, even though intuitive consensus tells us that this is one of the most important attributes of the ‘good teacher’ and this is in fact supported in the literature (Harris, 1999: 66). The comparison regularly elicits comments that whereas government directives seem to imply that a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) should know it all and be able to do it all, what teachers expect from a new professional is someone who has basic competence, brings new ideas, is willing to learn and easy to work with, understands how difficult the job is, is aware of many of the issues involved, and has started to put it all together. As a profession, we seem to be much more interested in the professional, interpersonal and thinking skills of our new colleagues than in performance outcomes, though it may be that as experienced teachers we take those outcomes for granted, just as we take our own performance for granted. 34

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The process is paralleled at subsequent subject-specific workshops. The following list has been compiled from the suggestions of three different cohorts of new modern foreign language mentors, from 1998 to 2000, each cohort comprising between six and eight mentors: • Understandings and knowledge: cultural knowledge; understanding of the problems which children experience; understanding of the difficulties of learning a language; understanding of the difficulties of teaching a language; understanding of pupils’ common mistakes and of appropriate correction strategies; understanding of the role and nature of grammar; awareness of the potential of realia; good knowledge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). • Abilities: language expertise/good language skills; good accent and intonation; sound grammar usage; the ability to adapt the target language to the children/to adapt the language level to the learners; the ability to build up language in steps; the ability to structure lessons and series’ of lessons; the ability to make connections for the pupils. • Behaviour in the classroom: sensitive use of the target language; a variety of teaching techniques and strategies; clear objectives and targets; dealing with grammar; coverage of all four Attainment Targets (language skills); progression; differentiation; letting go; being a resource; keeping up the pace; good use of materials, including ICT; appropriate activities; flexibility in the classroom; a stock of language filler activities; confidence in dealing with Key Stage 4 (13–16-year-old) and sixth-form (16–18-year-old) pupils. • Personal: ideas for learning strategies; 35

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good imagination; recent language learning experience themselves; resilience; good organisational skills. Clearly an important aspect of this is understanding of and accommodation to the learner: the language teacher must have good personal language skills; an understanding of the learner’s perspective; and a wide range of techniques and strategies which they can combine in appropriate and informed ways to make the language accessible and meaningful to the learner. Does this define a good language teacher?

What Makes Student Teachers Fail the Course? Perhaps we should approach the question from the opposite direction, by looking at the reasons for failure on a teacher education course. Deciding that student teachers have failed the course or counselling them to withdraw is a difficult business, challenging both mentor and tutor at a deep personal as well as professional level. We are committed to facilitating success for learners, and having to face up to our own limitations in this generates a profound sense of personal failure. In addition we are well aware of the powerful influence that our decision could have on the life of another adult. Any judgements which we make must be supported by clear, precise justifications. These procedures perhaps help to sharpen our own understandings of the implicit teaching model which we have collectively adopted. What, then, identifies a ‘failing’ student teacher? It is usually quite easy to establish consensus concerning the identification of student teachers in danger of failing the course. There may be contextual complications, in that one student teacher fares better with the greater consistency of ability in a selective school, or another is inspired by the distinct challenges of an inner city comprehensive. ‘Teachers recognize the uniqueness of their own schools and are justifiably concerned that it may be dangerous to generalise from judgements about a student’s competence in one establishment to general proficiency’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 122). Relationships with mentor, departmental colleagues, tutors, fellow student teachers and other staff and their effects upon self-confidence and self-esteem can also play a part in determining success or failure. In borderline cases precise clarification of issues and finely focused support can help and can even create a rapid spurt of progress; such instances remind me of the language learner for whom the bulb suddenly lights up as he or she begins to be able to ‘put it all together’ and make sense of the language. Sadly, however, despite rigorous selection and interview procedures, we occasionally find ourselves with a student teacher who despite our – and often their – best efforts, seems to lack some essential understanding, quality or thinking ability and is destined to struggle in vain. Mentors, when they eventually capitulate after haunted days and sleepless nights, 36

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will use phrases of resignation such as ‘simply hasn’t got it’, ‘hasn’t got what it takes’, ‘just isn’t a teacher’. My role as tutor seems to be to work with mentor and student teacher to identify exactly what ‘it’ is that is missing, to achieve consensus on that perception, to negotiate a way out of the impasse which has been reached and ultimately to try to ensure that all individuals, mentor, student, and any others involved in the situation, emerge from the experience without too many dents in their self-esteem. What exactly is ‘it’? At risk of having our course closed down by OFSTED inspectors, I have to say that failure as a student teacher is rarely directly attributed to failure to meet one or more of the Standards which rule our lives as teacher educators in England and Wales. A student teacher who knows too little about the role of the governors or their legal responsibilities can soon rectify that; knowledge of statutory requirements and assessment procedures can be developed if the candidate is prepared to work. The ability to use spreadsheets and databases is far less important than the ability to learn how to use them or an understanding of their place in the teaching and learning of languages and a commitment to use any appropriate tool available to enhance pupil learning. In the cases which I have dealt with during my time as a university tutor, reasons for failure have been far more fundamental; each case has been a combination of some of the following factors: • persistent simplistic views of teaching and learning based on a ‘delivery’ or ‘transmission’ model which take no account of the pupil’s role in learning; • adamant adherence to a personally successful model of language learning which is inappropriate for the majority of pupils being taught; • inability to see the language or the classroom from the pupils’ perspective; • inability to deconstruct the language and rebuild it, i.e. to teach in appropriate steps for the particular learners; • unrealistic expectations of pupils in terms of either learning or behaviour or both; • dependence upon the mentor or tutor to tell them what to teach or to plan the lessons for them; • simplistic views of learning how to teach which deny the student teacher’s own responsibility to find things out, to learn from experimentation or to take account of the essential role of theorising in the development of effective teaching; • inability to perceive the difference in quality between one’s own work and that of experienced teachers; • inability to make informed choices when presented with alternatives; • continuing inflexible dependence on the lesson plan regardless of pupil response, often linked with success being judged not by pupil learning but by how much of the lesson plan was achieved; • lack of imagination, resulting in either a dearth of ideas or the inability to transfer ideas from one situation to another; 37

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• abject fear of children combined with a lack of appropriate coping strategies (fear itself is natural – aren’t we all to some extent scared of our learners, be they teenagers or adults?); • lack of coherent personal policies or theories to guide action, so that it seems haphazard and devoid of real meaning and purpose; • inability to put personal policies or advice from others into action, even at a very basic developmental level; • inability or lack of desire to learn; • lack of commitment or pure laziness. Grenfell summarises this list succinctly: ‘failure to develop pedagogic competence is less about success or failure in adopting the communicative approach, or any other method, than failing to react in a pedagogic context’ (Grenfell, 1998: 172). If we are honest, most student teachers will probably display a sample of the symptoms listed above at certain points of their course; those who fail to progress from this are the ones at real risk. Our reasons for failing students therefore display an emphasis not on the accumulation of strategies, techniques and knowledge about syllabuses and examination procedures, though these are of course needed. The key issues which determine success or failure seem to be beliefs, understandings, openness to others, mental agility, the ability to move seamlessly between theory and practice, and the commitment to learn about and from pupils. I am haunted by the words of one mature student who eventually decided to withdraw after a major courageous struggle: ‘it’s so much harder than it looks, teachers are so clever, you need such ingenuity. Teaching is so much more than planning lessons and delivering them – I just can’t do it’. The tragedy was that it was not until the point of withdrawal, at precisely the moment of release from the pressure to perform, that this student reached sufficient understanding of the complexity of teaching. Given the precious gift of time which is so rare a commodity in our world, perhaps he might have been able to turn that understanding into skill; as it was, recognition had come too late in too intensive a year, and at too great expense to his personal resilience.

What is a Good Language Teacher Then? Stern reminds us that ‘it is the pupils who make a fine lesson’ (Stern, 1995: 35); the really good teacher is one who succeeds in motivating the pupils to work hard rather than one who keeps them mesmerised with magic tricks. It was suggested above that a good language teacher is an extremely skilful and adaptable person who understands language, language learning and language learners, who selects intelligently from a wide range of techniques and strategies to foster learning, and who interacts strongly and positively with individual learners to assess and facilitate their understandings of and performance in the language. A good language teacher is a person with vision who works within the possible to expand the limits 38

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of the possible. Moreover, a language teacher working within the British education system has to be a great motivator due to a range of factors affecting the status of modern foreign languages in an English-speaking world. We are asking our pupils to replace one means of communication with another, to abandon the variety and facility with which they interact in their home language to struggle with the frustrations and limitations of expressing their complex personalities and lives in the simplistic forms available to them in the new one. Whereas colleagues in other subject areas use language to teach content and skills, we must use content to teach language until we reach the point where the language base is strong enough to allow us to teach new content through increasingly advanced language; this raises a whole range of difficult issues: • concentration is intense; in many other subject areas, pupils can half listen for half the lesson and still understand the gist. Once lost in a language lesson, however, forever lost. Hence the ongoing debate over the use of target language; • the limited level of sophistication which is inevitable in the early stages of learning a new language makes it extremely difficult to use appropriate content which will interest and engage teenagers for long enough to encourage commitment to learning; • pupils cannot be allowed to ‘opt out’ – they are expected to perform, indeed to express their own personal opinions, to engage in and even to initiate conversations with others. This can increase the tensions between teacher and pupil and requires a particular kind of teaching relationship which may be difficult to acquire in the early stages of a career; • in order to teach a language effectively, the teacher is totally dependent upon the co-operation of the pupils; if they do not respond, the teacher cannot assess their learning and cannot ‘pitch’ future teaching and learning. Interaction is essential. To cope with such demands, the language teacher must be a very quick thinker, have an adaptable personality and be a good, attentive listener and communicator. The most difficult of these attributes for many student teachers seems to be the development of the experienced teacher’s thinking skills as evident in the ability to make those rapid, on-the-spot decisions which determine for better or worse the next phase of the lesson; ‘the expertise sought is practical wisdom and professional judgement’ (Fish, 1995b: 52). This, then, needs to be the major focus in learning how to teach – which leads us on to the next chapter.

Thinking About Your Own Practice What is your own anecdote of (a) a good teacher? (b) a bad teacher? How do these images affect your own practice as a language teacher? What is your own personal view of what makes a good language teacher? What influences do you think have contributed to the development of that view? 39

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To what extent does your view of the good language teacher coincide with or conflict with the views of those with whom you work? What for you would be the determining features of (a) a good student teacher? (b) a weak student teacher?

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Chapter 1.3

Learning to Be a Language Teacher

Research into Learning to Teach ‘The brain still remains a tantalising mystery: to those of us who have been studying it for most of our lives it often seems that the more we learn, the more there is still to learn’ (Greenfield, 1997: xvi). We have to accept that it is impossible to come to any definite conclusions about how people learn. Nevertheless several attempts have been made to identify potential patterns of learning which might help us to facilitate the processes involved. Fry et al. (1999a) provide a useful summary of current understandings about adult learners in general, and recent decades have seen a flurry of publications on the subject of learning to be a teacher, much of it based on the works of Schön and Shulman investigating the development of professional knowledge (Schön, 1983, 1987; Shulman 1986, 1987). Guillaume and Rudney (1993), Furlong and Maynard (1995) and Calderhead and Shorrock (1997) among others have attempted to plot the development of student teachers in order to shed some light on the processes involved, and much of this work will be referred to in greater detail by the mentors writing in Part 2. Useful insights specific to the development of language teachers can be gained, for example, from the contributions of Richards and Nunan (1990), Roberts (1998) and Grenfell (1998). The process of learning to teach is acknowledged as being a highly intricate one and ‘we can safely say that becoming intelligently skilful at teaching requires a combination of various kinds of learning achievement by student teachers’ (Tomlinson, 1995: 29). It is a ‘complex, multi-dimensional activity unique to each student’ (Capel, 1996: 55). Fish (1995b) summarises what she sees as the divergence between those who adhere to an apprenticeship model of learning to teach, based on an understanding of teaching as a technical process of delivery of given values and a predefined curriculum, as opposed to the ‘professional artistry’ school which emphasises education of the whole teacher as a professional individual with great moral responsibilities; this professional teacher must eventually make choices which can profoundly affect the lives of young people (Fish, 1995b: 38–55). The weekly learning journals written by the language student teachers on our course at Birmingham often contain comments such as ‘I think I have learnt more about 41

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myself this week, rather than specific aspects’. Student teachers are not readyformed professionals who simply need to be given the ‘technical stuff’ of the classroom and to build up their stamina by being exposed to gradually more and more pressure. Becoming a teacher is a difficult, challenging, traumatic, devastating and occasionally also elating process. Many of our student teachers describe it as ‘culture shock’; coming face-to-face with an entirely new way of life based on different, and sometimes opposing, values, beliefs and patterns of thinking. ‘Culture shock’ shakes our very identity as a person, makes us question not only our own beliefs and values but also our sense of security as an individual within a given society; as language teachers we should be very aware of the challenges involved in coming to terms with a new culture. Researchers point out that it is impossible to learn all there is to know about teaching in a lifetime, never mind on a one year course: ‘there is no course that could fully prepare a trainee for the complexities of life as a teacher’ (Kirkham, 1992: 70); Fish adds to this: Further, the long-term nature of education (in that much of what is learnt does not cash out into immediate visible achievements) together with the nature of teaching (in that it is an open capacity and can never be mastered) mean that ITE tutors inevitably cannot hope to see most of the real achievements of the fully fledged professional teacher that they have worked towards. (Fish, 1995a: 188) If students come ‘expecting to be “taught how to teach”, to be “given the one way that works”, to be “shown one teacher they can model themselves on”, they will be disappointed’ (Woolnough, 1997: 31). Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for them to arrive with such expectations. The reality of teacher education is perhaps best expressed in a thank-you card received from an ex-student: ‘although I don’t know all the answers, thanks to you I know where to look for them’.

Theory A recurrent theme throughout most of the literature is that of the important role of theory in developing practical wisdom and professional judgement. Adams and Tulasiewicz remind us that ‘European mainland practice has always accorded a place to theory in teacher preparation courses, specifying the number of teaching hours available to the different categories of teachers’ (1995: 77). They suggest that ‘the false dichotomy between theory and practice in teacher preparation in England and Wales has been exacerbated by the adversarial way of introducing the reforms, dividing the two phases of preparation and the location of training’, going on to insist that the two are complementary (Adams & Tulasiewicz, 1995: 77). What exactly is the role, or indeed the nature of ‘theory’ in the development of a ‘becoming teacher’? Tomlinson points out that ‘teacher culture has sometimes tended to adopt a defensive anti-intellectualism’ (1995: 93) and that ‘England has 42

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been particularly noted for its resistance to systematic thinking about teacher and learning’ (1995: 4). Even in these enlightened days of partnership, six of our 26 student teachers admitted at their first campus review day after the initial week of block placement in the autumn term 1999, that they had been told by mentors or other teachers to ‘forget all that theory they teach you at university, listen to us, we know what really happens’. ‘Theory’ tends to be interpreted as lectures about particular theories of teaching and learning which are devoid of basis in reality, caricatured as the theorising of academics and researchers. A glimpse into certain of the journals and even books in university libraries might confirm the popular interpretation of theory as academics trying to impress each other and lesser mortals with their cleverness; but that is only the thin wedge of ‘theory’, and one which most of us working in teacher education prefer to ignore! Tomlinson perhaps encapsulates best my personal understanding of the role of ‘theory’ in teaching when he clarifies that ‘novices focus on surface features, experts map these features on to underlying key ideas and understanding’ (1995: 32). It is these key ideas and understandings, the personal theories of the teacher, developed through interaction between many sources including personal experience but also reading and professional discussion, which form the backbone of teaching performance. Sykes compares teaching with athletics, where in order to achieve its real potential ‘natural’ talent needs to be supplemented by disciplined study of the game under the guidance of skilled coaches and mentors: We all remember the naturals who taught us, who seemed disposed as much by personality as by any special knowledge and skill to make subjects come alive and to reach their students. This common experience supports the adage but is a half-truth at best. Michael Jordan may be a great natural basketball player, but he is also a highly disciplined student of the game who acquired his knowledge and skill from coaches and mentors, which he then perfected through long practice. A hallmark of all excellence is seemingly effortless performance, making the difficult look easy. Great teachers have undertaken careful study and have learned their craft through both formal education and informal experience. Personality alone does not produce great teaching. (Sykes, 1999: 37) The traditional interpretation of ‘theory’ is nevertheless deeply engrained. Tomlinson attempts to counter such negative attitudes by quoting the saying that ‘there is nothing so practical as a good theory’, as ‘a good theory is one that alerts us to consideration of what is important in reality’ (1995: 5). He warns against ‘the traditional separation of this exploration of basic ideas from practical concerns’ (1995: 55): The recommendation for mentoring, then, is that student-teachers need to be exposed to all the relevant considerations entering into the choice and application of particular teaching strategies, from their functional rationales through to tips on what it takes to ‘make them work in practice’. (Tomlinson, 1995: 92) 43

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Grenfell similarly points out that ‘teachers who work with and against theory work with and against the complexity of teaching as an activity’ (1998: 178) and English mentors questioned by Evans insisted that ‘we must have a clear theoretical basis for our teaching in order to do it with confidence and defend it with confidence’ (Evans, 1995: 131). As a teacher moving into higher education and attempting to catch up with current ‘theory’ myself, I realised that experimental ideas which I had intuitively developed and tried to introduce into my own classroom, despite the suspicious eyes of many colleagues, such as diluted forms of flexible learning, collaborative learning and self-assessment, were grounded in ‘theory’ and that others were trying to experiment more fully and more successfully with similar techniques. If I had known about such movements I would probably have been far more effective, and certainly a lot more confident. Roth (1999a) points out that ‘the use of research is associated with higher levels of teacher efficacy’ (187) and that research is best used as a frame of reference, a set of guiding principles to inform practice: ‘these teachers know how to access research, extract key principles, adapt these to particular settings, and in general use theoretical and empirical information as a basis to inform practice’ (188). For me, this is the key role of ‘theory’; hearing and reading about what other people are doing and thinking, what they are discovering, provides new ideas, helps me to clarify and refine my own ideas and perhaps more importantly gives me the confidence that others are thinking along similar lines. Otherwise it is easy to be plagued by questions of one’s own arrogance when trying to introduce something new, particularly when faced with the resistance of experienced, and often senior, colleagues. Teachers need to believe in themselves and in what they are doing in order to be effective; a confident presence in the classroom is essential before any learning can take place. Williams and Burden conclude that ‘learners need to know the reasons why they are required to act in particular ways’ (1997: 49); this applies equally to learner teachers. The knowledge that what you are trying to do is based on the shared understandings of a profession can help to develop confidence. Theory is not a contrast to practice: it is the result of the thinking of many committed minds about that practice, and in its personal interpretation is the fundamental basis for individual practice. It is, therefore, relative and personal, and needs to be firm enough to support confident action yet also open enough to change to avoid fossilisation; if we are not to stagnate then we need input from external stimuli. Experienced teachers gain this input from everyday professional sources of information such as examination syllabuses, textbooks and teachers’ books, departmental and other informal discussions. Whenever time and resources allow they might even attend a professional development course or conference, or snatch some precious time to read a book or professional journal. Student teachers need such input in much greater quantities in order to develop a sound basis for their practice. Ashton asks us to question the ‘practitioner’s fallacy, that is, the belief that practice can be guided solely by “what works” as defined by personal experience’ (Ashton, 1999: 217); she claims that this leaves children at the mercy of individual idiosyncrasy. The personal 44

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beliefs which find expression in this book are not simply developed from personal practice, but from the interaction of a myriad different sources including empirical experience, formal learning and informal discussion over a lifetime; the personal theories of the experienced teacher working with student teachers in a practical environment are equally complex in formation. It is vital to make this explicit to the students themselves, otherwise they persist in thinking that in teaching you ‘learn simply by doing’. To become real teachers rather than pretend to be teachers they need to develop a complex network of beliefs, policies and ideas which give them a basis for purposeful action in the form of goals to work towards. Williams and Burden make a useful observation when discussing language learners: ‘an absence of goals can lead to aimlessness and a lack of any sense of direction. Some people will then tend to look for ‘quick-fix’ immediate solutions to problems without thinking through the possible long-term consequences’ (Williams & Burden, 1997: 74). This could easily be a description of many of our weaker teacher education candidates. In order, however, for new teachers to survive as individuals within a professional teaching culture those beliefs, policies and ideas need to allow them to work within statutory and local expectations of them as teachers, and also be workable in practice. In other words, they need to develop a vision of what language teaching should be like, but not one which is so far beyond the realms of the practical that it can only lead to total failure and frustration. ‘Theory’ plays an important role in the development of that vision; Fish is scathing about those who reject the role of theory: No action, unless it is the action of a madman (an irrational being), is devoid of theory, for theory involves beliefs, assumptions, values and everything we do is thus influenced by theory. What may be absent, of course, is awareness of such theories. Thus to speak of training teachers only in practical things is a nonsense perpetrated by those who have neither experienced nor considered the matter in depth (Fish, 1995b: 57). Furlong et al. also argue for the reinstatement of theory in teacher education: ‘the “flight from theory” may accord with government wishes, but should personal reflection on current practice in school be students’ only guide to what is professionally sound?’ (Furlong et al., 1996: 26).

Practice On the other hand, student teachers also need a practice; theorising in a vacuum will not help them to develop their practical skills. They need a practical starting point from which to grow. Some may already have a nascent practice on which they can build. This can be a blessing, but it can also cause difficulties; perhaps particularly in language teaching where it is often based on the experience of working as a foreign language assistant. The challenge of adjustment from assistant to teacher can be compounded for an English speaker who has not taken into account sufficiently 45

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the influence which the role of English as a world language has on attitudes towards learning English abroad compared with prevalent attitudes in a predominantly English-speaking community towards the learning of other languages. We may therefore need to ‘provide’ some form of practice for those who as yet have none, as well as ‘providing’ a more appropriate practice for those who have one which is based on a non-transferable set of circumstances. We also need to maintain input into the expansion of that practice. The student teachers themselves often put us under considerable pressure to provide them with tips and strategies which they can use: a common refrain from them is that they are constantly expected to come up with new, imaginative ideas for teaching. Where, they ask, are they supposed to find all these ideas? We would not expect our language learners to provide all their own input to develop their language skills, is it therefore fair of us to expect this from teacher learners? The provision of tips, strategies and ideas is essential; what we need to avoid is concentrating solely on this aspect of supporting their embryonic practice without paying sufficient attention to the related development of understandings and judgement about when and how to employ such strategies. Guided practice is essential for the development of theory. As a language teaching profession we have learnt collectively that if we want pupils to learn rules with which to form new language in order to express their own meanings, we must first provide them with some relevant examples of language from which to extrapolate rules. We attempt to find ways of making rules explicit without separating them from the actual meaning of language. We also strive to make them explicit in ways which are meaningful and engaging for the pupils. Similarly, we need to find ways of making theories of language learning and teaching explicit for student teachers without separating them from actual classroom practice. We also need to make them explicit in ways which are meaningful and engaging for the student teachers and which address their own concerns as developing professionals. Just as our language learners need to be ‘given’ some basic language before they can begin to formulate and apply rules, student teachers need to be ‘given’ examples of practice before they can begin to ‘theorise’ about teaching.

Language Teachers Know a Great Deal About Learning a Skill Like Teaching! Ducharme and Ducharme emphasise that ‘teacher educators must be able to prepare students as well as they can for the unknown, but they must also be able and forthright enough to help prospective teachers understand that no program ever prepared its learners for every or even nearly all of the situations that arise’ (1999: 43). In the same vein Furlong and Maynard draw parallels between teacher learners and language learners: ‘both constantly find themselves facing situations which are unique’ (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 46). The analogy could be taken much further; many of the understandings which a language teacher brings to the language classroom can be transferred to work with student teachers. Language 46

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use and teaching are both highly complex performance skills. Language in use is a seamless combination of grammatical rules and vocabulary selected to express a particular meaning. The act of teaching is a seamless combination of chosen theoretical understandings, strategies and techniques combined to achieve a particular educational goal. In each case the skilful practitioner chooses specific examples appropriate to the context and the moment from a vast array of subconsciously stored possibilities. Language in use does not exist within a vacuum but is tailored to the specifics of context and interlocutors; teaching acts equally exist within a context defined by time, place, statutory requirements, the cultural ethos of the individual school and the prevailing relationships between teacher and taught. Skilful use in both cases, however, is dependent upon the availability of a wide knowledge base offering sufficient choice and also upon the ability to select appropriately to suit the occasion. There are also parallels in coping with the practical mechanics of the immediate situation, including the need for confidence in performance and awareness of audience reaction. The comparison can be expanded to highlight important issues in supporting student learners. Our goals for the two groups are the same: independent and increasingly skilful performance in meaningful interaction. In both cases the sum of what is learnt needs to be much more than what is actually practised and demonstrated. A good language teacher does not teach only the vocabulary and structures which the pupil needs to exist within his or her own classroom or to cope with the present topic. The emphasis needs to be upon transferable skills: alerting the learner to other possible uses of the language being taught; to alternative interpretations in different contexts; to alternative ways of saying the same thing; to the subtleties of choice which influence the listener or reader; to the endless possible combinations; and to the almost limitless supply of words and structures available to be learnt. Language teachers also need to admit that although they are experts in the learners’ eyes, they know and use only a small proportion of what is available, even in their native language. The teacher educator has a similar responsibility to help the student teacher to develop skills and understandings which are transferable across contexts and which will form a sound basis for a flexible future career; as well as to open their eyes to the myriad options available to them as language teachers. We do not, of course, overwhelm them with everything all at once: ‘presenting learners with language elements too far ahead of their existing competence will simply lead to overload and prevent them from dealing with the language’ (Grenfell, 2000: 17). Similarly, the fragile self-confidence of student teachers needs to be maintained through astute and appropriate levels of support and challenge (see Martin, 1996) and therefore by careful, focused selection of what needs to be learnt next and how. If we expect too much too soon we risk activating defence mechanisms: ‘personal theorists have argued that the need to maintain and enhance feelings of self-esteem is one of the most basic human needs and that people will go to considerable lengths to ensure that their feelings of self-esteem and self-worth are not damaged’ (Harris, 1999: 77). 47

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If we accept the parallel between learning a language and learning to teach, it has serious implications for the role of teacher educators both in school and at the higher education base. We would not have one language teacher teaching grammar and another teaching vocabulary, leaving it to the pupil to blend the two into a useful whole. Can we then justify having one group of teacher educators teaching ‘theory’ and another teaching ‘practical strategies and techniques’? In fact, if we accept the conclusions of Williams and Burden that ‘the way that teachers behave in the classroom reflects their values and beliefs’ (1997: 44), it is actually impossible to separate the two. If learners are to make sense of their learning and use it to form a coherent whole, each ‘educator’ with whom they work needs to be a model of the whole and to acknowledge that status. School-based mentors are therefore equally responsible for introducing student teachers to ‘theory’ as to ‘practice’, since ‘theory’ in its personal interpretation is the glue which holds the ‘practice’, i.e. the activities and strategies, together in a meaningful whole, and which enables the practitioner to teach. If we ignore the need to develop theoretical understandings we risk falling into the same trap in teacher education as that experienced in foreign language education in England, when many teachers accepted a simple interpretation of the communicative approach which proved to be ‘insufficient on its own’ (Grenfell, 2000: 5). If we restrict ‘theory’ to the one third of the student teachers’ course when they are officially working in a higher education environment divorced from the everyday practicalities of the teaching situation, we artificially dissociate it from the practice which both breathes life into theory and which simultaneously depends upon theory to create meaningful learning experiences for pupils. Practice and theory, like grammar and vocabulary, exist in a symbiotic relationship in which each is meaningless without the other.

Easing the Pressure Does this suggestion mean that student teachers should spend all of their time in school with theoretically aware mentors, absolved from the need for any link with higher education? There may well be a need to reconstruct the role of the university tutor in terms of support for the theoretical development of the mentor; the implications of this will be discussed in the concluding chapter. I would suggest, however, that there is also a need for student teachers to be extricated at times from the site of performance in order to reduce temporarily the need to perform and to allow for less hectic contemplation. After all, when learning a language we sometimes have to extricate ourselves from the pressure of performance, from the use and context of language, in order to consider rules and their transferable application. In Grenfell’s formulation, ‘knowledge about, as well as of, language, must be given prominence in the second language learning process’ (Grenfell, 2000: 19). This approach is supported in the latest English version to date of the National Curriculum: ‘Pupils should be taught the grammar of the target language and how to apply it’ (DfEE/QCA. 1999: 16). Student teachers equally sometimes need to 48

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remove themselves, however reluctantly, from the practical pressures of the busy school and the need to ‘be’ a teacher, in order to consider wider contexts, to think, read and write ‘about’ teaching, and to construct and develop their own rules and policies in relative peace and quiet. Husbands identifies one of the key areas for the continuing role for HE as ‘introducing students to the “practical business of teaching” away from the complexities of the classroom’ (Husbands, 1997: 14). Higher education activities are sometimes seen by practitioners as distant from the practicalities of the real life classroom situation, and this preconception is often handed down to incoming students. Yet if we think about how we work with our language learners, do we immerse them immediately into full-blown practicality where they must deal instantly with the complexity, speed and variability of native speaker language in a real context with all of its distractions? The fluency of a good teacher at work is comparable to the linguistic fluency of a native speaker – somehow the process of teaching, like speaking and writing a language, needs to be slowed down and broken down to make it accessible to the newcomer. The language teacher in the classroom does not operate genuinely as a language user. We speak more slowly, we choose our words more carefully, we emphasise more clearly, we structure the language which we use far more precisely than we would in normal language use. We remove specific examples of language from the naturalistic clutter which surrounds them in the real world to present them in accessible form to the learners, until those learners have reached a sufficient level of competence to be exposed to reality without risk of collapse or loss of confidence and motivation. Similarly, if student teachers are to grasp the elements which make up teaching fluency they need to be provided with carefully chosen and carefully structured elements of teaching removed from the clutter of everyday pedagogic interactions. As a higher education tutor, I attempt to bridge the gap between the two sites of learning at the beginning of the PGCE year by borrowing a class to teach in one of our partnership schools, and am acutely aware of the difference between what I am trying to achieve as a teacher educator and the pressures upon the actual class teachers to teach their pupils ‘normally’. The teachers with their regular classes demonstrate the rapid, dynamic fluency of an interactive lesson. I try to demonstrate the slow build-up of language in careful stages which will be transparent to the student teachers, through repetition and question and answer techniques to reinforcement games and a quasi-communicative activity in a slow, laborious and logical sequence. The aim is to give the student teachers a large handle to grasp, a definite and clearly presented pattern to follow in their initial tentative attempts. When I first attempted this in my first year as a university tutor I perhaps felt too keenly the need to establish my ‘street cred’ as a performing teacher; as I have begun to develop greater understanding of my new role the emphasis has become more upon demonstrating essential principles to the student teachers such as the distinct stages of the lesson, the changeovers in activity, the reactions of pupils if I move on from one stage to another too quickly or allow another to drag on for 49

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too long, or if I wind up the pupils with an accumulation of ‘stirring’ activities without the relief of a ‘settler’. The student teachers can, and do, experience ‘real’ teaching in the classroom with the mentors and other departmental staff, but as a teacher educator I have to be very aware of my specific intentions in terms of their needs as learner teachers and to discipline myself to act accordingly. As Wilkin warns: ‘One can too easily be engaged by the personality and presentation skills of an experienced teacher which may obscure what the trainee ought to be registering: class management technique, matching style and lesson content to the ability of the group, adaptability to class and individual response, involvement of the whole group, in fact those elements of a lesson which the mentor seeks to pinpoint when evaluating the trainee’s teaching’. (Wilkin, 1992: 53–54) Activities at the higher education base have similarly specific purposes, and the (hopefully, and thankfully rare) denigration of such activities by partner mentors is potentially unhelpful to student teachers struggling to develop a professional identity. It is also, dare I say it, less than professional in itself as it goes against the spirit of partnership. If we work together in genuine partnership, each understanding and acknowledging the value of the other’s input into the overall development of the learner teacher, there is tremendous potential to be exploited in the current system. The success of such a system depends, however, upon the ability of tutors, and perhaps even more so the mentors, to blend theory and practice in the minds of the student teachers. Darling-Hammond describes the kind of learning needed to become a good teacher: Teachers learn just as students do: by studying, doing, and reflecting; by collaborating with other teachers; by looking closely at students and their work; and by sharing what they see. This kind of learning cannot occur either in college classrooms divorced from engagement in practice or in school classrooms divorced from knowledge about how to interpret practice. Good settings for teacher learning – in both colleges of education and schools – provide lots of opportunities for research and inquiry, for trying and testing, for talking about and evaluating the results of learning and teaching. (Darling-Hammond, 1999: 18). Furlong and Maynard came to similar conclusions: ‘To an important degree, a body of professional knowledge of pupils, of strategies, of content and of context can only be developed in dialogue with real teaching situations’ (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 175); nevertheless, ‘the fact that the professional knowledge that students need to acquire for themselves is irredeemably practical does not mean that they do not need expert support; nor does it mean that other forms of professional knowledge that are not themselves directly practical are irrelevant’ (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 176).

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Blending Theory and Practice Many of us working as language teachers in England have seen the consequences of an artificial separation of ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ in the language classroom itself, as the last two years of compulsory schooling leading to GCSE examination at 16+ turned into a grammar cramming course to make up for an over-emphasis on basic transactional skills in the early years of language learning. Many of us have then struggled with entrenched negative attitudes towards grammar and accuracy. Student teachers who have been allowed to ‘ignore’ theory in the early stages of skill development frequently react in a similar vein; they can do it well enough to survive and see no reason to push themselves further. Perhaps we can learn from this in making decisions about managing the learning of student teachers. We need to develop ways of encouraging the theory/practice cycle in the same way in which we try to integrate grammar teaching with language-in-use in order to support the development of increasingly sophisticated communication skills. Student teachers need an increasingly sophisticated cycle of practice and rationale; as with our language learners we need to choose appropriate items and ‘chunks’ for them to learn which serve their immediate needs but which can be used to develop transferable patterns and as a stepping-board for increasingly complex understandings and performance. As they gain confidence in use we must challenge them to break down those ‘chunks’ and manipulate them to create new, independent chunks. They can only do this by developing their own theories about how teaching works, and those theories themselves need to be challenged in confrontation with the established and constantly developing understandings of a profession which strives for continual improvement. ‘Theory’ is thus not something to be dealt with at the university or even in weekly mentor meetings in carefully programmed logical order; it is something which spins out of and feeds into the everyday chaotic life of the classroom. As with language teaching, we need to create opportunities for the learning of theory when manipulating our content, but also to seize opportunities arising unplanned from learner need or interest. As language teachers we know that ideally, to maximise motivation and learning, we would teach each item when pupils were ‘ready’ for it, for example teaching past tense not when it comes in the textbook but when pupils want to talk about ‘last night’ or ‘last weekend’. This is when it makes sense to them and thus when they are most likely to use it. Similarly, student teachers need access to the reasons why not just in specific chunks but linked in with their everyday needs. The programme therefore ideally needs to be worked out on a daily or weekly needs analysis basis, but not as the provision of emergency tips and hints, rather as a thoughtful and thorough investigation of problems and issues raised, with a discussion of possible practical solutions along with the rationales behind them. The student will not be able to maximise learning and improve performance if a rigid programme dictates discussion of certain issues at inappropriate points of their development, or equally if they are given ‘quick fixes’ without attention to professional understandings. The 51

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weak student struggling to teach a class is unlikely to benefit from a scheduled discussion of group work, but at the same time often finds it hard to turn the mentor’s practical advice into action without being able to base it in a framework of understanding about pupils, pupil/teacher relationships and the reasons for teachers’ choice of particular strategies. How often have we heard the comment ‘my mentor gave me lots of useful tips but none of them worked’? Can we really say they were useful if they didn’t work? Does making them work depend upon sophisticated understandings which the mentor regards as simply ‘common sense’ and to which the student teacher has no access without support? Student teachers (and mentors?) need to be encouraged to think of theory and practice as a chicken and egg scenario. Perhaps a few examples from our own practice might help to illustrate the point. Like many courses, we begin by asking student teachers to discuss their own understandings of learning, and in particular of language learning. These can then be compared with theories of learning and their implications for teaching. Students are taught a lesson in a new language, and then guided to ‘theorise’ about language teaching and learning from this practical experience; their theorising is supplemented by input from research. Student teachers then use that informed theorising to begin to teach borrowed classes on group visits to partner schools integrated into the university-based blocks of time. As they begin to address new challenges and to meet difficulties in this protected environment, their experiences form a fruitful basis for discussion of strategies which they have used, the variety of strategies which experienced teachers use to deal with similar situations and challenges, and potentially effective patterns of teacher response and intervention suggested by research. This can then form the focus for the selection of new strategies to be tried out as targets for the following session. Challenges can of course be manipulated to promote certain areas of learning: a brief to teach French adjective endings or singular and plural verb forms through oral presentation brings home the differences between the spoken and written language and the need to plan for both as well as to think through very carefully the pupils’ perception of the lesson. A brief to teach the weather in German highlights the need for clarity and precision in comparing and contrasting different types of pattern for pupils (es ist sonnig/es schneit). A brief to teach the perfect tense underlines the contrast between our linguistic understandings of language and the pupil’s perspective as a learner. We do not tell student teachers how to teach such items, rather we ask them to develop and try out their own ideas. This often brings them face-to-face with the need to learn and apply a different perspective. If handled well this can create a powerful motivation to learn; if handled badly it can lead to defensive reactions which may need sensitive intervention. The aim is to encourage student teachers to develop their thinking and their independence in choice; ‘if trainees are to generate their own ideas, they must understand why they are doing what they are doing. Good training is about trainees making ideas their own by understanding them and then putting them into practice, not 52

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simply trying to emulate others’ success’ (Grenfell, 1993: 10). I would contend that there is also a strong parallel with our language learners, in that we must both be on the lookout for, and where possible, engineer, a need to learn if our input is to be as effective as possible. If we tell student teachers what to do and how to teach, they might either adhere slavishly to our advice in order to pass the course without thinking seriously about what they are doing, or alternatively ignore our advice if it contrasts with their own personal theories. There is consensus in the literature that ‘students enter teacher education programs with stable, resistant belief systems and perspectives’ (Guillaume & Rudney, 1993: 66); if we do not encourage expression of these in both practical and theoretical terms we throw away the opportunity to enter into dialogue with them and thus potentially to modify them. This is acknowledged as one of the greatest challenges in teacher education: ‘whether these perceptions can be changed or not during initial teacher education is still questionable’ (Vonk, 1996: 119). Experience tells us, of course, what topics and themes are likely to challenge student teachers and what extra input they are likely to need as we arrange for them to work with larger and older classes; this knowledge is used to construct a programme of seminars to support their needs and to ‘cover’ government requirements for the award of QTS. Language teachers in the UK are, of course, all too aware of the tensions between meeting the needs of learners and demonstrating compliance with the regulations which dominate our profession. If this cycle of theory and practice is to be effective in supporting the development of student teachers’ professional learning and their accumulation of the ‘body’ of knowledge which will allow them to teach in increasingly sophisticated and complex ways, like our language learner who develops ever greater fluency and sensitivity in use of the language, it needs to be continued throughout the student teachers’ school-based periods. This has serious implications for the role of the mentor, both in prompting the cycle and in supporting the student teacher to become an independent learner within it; ‘teachers now have responsibility to make explicit to their students links between theory and practice’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 2). Mentoring is a golden opportunity which we must not throw away: ‘mentoring could be the best means yet devised for weaning learner teachers away from too much dependence on their own learning experiences in school, and developing in them a readiness to examine their practice and assumptions more readily’ (Kirkham, 1992: 69).

Thinking About Your Own Practice What sources of information were available to you to develop your own practice as a teacher? Which of those sources of information did you feel were most useful to you and why? What sources of information are available to you now to continue the development of practice? 53

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What ‘theory’ does a language teacher need? What can you add to the following suggestions: understandings about the language; understandings about pupils; understandings about how pupils learn languages? What ‘theorising’ could be drawn out from the following scenarios: a student teacher moves too quickly from repetition to production; a student teacher accepts one-word answers from pupils, relieved simply to get a response; a student teacher expects pupils to write down words simply from hearing them, without visual input?

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The Intuitively Theoretical Mentor

The Mentor as a Teacher Educator What then is a mentor? Brooks and Sikes warn us that ‘increasing use of mentoring should not lead us to assume that there is also widespread agreement on what a mentor is and what a mentor does’ (1997: 16). Husbands, in the same volume, reminds us that ‘different approaches to the development of school-based ITE have generated quite different conceptions of what mentoring actually involves’ (Husbands, 1997: 12). According to Mardle, ‘it might well be argued that mentoring was a clear move by the HEIs to counter many of the simplified and philistine approaches which had been trailed by right-wing think tanks throughout the 1980s’, yet ‘it would be wrong, however, to assume that the move was merely a knee-jerk reaction’ (Mardle, 1995: 19). Brooks and Sikes insist that ‘the mentor is a new type of teacher educator not a clone of an HEI tutor in a different setting’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 35), which might be interpreted as an argument against the views expressed in the previous chapter of this book. Where does this leave us? Contractual frameworks, levels of support available to mentors and the starting point of the student teachers with whom they work will affect the details of the role, for example, whether students join the school on block placement after an initial period of higher education work or whether the mentor is working independently as a member of a SCITT. Nevertheless, the aims are surely the same as our aims for language learners: the students must be supported, encouraged and challenged to build up an expanding body of knowledge about language teaching (or language in the case of language learners) and simultaneously to develop the confidence and fluency to select appropriately from this body within a real, interactive setting. This requires not just the provision of strategies (vocabulary and structures) but also carefully structured opportunities for the development of understandings about teaching and learning (grammatical awareness). What we do, when we do it, how we do it and indeed who does it, should not be determined by some demarcation of roles between university lecturers and schoolteachers, but by the needs of the student teacher in his or her process of development into a professional. What is important is that ‘mentors have to take actions to ensure that student 55

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teachers are not only presented with learning opportunities but also that they are in a position to learn from these opportunities’ (Husbands, 1997: 14).

What Do Mentors Do? The commonly accepted role of the mentor in school-based ‘training’ seems to include: • the provision of observation opportunities for the student teacher; • the provision of collaborative teaching experiences; • the development of a teaching timetable which gradually exposes the learner to a wider range of aspects of teaching, increasing in the level of challenge; • the observation of the student teacher’s own practice with the aim of providing focused feedback and advice; • the negotiation of priorities and setting of targets; • the assessment of the candidate’s progress against established criteria. Many partnership arrangements include the designation of a weekly tutorial meeting between mentor and tutee to facilitate the work; often this is integrated with a programme of topics to be discussed in order to cover the agreed syllabus. To take Brown’s distinction (2000), it seems therefore that the ‘methodology’ of mentoring is fairly well established; perhaps the ‘pedagogy’ is less so.

A Pedagogy of Mentoring Calderhead and Shorrock describe the different ways in which the mentor can influence the development of the student teacher: influencing by example; influencing by coaching; influencing through practice-focused discussion; influencing through structuring the context; influencing through emotional support; and influencing through devised learning experiences (1997: 198–201). Tomlinson gives a very useful detailed outline of the skills and challenges of mentoring, describing the process as ‘reflective coaching, that is, ways of assisting student interns to acquire intelligent teaching ability through engagement with the teaching skill cycle’ (1995: 57). He emphasises that ‘mentors have to relate to and help student-teachers as persons and to influence their actions, which means engaging with their values, motives and feelings’ (57). Counselling skills play an important role in that engagement, as the mentor must be accepting, sensitive, empathic and genuine and be a facilitator helping students to find their own solutions rather than telling and directing (59–62); however, unlike in counselling, the goals are strictly laid down beforehand so there is also a dimension of ‘coaching’ in the shape of ‘purposeful interpersonal dealings with student-teachers’ (64). We must bear in mind that as experienced teachers we have access to an accumulated wealth of knowledge, including knowledge of techniques and strategies, which we take for granted; they form part of our professional ‘common sense’. 56

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When helping student teachers to find their own solutions, we must accept that they do not have access to that accumulated knowledge, and that the knowledge which they do have may well be insecure. The role goes beyond counselling, therefore, and incorporates forms of instruction; the challenge is to extend student teachers’ practical knowledge base whilst simultaneously focusing on the development of practical judgement. Watson (1994: 9) writes of her attempts to offer examples and anecdotes rather than recipes for success so as to ‘provide’ practical knowledge in the form of a focus for discussion. She warns, however, of the tendency of some students to interpret this as directive. As language teachers we make use of skilful questioning techniques, for example offering alternatives, in order to support pupil performance: ‘the ability to ask questions is one of the most powerful teaching tools’ (Harris, 1999: 71). This tool is equally essential when working with student teachers. As in language teaching, the formulation of our questions will determine the level of student response; if we ask closed or simple questions the answers given are most likely to be equally closed or simple. If we ask complex questions we are challenging the learners to operate at a more sophisticated level. A mentor studying for the Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring also recently pointed out that the kinds of questions which student teachers ask are in many ways indicative of their levels of understanding and stages of development and can thus help us to formulate appropriate questions to lead them on. Mentoring thus becomes the development of a professional dialogue. Arthur et al. (1997) present contrasting models of the pragmatic mentor who offers tips and suggestions and the discursive mentor who enters into a pedagogic dialogue; their work amplifies a refrain which is common throughout the literature. Earlier reference was made to Brown’s identification of ‘talk’ as the manifestation of the way in which the teacher ‘interacts with the methodology to engage pupils in their learning’ (2000: 188–189). Roberts provides a rationale for this: ‘talk is the essential bridge between privately constructed meaning and social activity. It helps us to negotiate between our private meanings and those of others’ (Roberts, 1998: 34). Dann too concludes that ‘a rich dialogue related to experience, insight, reflection and evaluation needs to be created’ (Dann, 1995: 60). The quality of interaction between mentor and student teacher will determine real learning more forcefully than the topics discussed or the nature of tasks provided (see Calderhead & Shorrock, 1997: 206). As language teachers we have all had ample experience of pupils who have been able to jump through the hoops of our classrooms, give us perfect answers, achieve full marks when practising set pieces, but who have failed to make real sense of what they are doing and ultimately learnt little real language. To support them towards developing a real understanding of issues and patterns we would need to spend much more individual time with them than is possible. Working one to one with a student teacher, or with a pair or small number of teachers, the mentor has a unique opportunity to develop that pedagogical relationship, to identify the pattern of the individual’s understandings, engage in the 57

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creation and development of meaning and to promote real, lasting learning. Making the most of this opportunity with extremely limited time and resources involves a very skilful pedagogy. Mentors, like all language teachers, need to work from an understanding that ‘their words, their actions and their interactions form part of every individual learner’s own construction of knowledge’ (Williams & Burden, 1997: 53). Lack of time is an oft-quoted reason for the adoption of a pragmatic, rather than discursive approach to mentoring. Time constraints in mentoring as in teaching often lead to a process of ‘telling’ rather than ‘discussing’; yet we insist to our student teachers that ‘telling’ doesn’t work. Woolnough (1997: 32) reminds us that ‘the role of the curriculum tutor and the mentor is not to tell the students what to do, but to introduce them to good practice and to ensure that they are thinking analytically and constructively about it in a supportive environment’. Brooks and Sikes also state that ‘it is through the process of articulating their experiences that students can also deepen their insights into them’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 24) and that ‘mentoring primarily places the emphasis on teachers’ thinking’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 96). Kirkham reminds us that ‘the mentor does not simply instruct the trainee. Teaching is far too much a matter for individual perception and personality for that (Kirkham, 1992: 67). Tomlinson emphasises the central importance of listening to the student teachers, giving ‘time, opportunity and encouragement for the person’s actual message to get through’ (Tomlinson, 1995: 76). Fish (1995b: 128) presents similar ideas, emphasising the vital role of discussion: ‘an informed and systematic discussion of action is necessary to elicit the meaning from the practical experience . . . and to enable the practice to be refined and improved’; the aim of the mentor in her view is to help the student elicit meaning from action (130). Such interpretations of the mentor’s pedagogic role are echoed throughout mentoring literature, but also balanced by discussion of the need for the mentor to be proactive in the development of the student teacher: ‘if students are to develop fully, then there will be times when mentors will need to be assertive in their interventions, providing students with what they “need”, rather than what they necessarily want’ (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 180). This is the trap for the naïve and inexperienced educator as described by Darling-Hammond (1999) and Murray (1999); we have all dealt with the student teacher who entertains pupils with word searches and games all day long without paying due attention to language progression, or who provides pupils with answers on request rather than challenging and guiding them to think for themselves. It would be wrong of us to emulate this in our own practice, simply to avoid conflict with the student teachers as learners.

Accessing Mentor Knowledge ‘Clearly students consider teachers to have a wide range of knowledge, which will help them learn to teach, but there is often a lack of understanding on the 58

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part of both students and teachers about how students might gain access to it’ (Fish, 1995b: 107). Fish goes on to emphasise that the learning processes are more important than ‘coverage’ and that the mentor needs to be an example of an enquiring and reflective practitioner who questions, challenges, thinks and offers a considered view (108). She summarises that ‘quality mentoring, then, is mentoring practice which is based upon an understanding of educational principles’ (109). Evidence suggests that experienced teachers find it difficult to articulate their internalised theories and to understand and accept the learner teacher’s need for theory (see for example, Tomlinson, 1995). That should not surprise us as language teachers; the fluent speaker operates from acquired Sprachgefühl, rather than from the conscious application of specific rules. The more fluent the speaker, the more challenging for them the prospect of breaking down the language into manageable and logically ordered items for learners to tackle. Student teachers often comment that it is easier to ‘teach’ their second language; they claim that this is because they have less choice of language and also because they have to plan more carefully. I would argue that it is also because they are still approaching that language as a conscious learner rather than as an accomplished, intuitive user. Similarly, the native speaker might protest that he or she has never learnt grammar, yet research into first language acquisition plots the development of rules in children’s language use. We recognise that in the different context of second language learning short cuts commensurate with the cognitive maturity of the learner can, and should, be taken; thus content is selected and patterns presented. The accomplished teacher might protest that they know no theory, yet their personal theories are the foundations which guide their practical work: ‘the competent teacher of today has a complex pattern of understandings that come partly from training and from reading, but largely from experience and from professional discourse with colleagues’ (Bassey, 1995: 52). In fact, Bassey tries to redefine ‘theory’ within an educational setting: ‘within the arena that I am describing as educational research, the concept of ‘theory’ is quite different from that of sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, historians or economists. There are few general theories. Instead there are personal theories of practitioners and of policy-makers’ (1995: 52). Awareness and understanding of grammar in context are shortcuts to the development of language skills. Similarly, an introduction to theories about language, language learning and learning in general is a short cut to the development of good practice denied to student teachers who are expected to learn ‘on the job’ with teachers who reject the usefulness of such theory. Access to the personal theories of respected practitioners can help learner teachers to place their work in context and thus make it easier for them to learn from it. Later chapters provide examples of mentors exploring their personal theories and in some cases providing access to them for student teachers; it may be that future mentor development needs to concentrate on facilitating that process.

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What Understandings Do Language Teachers Have Which Can Help Them to Become Good Mentors? Earlier sections attempted to draw parallels between the performance skills of language use and teaching and the ways in which each might be learnt. Language teachers possess certain skills and understandings which are particularly relevant in working with student teachers. The challenge is to transfer application of those skills to a new context, taking into account a range of factors. There are advantages to working with student teachers: the mentor will be working with a significantly smaller number of learners who take their course very seriously and are determined to succeed, and have proven their worth as experienced and accomplished learners with many readily developed useful life and study skills. Nevertheless there are also potential difficulties: these are adults, not children, often with strongly established personalities and patterns of work and learning, preconceived ideas about the world in general and teaching in particular, very specific expectations of their course and their tutors and mentors, and a great deal to lose in case of confrontation and failure. They also have ambivalent status as simultaneous teachers and learners, which can cause conflicts of interest not only for themselves but also for those with whom they work, both adults and children. The mentor therefore needs to employ the utmost tact and diplomacy, approaching the task with understanding and compassion whilst still maintaining high expectations and setting high standards through example and challenge. There is ample discussion in the mentoring literature of the issue that being a good teacher is a prerequisite for but not a sufficient guarantee in itself of becoming a good mentor. There are aspects of the language teacher’s work which might make the transition easier. Understanding how to learn a skill We know that learning a language means: not only practice but ‘theorising’ about practice; developing transferable and adaptable patterns; having the courage to apply those patterns in practice in order to find their limitations; regarding mistakes not as failures but as opportunities to learn and criticism not as destruction but as guidance. We know that surface behaviours, be they speech or actions, are not the sum total of what is being learnt; rather that we need to pay close attention to an analysis of what is said and done not simply as behaviours in their own right but as manifestations of developing understandings. From this we can identify emergent patterns and decide how best to intervene to redirect learners’ understandings where necessary. We also know that it can be detrimental to pounce upon every mistake that is made, but that we need to be selective and purposeful in identifying target areas whilst simultaneously encouraging trial and experimentation. We know that mistakes can be induced by the over application of rules, but that the development of those rules must in itself be acknowledged and applauded, and correction given sensitively and positively. Learners need directed learning phases 60

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but also opportunities to try things out for themselves in real situations and to learn independently. All of these understandings can inform our work with learner teachers. Our goals are similar. We must accept that language learners will develop their own idiosyncratic use of language with their own vocabulary, learning not necessarily what we want to teach them but what they as individuals feel is useful and necessary to express themselves. Student teachers too will be selective and idiosyncratic in their development of teaching skills, not clones but individuals in their own right. Yet we also know how difficult it is to let go of our learners. Starting where the learners are Student teachers initially find it difficult to pitch lessons because they are dependent upon knowing what has been ‘done’, lacking the skills to assess what pupils ‘know and can do’ for themselves. An experienced teacher spends the first few weeks with a language class getting to know the class as a class, as individual personalities and as learners, assessing their abilities and the ways in which we think they will learn best. We need to go through similar processes with our student teachers, getting to know their beliefs and personalities and the ways in which they are likely to respond to tasks and approaches, before we can work out how to pitch our work with them and determine an appropriate route and pace for development. Tasks which we set for them in the early stages may be too easy or too challenging, and as with our language learners we need to be prepared to cope with this so as to maintain their enthusiasm and faith in themselves. Similarly, they will need opportunities to demonstrate their own ideas and beliefs right from an early stage, rather than being simply told what to do. As with our language learners, dependence upon successfully executed set pieces is not sufficient for us to assess the true measure of their capabilities or the nature of their understandings. We need to observe them in action, reserving judgement based on our own understandings in order to tease out theirs. We need to prompt them to explain the reasons behind their choices rather than to tell them why they are wrong, and to use the information which we glean from observation and discussion to guide our development of an appropriate programme. Constructing a learning programme Once we have assessed the current state of progress of our language learners, we then start to select appropriate and manageable chunks of learning to present to them. We encourage our learners to rehearse those chunks, whilst simultaneously taking steps to ensure their comprehension and making use of skilful questioning to explore understanding and guide deeper learning. We try to personalise what is being learnt so that it will appeal to individual learners and be purposeful for them. We build contexts around the items which we have chosen, demonstrating 61

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links between items, emphasising meaning and transferability, introducing learners to the wider context and drawing their attention to wider applications and implications where possible. We encourage our learners to break down the chunks and understand how each individual piece contributes to the whole whilst also being capable of playing a role in other chunks. Thus we support the development of pupil language into an integrated system which can be adapted and applied at will to create further meanings. Ideally the course of our work is guided not by a textbook or examination syllabus, but by what the learner next needs to learn and is ready for, and will therefore learn more willingly and easily. These principles are valid also for teacher education: we need an overall understanding of what it is the student teacher needs to learn, but the programme itself needs to be tailored to the individual and geared to their patterns, pace and interim levels of understanding. As mentioned earlier, the questions which student teachers ask us can be indicative of their levels of understanding, and skilful use of questioning on our part can prompt them to explore and develop that understanding. Understanding of the interdependence of language and culture The language teacher is perhaps more aware than most of the potential for incomprehension and misunderstanding when working in the classroom. As language teachers we feel a responsibility to make ourselves understood, to simplify and adapt our use of language so that the learners can reap maximum benefit from their time with us. We are aware that learning a new means of communication also implies learning a new way of understanding the world; a new language represents a new culture with different ways of thinking, different customs and different social expectations. The learner teacher is also entering a new culture: the professional culture of teaching with its own language as manifestation of the ‘common sense’ of teachers. It can be all too easy for us as members of that profession, in a similar way to native speakers of a language, to assume comprehension and acceptance of the implicit ideas and understandings expressed by the ways in which we speak and behave. When we speak of ‘what works’ for example we apply a whole range of concepts about the teaching and learning of our particular subject. For the naïve, inexperienced student teacher it could simply imply managing to get out of the lesson without confrontation. With student teachers as with language learners, we need to pay close attention to our use of language and to the need for ensuring shared understandings. Role model and representative of a culture The huge array of literature available on the topic of mentoring underscores the complexity of the mentor’s role, highlighting the need for expert skills in coun62

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selling, guiding, supporting, challenging and assessing. A central factor, however, is the importance of the mentor as a role model. This can be interpreted simply as a model of good practice to emulate, but it is actually far more powerful and links in with the idea of cultural learning suggested above. Both language teacher and mentor act not only as a vital role model of ways of speaking and behaving, but also as representatives of the culture which they are responsible for introducing. An important part of our job as language teacher is to promote positive attitudes towards speakers of other languages and an engagement with other cultures. Similarly, the mentor plays an important role in inducting the student teacher to the professional culture of teaching. This is not just by being in the classroom: ‘an average teacher will spend less than half of their working time in the classroom, but that time is so important that many believe nothing else matters’ (Stern, 1995: 2). Our professional habits, customs and ways of thinking have simply become ‘common sense’ to us, and seem unimportant compared with the urgency of performance. However, the performance aspect of our teaching is only the tip of the iceberg; the processes of assessment, thinking and decision making which go on under the surface are the real essence of teaching skill. Furlong and Maynard identify an early stage of student teacher development as ‘acting like a teacher, without necessarily understanding the underlying purpose or implication of those actions’ (1995: 82); they attest to the difficulty which many student teachers experience in moving beyond this to ‘thinking like a teacher’ (1995: 89). Perhaps the way to help them to move beyond this is to demonstrate explicitly that acting like a teacher involves serious thinking, the weighing-up of alternatives and new ideas and the making of choices based on a comparison of rationales; Calderhead and Shorrock emphasise ‘the importance of the mentor in introducing the novice into ways of thinking and acting’ (1997: 16). We need make it clear to student teachers by the role models which we present that learning to teach, as well as continuing to learn to teach, involves a lot more than simply accumulating time in the classroom and good ideas. It is not simply a case of building up enough stamina and speed of preparation to cope with a full timetable, it involves knowing what you are doing and why, what you want to achieve and why, and what compromises you need to make between your ideals and the constraints of context, time and resources, as well as the determination to strive to overcome those constraints. In extreme cases, ‘taking a superior attitude, or failing to take the opportunity to gain new insights into teaching practice and teacher thinking, are indications of an impoverished professional attitude’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 101) and more importantly, set a bad example for new entrants to the professions. Student teachers need access not only to examples of teacher behaviour, but also to the processes of thinking behind that behaviour and the whole essence of the professional being.

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Part 1: The Context

The Tasks of the Mentor The mentor’s role is therefore manifold; the mentor needs to: • provide a role model of a thoughtful, enquiring teacher who is aware of the implications of their actions and choices and seeks to further their own understanding of methodology and pedagogy; • develop a supportive relationship with the student teacher which allows for a strong counselling dimension; • explore, acknowledge and value the student teacher’s own understandings of and aims for teaching; • share his or her own understandings of and aims for teaching with the student teacher, though in a way that acknowledges that they are personal and contextbound and that others may have equally valid views; • provide access to examples of good teaching practice and help the student teacher to ‘see’ what is important within them as well as what could further be improved, and to understand the rationales involved; • provide opportunities for student teachers to try out their own developing practice in a supportive and protected atmosphere and to receive encouraging yet honest feedback on it; • create appropriate and supported challenges to push the student teacher into making progress; • discuss their own, departmental and the student teacher’s practice in an objective and positive manner, helping the student teacher to identify strengths and weaknesses in both their own practice and that of experienced teachers; • listen carefully to the student teacher and prompt and respond appropriately to help the learner to clarify, develop and consolidate their own ideas as well as to deal effectively with new challenges; • ensure that discussion of teaching moves beyond a superficial conversation about surface behaviours to exploration of underlying issues in depth; perhaps in particular avoiding the neglect of subject-specific issues in favour of classroom management; • accept the student teacher’s right to develop their own practice, even though this may differ in essence from the practice of the mentor. In summary the mentor, as a teacher educator, needs to adapt the skills of language teaching to a new audience and a new topic, developing new understandings along the way. ‘Simply being “a good teacher” is not enough, for mentoring is not a straightforward extension of being a schoolteacher. Different perspectives, abilities, aptitudes, attitudes and skills are necessary, and while “good teachers” may possess these, it is not inevitable that they will’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 66); perhaps language teachers are more likely to possess the essence of these skills than most? Williams and Burden provide a useful description of pedagogy which can be applied across subjects and contexts: ‘the essence of effective teaching 64

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and learning becomes understanding how meaning becomes attributed, and conducting conversations that elaborate, relate and extend personal meaning’ (1997: 51); the challenge for the mentor therefore is to develop their understanding of teaching, teacher education and learner teachers in the same way that they have developed their understandings of language, language teaching and learning and language learners. The following chapters provide some examples of how individual mentors have tried to develop such understandings and used them to conduct and develop pedagogical conversations with their learner teachers.

Thinking About Your Own Practice What steps will the student teacher need to take and what understandings will they need to develop in order to: • set up and follow up a grammar lesson? • build up a dialogue? • carry out a listening or reading lesson as opposed to conducting a listening or reading test? • make sure that the pupils understand, rather than simply repeat, in a question and answer session? Identify a ‘chunk’ of teacher knowledge for each of the following areas: • • • •

classroom management; use of the target language; lesson planning; the teaching of grammar.

For each ‘chunk’ which you have chosen, consider the following issues: (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)

Why do you think they need to learn this? How can you introduce student teachers to this chunk? How can they practise it? What general principles can be learnt about and from this chunk? How will you extrapolate those principles from the practice? How will you expand those principles and that practice? What other resources will student teachers need to consult to further their understanding of the ‘chunk’ and its implications?

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Part 2

Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Mentoring

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Introduction to Part 2

Previous chapters have discussed some of the many ‘theories’ of mentoring and attempted to link these in to a specifically modern languages approach. It is now time to turn our attention to practicalities. The next two sections focus on practical examples of modern language mentoring. In this first section, mentors working within The University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership discuss their experiences in the light of their own investigations. The first four chapters are investigations of practice by mentors pursuing a Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring in the School of Education. Mentors working within the Partnership are offered the opportunity to gain accreditation for their work with student teachers. Compulsory attendance at initial mentor workshops and at regular subject mentor briefing days is taken into account for the first module, which also entails two further taught days and the completion of a 4,000-word assignment analysing a relevant issue negotiated with the course tutor. To complete the Postgraduate Certificate mentors then undertake a double project module which encourages them to carry out supported research in their own environment, leading to improved understandings and practice. Evidence for this is produced in the form of an 8,000-word project report and evaluation. The 60 credits which mentors accumulate during the two modules constitute a Postgraduate Certificate, or they can be supplemented by other modules and a dissertation to lead to a Masters degree. The work reproduced here has been chosen and organised to represent a progression of themes. In Chapter 2.1, Dave Jenkins discusses the importance of weekly student teacher/mentor meetings as a focus for the discussion of progress and links this with ideas about student teacher development. This is followed in Chapter 2.2 with an analysis of his work with a particular student teacher over the course of a year, concentrating on the issue of providing feedback and setting targets. In Chapter 2.3, Elaine Salmon, recognising the importance of a cooperative departmental approach to working with student teachers, extends this idea to an analysis of departmental styles of feedback and the identification of departmental training needs. In the following chapter Inge Johnson then outlines a project using a collaborative approach to working with student teachers as a means to focus their attention on pupil learning rather than teacher performance. To round off the section, 69

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Carmen D’Arcy shares with us the devastation of failure with an apt reminder that even the most accomplished mentor is powerless if the mentee refuses to accept their share of the responsibility. Each of these chapters highlights specific issues for consideration which are reflected in the ensuing questions.

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Chapter 2.1

Keeping Pace with Development Through the Weekly Meetings DAVE JENKINS Part of the agreement between Partnership Schools and the University of Birmingham provides for the arrangement of a weekly meeting between mentor and student to discuss progress and plan for future development. This meeting is of course only one among many interactions with the student teacher, as mentors and other departmental members are regularly engaged in ‘chats’ prior to lessons, at break, at lunchtimes and after school. However, the weekly meeting in protected time is a more formal occasion and an important focus for the week. The following discusses, among other matters, the purpose of that meeting in relation to the mentor’s task of guiding the student teacher in building up competences towards achievement of the Standards for Qualified Teacher Status (DfEE, 1998).

Timing of the Weekly Meeting When first approached by the senior mentor as to when I would like time reserved for weekly meetings with student teachers, I felt that the timing was not particularly significant. However, on consideration I decided that as near to the end of the week as possible would be most beneficial. I have sometimes been fortunate enough to be able to use Friday afternoons for the purpose, so that added to the lunch hour this potentially gave over two hours. On occasions most of the time has been needed, but usually discussions have been much shorter. I identified the end of the week as the best time for meetings because it would allow both the students and myself time to review, preview and prepare for the following week. We could review classes taught and lessons observed, taking into consideration good and bad aspects and analysing why they had happened; we could discuss targets previously selected; and we could use the rest of the session for constructive discussion. After the meeting there would be preparation time while ideas were still fresh in the mind.

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Three is a Crowd? Since, wherever possible, the University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership places students in pairs, another early consideration was whether to meet the two students individually or together. Time constraints in a typical week at school often mean that it is easier to see the students together, and it can be both rewarding and comforting for them to share experiences. I have often found that student teachers, although critical of themselves, are excellent observers of each other and exchange ideas to good effect. It is also fair to say that in the five weeks of the first teaching placement during November and the early stages of the second placement in the Spring Term, they spend a lot of time in each other’s company as teachers, observers and companions. In their first weeks of teaching, during the stages of development described by Maynard and Furlong as ‘early idealism’ and ‘survival’ (1995: 12), many student teachers start their practice with a clear picture of themselves in front of a class based on memories of their own teachers; they then find themselves vulnerable, and to some extent, powerless when they are uncertain of the rules, procedures and expectations of each classroom. I therefore believe it is helpful to hold the weekly mentor meeting with the two students together. As Placement 2 progresses and the student teachers become more experienced, confident and hopefully competent, it is probable that the meeting is more usefully conducted on an individual basis. There may be a more specific issue, concern or area of competence that needs discussing. The more able student has probably passed through the ‘recognizing difficulties’ stage and is now ‘hitting the plateau’ (Maynard & Furlong, 1995: 13). They will be in need of new challenges and a different focus in their lesson preparation, content and evaluation. Conversely, the student who is struggling may still need support in terms of ‘survival’ and more basic challenges such as starting or finishing a lesson, classroom control, planning more appropriate material, collaborative teaching. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument for the provision of some opportunity to learn from each other, so that organising the available time to allow for joint as well as individual discussion could be beneficial. As well as allowing the opportunity for student teachers to learn from one another, I also feel that mentor meetings can be a chance to learn from other members of the department and school. I always consider the presence and opinions of fellow colleagues at student/mentor meetings as valuable; their knowledge of their classes and their different approaches to teaching enable the students to experience a rich variety of lessons, advice and teacher models.

The Early Weeks Due to the structure of the University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership courses, when student teachers arrive in our school for Placement 1 they have spent short periods of time in a variety of other schools with their fellow students and tutors, 72

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observing experienced teachers and collaboratively teaching lessons themselves. My first wish for them is to see as much of the school and as many different styles of teaching as possible during the first few days of the placement. Apart from spending time in the languages department, the student teachers each shadow a member of staff from a different department for a day, as well as a pupil. This helps the student to start learning to ‘see’ the workings of a classroom, how different teachers have forged relationships with their pupils and what the pupils themselves have to endure during the course of a typical day. As Furlong et al. (1994) suggest, the students should concentrate on the rules, routines and rituals of the classroom at this stage of their observation and discussion. The mentor can also select items for focused student observation, such as how different teachers start and finish their lessons, or how they manage classes and apply the school’s disciplinary procedures. This also helps to break down the ‘early idealism’ (Maynard & Furlong, 1995: 12), i.e. the images the student teachers have of themselves and their feelings towards pupils, influenced strongly by their memories of their own teachers’ styles and relationships with classes. Having seen so many different styles, they can be encouraged to start considering their own teaching ‘performance’, and this is the focus of my first weekly mentor meeting. In my experience as a mentor I have found that, although most students appreciate the value of observation, they are desperate to start teaching themselves. We therefore select items for collaborative teaching, planning the lessons together with the student taking responsibility for some parts of it. I found this to be a particularly rewarding exercise when working with a student teacher who lacked confidence in her second language, in this particular case German. She was able to break herself gently into teaching it and her confidence grew during the course of her placements to the extent that she was happy to accept a teaching post requiring a significant amount of German. One other aspect of collaborative teaching is that it gives us the opportunity to analyse and comment on each other’s part of the lesson at our weekly meeting from an increasingly equal standing: in other words, with the mentor/student division gradually disappearing. From the collaborative teaching stage the student is, once again, very keen to progress to what Furlong et al. (1994: 50–52) call ‘supervised teaching’, where the student develops their own performance and teachers observe specific competences. Mentors need to establish a regular programme of observation supported by tightly focused feedback. The competences in training and analysis here are those indicated by the Standards, i.e. knowledge and understanding; planning, teaching and class management; monitoring, assessment, recording, reporting and accountability; and other professional requirements. The specific modern languages focus centres upon classroom use of the target language and the development of communication with and between pupils through skilful use of questioning. These areas would probably be observed in isolation in the early stages of the placement, but gradually brought together in the context of later lesson observations to underline their interdependence. 73

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When discussing subject knowledge and understanding and the application of this to planning and teaching during our meetings I focus particularly on the clarity of presentation and of target language used in conjunction with the level of ability of the class being taught. Fortunately, I have not yet had a student whose subject knowledge has been lacking; indeed their linguistic knowledge has been excellent. More of an issue is whether they can impart their knowledge to the pupils with the appropriate balance between simplicity and detail as between subtlety and directness. My own experience is that I have often felt more successful at imparting information in my second foreign language rather than my first, because I have to put more careful thought and planning into my methodology. Classroom management is an area of competence which probably features in most, if not all, lesson observations and weekly meetings throughout the students’ placement. It embraces and underpins everything the student attempts to do in the classroom, from the layout of the furniture and deployment of resources to the management of the pupils and the timing of activities. It is therefore also intricately interlinked with teaching methodology. If the lesson has not gone as well as hoped it may well be some aspect of class management that has been lacking and needs to be discussed. Monitoring, assessment, recording, reporting and accountability need to be addressed collaboratively between mentor and student for the majority of the placement, particularly as departmental and school policies are in place to ensure consistency. These are skills that take a long time to acquire, and the PGCE year is probably not long enough for the student teacher to do so (though unfortunately OFSTED and the TTA seem not to agree). Wider professional development is another area which I try to include in each week’s meeting. The pastoral aspects of the curriculum in particular have become increasingly important features in present-day teaching and the student needs to be actively involved in registration, Personal, Social and Moral Education sessions (PSME) and break-time supervision in preparation for their future employment.

A Specific Training Example In their research into teaching competences, Furlong, Maynard, Miles and Wilkin refer to the requirement in the then current government list of competences that Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) should be able to communicate clearly and effectively by questioning pupils and providing instruction, explanations and feedback (Furlong et al. 1994: 51). They then outline how a mentor might promote the development of questioning technique for a student teacher: initially the student observes experienced teachers and notes the range of their questioning; this is followed up by observation of and feedback on the student’s own questioning technique by the mentor. By way of specific examples of points for consideration by the student and/or the mentor in their observations, they suggest looking at who is chosen to answer questions, how much time is given for pupils to provide answers, and what 74

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happens if a wrong answer is given. With regard to the ‘content’ they suggest considering whether the questions are concerned with class management or lesson content; how appropriately they are pitched; what type of questions are asked; what pupils do and how they respond; and what skills the questions demand of the pupils (repetition, interpretation, manipulation of language) (adapted from Furlong et al. 1994: 51). Since questioning techniques are such an essential part of leading pupils from reception to production in a foreign language, this type of investigation may be particularly essential within our own context. We might add questions such as ‘what range of pupil language is being elicited by the questions?’; ‘are questions formulated so as to demand manipulation of verbs or longer sentences, or is the teacher/student satisfied with one word answers?’; ‘what differentiation techniques are being used in questioning, and are these appropriate?’; ‘if the student/teacher switches the person of the verb, have pupils been linguistically prepared for this?’; ‘could the pupils have answered the question if it were asked in English?’; ‘are pupils themselves given sufficient support and encouragement to ask questions as well as answer them?’ I refer to the research of Furlong et al. (1994) at length because I think it provides an excellent example of how a mentor can focus on a particular area of competence or skill and ‘train’ a student through the observation of an experienced practitioner and the application of observed and discussed skills in their own performance. Clearly, the student’s placement is not long enough to analyze each and every area of the Standards in such depth, but some could be selected for coverage in this way and revisited at later weekly meetings. The mentor will need to identify which competences the student most needs to develop and choose those for investigation in greater and more specific detail.

Later Stages of Student Teacher Development As the student approaches the later stages of the course he or she has hopefully gained in confidence and competence and is starting to look like, sound like and behave like a ‘teacher’. Maynard and Furlong suggest that the student may ‘hit the plateau’ at this point; ‘at last they have found a way of teaching that seems to work and they are going to stick to it!’ (1995: 13). The danger here is that essential aspects of their work such as planning may start to slide as they begin to ‘ “relax” a little’ (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 89). The student goes through the motions, feeling satisfied if the pupils enjoyed or appeared to be interested in their activities. It is now that mentors need to take a different stance and alter the focus of the meeting. Different research expresses the same point in slightly different ways: Daloz identifies ‘three fairly distinct types of things’ that mentors do: ‘they support, they challenge, and they provide vision (Daloz, 1986: 212); Calderhead (1987) describes how students pass through the stages of ‘fitting in’ ‘and ‘passing the test’ to ‘exploring’; Guillaume and Rudney talk about a ‘transition from student to professional teacher’ (1993: 73); Furlong, Maynard, Miles and Wilkin describe a 75

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process moving from teaching to learning, where the student (and mentor) need to look more deeply at the content of lessons and consider exactly what it is the pupils are learning, a process which they call ‘decentring’ (Furlong et al. 1994: 52); Furlong and Maynard say that the challenge now for teachers and tutors is to help the student move on to a ‘fuller, more professional understanding of what is involved in effective teaching’ (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 92); and Martin declares that ‘challenge is a matter of right (for novices), and of responsibility (for mentors), (Martin, 1996: 52). Up to this point the mentor’s role has been based upon providing friendly support and, on occasions, a shoulder to lean on; but now the mentor might act as ‘devil’s advocate’ (Martin, 1996: 49) or a ‘critical friend’ (Furlong et al. 1994: 52). The need is to spur the student on ‘without obvious goads’ (Martin, 1996: 50), encouraging them to be critical while remaining willing to experiment with different teaching strategies. Elliott (1994) puts forward the principle that the feeling of being uncomfortable acts as a trigger to development to achieve a state in which they feel comfortable again. All this requires a number of skills on the part of the mentor, not least diplomacy, for there is considerable conflict between the supportive role and the critical, judgemental assessor. It is certainly a good idea for the student to observe lessons again, but this time from the pupil’s perspective with the focus on how they actually learn. Having shared their findings, the student should then be asked to plan a lesson or sequence of lessons and these could be discussed at the weekly meeting with the focus on the content of the material and the pupils’ learning rather than the performance of the student. Furlong, Maynard, Miles and Wilkin provide useful focus questions under the headings ‘Pupils’ Learning’, ‘Subject matter’ and ‘Broader Questions’ (Furlong et al. 1994: 53–54). With regard to ‘Pupils’ Learning’ they encourage the student to think about: what the pupils are learning and why; how the learning process will be supported; and what attitudes towards learning will be promoted. With ‘Subject Matter’ the student should consider the nature of the intended learning and how it relates to other aspects of the subject. The ‘Broader Questions’ include what the student feels is the nature of the teacher’s role in the learning process, how they believe the pupils learn best and the factors that may impede pupil learning. This process of moving the students on is a difficult one because they have probably established a comfortable routine and range of techniques which are enabling them to cope outwardly with the demands of teaching. The less committed student may resist the mentor’s challenge to their beliefs, due to the very fact that classroom control inhibits development and makes them reluctant to take risks. The mentor must realise, therefore, that this more sophisticated style of teaching will develop only slowly and that it will probably be necessary to spend a number of weekly sessions looking at issues involved.

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Reflective Practice The final stage of student teacher training is ‘reflective teaching’ (Furlong et al., 1994: 54) where the student is encouraged to take the initiative in reflecting upon and critically evaluating their own performance (although they will hopefully have done this throughout). This should happen at the latest in the final weeks of placement when the student has gained the necessary confidence and competence, and is able to analyse the content of their lessons. Furlong et al. (1994: 55) again provide excellent suggestions for mentors to promote the development of reflective practitioners. The mentor could help broaden the student’s repertoire of teaching strategies, encouraging them to take responsibility for their own professional development, and to become more analytical and self-critical in what they do. The relationship between mentor and student should change here again as they start working together very much as equal professional partners. With ‘partnership supervision’ ((Furlong et al. 1994: 56) the student decides the focus for observation, perhaps a new teaching strategy or some aspect of classroom management, and the mentor records the evidence ready for feedback at the next meeting. I would add here that the use of video recording by the mentor would be most beneficial. By reviewing the evidence with the mentor, whether written, audio or visual, the student should be encouraged to begin to evaluate his or her own performance. This very much mirrors the system of ‘Appraisal’ that professional teachers undergo, albeit less frequently. Furlong, Maynard, Miles and Wilkin also recommend ‘partnership teaching’, where the student plans, teaches and reviews in collaboration with the mentor or other experienced teachers (Furlong et al., 1994: 56). The difference in the collaborative work from earlier stages of the placement would be in the equality of the input of student and mentor. I have enjoyed working in this way with students towards the end of their placement. Not only were we both able to experiment with different teaching strategies, in my case in the use of the computer room, but at the follow-up meeting we were able to discuss the planning and teaching in more depth than ever before. I now felt more able to say why I took specific decisions at particular times, using my knowledge of the school and pupil context in which the lesson took place. I hoped this would encourage the student to continue using these skills of reflection in future work. Day believes that ‘reflection is a necessary but not sufficient condition for learning. Confrontation either by self or others must occur’ (Day, 1993: 88). In other words the student should be encouraged by the mentor’s own example into a tightly focused analysis of reasons for, and consequences of, the lessons they plan and deliver.

Conclusion I have attempted to relate the findings of researchers to my own experience as a mentor in order to explore the development of teaching competences over the 77

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students’ school placements. I would suggest that there is no single model for mentoring, but that support and challenge are essential to enable the student to make the best use of their time in school. Support takes priority as they take their first tentative steps as teachers, with challenge becoming increasingly vital as they learn to cope and their confidence begins to grow. By the end of their final placement the student should be an effective planner, an efficient performer and an analytical, self-critical reviewer, ready and able to take the heavier timetable and fuller responsibilities of a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) in their first post.

Thinking About Your Own Practice If your duties include a formal weekly meeting with student teachers, what do you identify as the purpose of that meeting? How does it differ from other, more informal, interactions? Think of a student teacher with whom you have worked. To what extent did the pattern of his or her development correspond to the progression described here from ‘survival’ to ‘reflective teaching’? What strategies could you use to challenge a student teacher to move, for example, from a teacher-centred to a more pupil-centred approach in the classroom? What help might you need to provide such challenges, and where could you obtain appropriate help?

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Chapter 2.2

Providing Feedback DAVE JENKINS

Understanding Personal Practice in Giving Feedback As the topic of investigation for my project work for the Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring I chose to focus on an analysis of both oral and written feedback during a student teacher’s placement in order to develop a deeper understanding of my own personal theories and practice. I felt that this would be beneficial both for myself, in my capacity as subject mentor, and also to the school generally as a contribution to the development of a mentoring policy. I specifically hoped that the outcomes of my investigations might enable the Modern Languages Department to help future student teachers more effectively by offering different kinds of feedback to suit the individual student’s needs; this would include building support for the struggling, less confident student teacher and also providing challenges for the stronger, more able student. However, to widen the scope and to provide a more general overview I also decided to interview a number of current and recent student teachers from a range of subject areas.

Personal Theories about Mentoring As a teacher of many years’ experience, I would certainly agree with the mentors investigated by Evans in her work, who ‘stressed the considerable benefits for the department from accepting associate teachers who would introduce fresh ideas and approaches’ (Evans, 1995: 127). I also agree with her assertion that there is ‘the need for an investment in safeguarded counselling time throughout the school experience but particularly during the early induction stages’ (129). I have been fortunate enough to have been allocated a protected session per week with my student teachers each year of involvement in the Partnership, and have little doubt that without it the quality and usefulness of our feedback sessions would have been considerably lessened. I firmly believe that the school in which I work is one in which ‘staff have thought about the needs of the new role and developed a common staff philosophy and practice for associates’ (Glover & Gough, 1995: 135). Indeed, my involvement in 79

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this project for the Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring was part of that process. A number of writers are very clear in their views of the importance of the role model presented by professional teachers, particularly of mentors. McIntyre (1994) emphasises the need to turn the classroom into a place for student teacher learning, rather than just their teaching practice; this clearly has implications for the way mentors look at their own lessons and teaching styles and could cause some discomfort. Brown and McIntyre (1993: 39) produce a list of themes raised by a group of teachers when asked to talk about their teaching; the list refers to maintenance of the interest and enthusiasm of pupils, defusion of actual or potential discipline problems, management of introductions to lessons and methods for dealing with pupils’ errors. This list is ideal as an aid to discussing good practice with a student teacher. Fish also suggests principles of good mentoring practice, which describe very accurately my position as a mentor whilst carrying out my project work: • The mentor is not an expert knower. Student learners already have much knowledge and need to be jolted out of being authority dependent. They need to recognise what they know and can do and which parts of their work need developing or refining. • It is very important for the mentor to create a climate in which it is safe for students to learn and bare their real views, ideas, beliefs and also their errors and problems (which are the learning points of practice). • A mentor’s role is to support while also challenging. Challenge should not be destructive. A mentor therefore needs to know well and be comfortable with both these issues and processes. (Fish, 1995b: 107–108) I have always been keen for the student to work alongside, observe and be observed by as wide a range of teachers as possible, and not just within the specialist subject area. I feel it is crucial to see how different teachers handle situations and how the pupils react with different styles of teaching. As Kerry suggests, the weakness of an ‘apprenticeship’ model of mentoring is ‘in seeing teaching as a relatively crude craft: it assumes there are some relatively immutable procedures that teachers adopt, and all the trainee needs to do is ape them. It ignores the fact that teachers work with unpredictable human beings rather with inanimate objects or materials’ (Kerry, 1998: 18). Kerry also warns how important it is for the mentor to understand fully his or her role: ‘common errors in mentoring are when the mentor is unskilled in observation, lacks time and opportunity to carry out the role, does not have the skills of tutoring an adult learner, is unreflective in his/her own approach to teaching and lacks the language in which to convey insights into classroom practice to a third party’ (1998: 18). The mentor must be capable of, and indeed interested in, engaging in ‘an informed and systematic discussion of practice’ (Fish, 1995b: 128). Tomlinson discusses the interpersonal aspects of mentoring, pointing out that ‘ “getting on with people”, helping them and working with them are activities that people (perhaps especially the British) have traditionally tended to take for granted’ (1995: 58). He stresses the need for the mentor to be sensitive and genuine in both 80

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action and communication. Student teachers are under a great deal of stress and this often manifests itself in the negative way they feel about themselves and their work. They may jump to conclusions and think either in simplistic or over-complicated ways or react to situations in an impulsive, uncharacteristic manner. As a mentor one is, hopefully, experienced enough to ease the student teacher through these crises, even though one is experiencing the same problems oneself! As Tomlinson says, ‘articulating teaching skill is different from deploying it directly, but teacher-mentors are likely to have the resources within them’ (1995: 72). I can honestly say that I can appreciate both sides of Tomlinson’s statement that ‘mentoring may appear daunting, but actually it’s a challenge with considerable benefits’ (71). The challenge of supporting a struggling or highly-gifted student for a substantial period of time is indeed daunting, but both the school and I have gained a great deal from the individuals concerned in terms of ideas, enthusiasm and different approaches to teaching situations.

Styles of Feedback There are a number of different modes of feedback or debriefing. Fish describes these as ‘critique’, ‘reflective’, ‘formal assessment’ and ‘self assessment’ (1995b: 131–2). The ‘critique’ mode, where the observer offers personal judgements and possible improvements in a general appreciation of the lesson, is the form I tend to use most frequently because it makes an excellent basis for discussion. With the student teacher in question I had intended to make use of the video recorder to encourage a more ‘reflective’ mode of feedback by exploring visual evidence of what happened in a lesson and the reasons why; video feedback enables the observed, whether mentor or student, to examine and refine professional judgements, as investigated by Anning et al. (1990). Technical problems prevented me from using this style of methodology, but there is useful discussion of the technique in Inge Johnson’s later chapter. ‘Formal assessments’ are conducted during and at the end of the student’s placement in liaison with the university tutor. I encourage the students towards ‘self assessment’ at frequent intervals during their placements because it enables them to take some responsibility for their own professional development, although in my experience they have tended to be very critical of themselves and to look for guidance in the process. It is an interesting question of pedagogic style as to whether you ‘tell’ students things or ‘ask’ them in a debriefing session, and it probably depends on whether you are informing, on a matter of school policy perhaps, or leading them to discover something for themselves and develop their self-assessment skills. I believe that feedback is equally valid in written or oral from. As McIntyre suggests, debriefing or feedback does different jobs at different stages of the student’s development (1994: 86). Written feedback can be produced on convenient, standardised forms and be used for general, sometimes formal, ‘critique’ or for more specific, focused observation. The crucial thing is how it is written. I try to 81

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be descriptive rather than instructive and I like to highlight features to discuss after the lesson. Students tend on the whole to remember the negative aspects of their lessons, so I try wherever possible to accentuate the positives. Forms are certainly useful given the shortage of time available in school to sit down and discuss matters. By comparison, videos and tapes are excellent recording methods, but they can lead to very lengthy analysis. With oral feedback I think it is imperative to be aware of one’s tone of voice, of any emotional situations that may be present, when to push and challenge, and when to support. Fish (1995b: 136) compiles a list of potential difficulties associated with mentoring. From this one can identify two extremes: the mentor can be overbearing and too one-dimensional seeing students as a mirror image of themselves; or conversely fail to warn students of problems until it is too late. The mentor must never forget, after all, their role as assessor, which may mean having to fail a student (see Chapter 2.5 for an illustration of the painfulness of this).

Areas of Investigation In order to explore more fully the student teacher’s experience of feedback, I originally decided upon two main procedures for gathering information, namely looking at lesson observation sheets and at notes of weekly mentor meetings. At a later stage of my project work I decided to add an extra dimension to my perspectives by interviewing a selection of current and recent student teachers across a range of subject areas about their views of teaching placement. Plans to use videotapes of students’ lessons were thwarted, as mentioned above, by technical difficulties: namely the lack of a working video recorder. Written feedback on the student teacher’s lessons During the period of the project I was unfortunately only working with one student teacher; nevertheless a large number of observation sheets were collected during the placement, written by a variety of colleagues including myself. Some of these were general critiques of the lesson with positive and negative points and personal judgements made; others more specifically focused on particular skills such as the use of the target language, classroom management, the use of praise and sanctions, transitions from task to task and skill to skill, the starting and ending of lessons or the use of the board and overhead projector. I selected five examples of such observations to analyse in detail. The first of these are included in full here (Figures 2 and 3) to illustrate the style, others are described during the analysis. The student conducting the lessons observed for this project was extremely capable, and the first example, taken from early in her practice, gives a good illustration of this. The observation notes were written in response to a Year 7 lesson and provide a good example of what Fish describes as the ‘critique’ mode of debriefing (Fish, 1995b: 131). In it the observer notes the time, the activity taking 82

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10.25 10.31

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Well settled down. Full attention. V. good relationship/manner. Ages: Asking people ages. RTF is 15?!?! Maybe chorus. But they did understand. Introduction of birthday cake with different ages on – very good idea. Chorus work – good idea. Maybe introduce at very start. PAIRWORK. Introduction in TL, but when not understand, reverted to an English explanation – good idea in the circumstances. While pair work is going on, cards with numbers on distributed. Pupils invited to perform ‘Quel âge as-tu?’ ‘J’ai _ ans’. Good idea to invite with this class. No shortage of volunteers. Also, very good to write ‘Quel . . . J’ai’ sequence on the board. Didn’t start until all listening – good. More round-class activity using cards. (Authenticity? ‘J’ai 1 an?’ But point of game was to run through numbers in order to 31 so hardly avoidable unless started at 11.) Using 31 got all class involved, very good. ‘Prenez vos cahiers’ – clear writing on board. Maybe underline dates and headings. Listening comprehension. Did first example, good. Clearly done, all did ‘super’. Writing activity, bubbles. ‘J’ai douze ans’. Again, examples given. Done with HUMOUR. Plenty of help through examples, good – clearly understood. All capable of doing task set. Also attention to detail – ‘un an, deux ans’. Good. Carte d’identité. Example: ‘Je m’appelle . . .’ Got full attention again before explaining it, very good practice. (and done in TL!!!). Set picture of Tony Blair/footballer for homework. Draw homework into homework diaries – much better to do it into EXERCISE BOOKS? Or at back of them? There’s little space in homework diaries. ORDERLY feedback of general questions about homework. NUMBERS GAME TO AN END – very good. (Pupils did all the talking!) REALLY GOOD, CLEAR LESSON, ALL PUPILS ON TASK, VARIED, GOOD HUMOUR. • Good use of TL • Very sympathetic handling • Lots of varied activity • Behaviour of class very good • Attention very good • Confident, well-prepared • TIMING VERY GOOD

Figure 2 Observation 1 place and a personal reaction to it, starting with entry into the classroom and finishing with the final activity before the class was dismissed. At the end of the lesson the observer added a list of points highlighting his impression of the lesson as a guide to discussion. I find this style of written observation particularly useful; 83

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it enables you to compile a lot of information in a short amount of space and time, student and mentor can keep copies of it to monitor general progress, and it combines a more objective viewpoint – describing what you see – with a subjective one – giving an instant personal reaction. Reference is made to the student teacher’s confidence in front of the class, her thorough preparation of materials, good humour and good attention from the pupils. All four skills were incorporated. The entry at 10.31 is interesting, where the observer uses his experience with this particular class to suggest a teaching technique (inviting) that might be useful for the student with this and similar groups. The comment at 10.38 highlights the problem of balancing syllabus content with authenticity, and the note at 11.10 about using exercise books rather than homework diaries is intended to help the student over a particular contextual problem, perhaps specific to this school. All the comments were intended to be as supportive, understanding and helpful as possible. Figure 3 concerns a Year 10 Lower Band group following a non-GCSE course and took place near the end of January, some three weeks into the main placement. The student had, however, only recently begun to take responsibility for the group. The observation was once again in ‘critique’ style, with the main elements of the lesson described and commented on in chronological order. However, a theme of ‘general classroom management’ had been agreed beforehand between the student and the observer. Comments were arranged as a series of bullet points rather than with a time to reflect this focus. I think the tone of the comments comes across again as being supportive and helpful, with any slight criticisms presented in a positive manner. The comments on the reading task praise not only the conduct of the task, but other less obvious factors such as the choice of the individual to hand out worksheets. Elsewhere remarks about the need to move around the room, about dealing with a late arrival and about the pace of activities are given in a genuinely interested manner with a view to later discussion. Observations 3 and 4

I analyzed observation forms from successive lessons with a Lower Band Year 8 group, comprising a number of lively, occasionally disruptive characters. This group’s lessons were scheduled for Monday mornings and Friday afternoons and following a ‘difficult’ session one Friday afternoon, the student suggested that it would be a good idea to have a ‘crack-down’ on disruptive behaviour. We agreed that she would devise three rules of behaviour and cooperation to which she would adhere and on which she would insist over the following lessons; and that I would observe both these sessions with ‘management/discipline’ as my focus. I tried to concentrate my descriptions and comments purely on the matter in hand, and the effect that the ‘new’ disciplinary measures were having on the class. However, I also noted specific methodological issues which caught my attention, such as praise for getting a pupil to explain a task introduced by the student in the target language; 84

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• Class brought in calmly and told where to sit. Ignored complaints. Clear short answers to questions. Stamped authority on lesson from the start. • Explained behaviour sheet. Had their full attention. Although you show some signs of nervousness (too many ‘rights’ and ‘OK’s’) you made it clear that you are in charge. • Game. Organised teams well and chose spokesmen. Explained rules using a lot of target language. They were excited and enjoyed the game. • Reading task. Quickly back to seats. One distributed sheets. Good choice of individual. Explained ‘on peut’ with examples. Set time limit and extended it since they clearly needed longer. Excellent communications with pupils. Monitored well. Good feedback. Some French (could have used more). • Names of pupils already known. Reprimanded as needed. Let the shouting go on for a little too long before ticking box, but this immediately restored order. • Listening. Didn’t make them write date and title in books. R not paying attention. I know you don’t want to be confrontational but silly noises need to be dealt with quickly (tick on sheet?) • Went through pictures on overhead. Question numbers in books. Example given. Clear instructions. • All on task and interested. Read phrases slowly and quietly. Good! However, possibly too slow and should maybe have stopped after 10? • Encouragement halfway through not needed since they all got each answer first time. Move around room whilst reading out. You’ll get a better overall view than you do by looking at the weaker pupils at the front. • Dealt with L coming in at 10.00 well. Didn’t let it disrupt the lesson. • Feedback good but you need to repeat the phrases. Starting to run out of time – numbers and letters would have been enough. You are using French and they are trying too. This is promising. They are open to TL. You must use it more. • Plenty of praise and encouragement. Excellent!!! • Dismissal. Good. • You now have total control. They know you are in charge. This is a very good foundation for future lessons.

Figure 3 Observation 2

for good chorusing rehearsal before setting a related task; for good preparation for pair work and for public performance; for the use of sound effects to help with the understanding of weather vocabulary; for a good-humoured admission of having made a mistake; and for an entertaining weather game which elicited good response from the pupils.

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The first lesson Regarding the agreed focus of observation, I firstly noted down the rules which the student teacher had attached to the board ready for the start of the lesson and made reference to her clear explanation of requirements. The rules which she had devised were: (1) Do not talk while the teacher is talking. (2) Do not distract others from their work. (3) Do not shout out – raise your hand. The complimentary tone of my comments indicated that I was greatly impressed by the way that the student conducted the lesson; I tried to note every time she referred to her new rules, and point out that the new measures were working effectively, for example: 10.28 10.35

you put a name on the board and rule number when someone shouted out. Well done. you ‘named’ callers out when you asked for the date. The listening task was attempted with an unusually high degree of concentration!!

Twenty minutes before the end of the lesson, at a time when concentration tends to waver, I decided to disappear for a few minutes to see if there was any change in the atmosphere in my absence. My later comment was that ‘I returned to find good order still in place! (and one more name on the board)’. The student told me in our discussion afterwards that there had been a little noise and calling out. I noted some of the ways in which she expressed her displeasure as a matter for discussion afterwards, with a view to amending for the next lesson; for example when she said ‘if I have to mention your name again . . .’, and when she reminded the class of the rule of ‘courtesy’ and then praised the class for their efforts. At the end of the lesson, I made four general comments as a reaction to what I had seen; I have found that student teachers over the years have appreciated this type of checklist of things that have gone particularly well and others that are worthy of discussion: • • • •

you made your wishes known with little room for confusion; you maintained ‘strictness’ without losing your pleasant nature and humour; three is a good number of rules; during my absence you said there was a little noise and calling out, and another name went on the board.

The second lesson In my observation of the following lesson with this class, on a Friday afternoon, I tried to follow the same procedures, and again left the lesson for a few minutes to see if my absence made any difference. This time it did not appear to do so: ‘On my return (with 5 minutes to go) you were insisting on silence as you set work 86

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– you got it’. This comment was followed up with a suggestion: ‘perhaps invite questions at this stage whilst they are still good/attentive’. My comments were mainly descriptive of the procedures which she was employing to maintain the ordered atmosphere: ‘you put your rule sheet on the board again’; ‘you sent individuals to certain seats’; ‘short, sharp reminders to offenders kept things going at a good pace’, to demonstrate clearly why her intentions were having effect. However, there were suggestions for improvement, as mentioned above and also at 2.07 ‘you had four names on the board, perhaps it was good moment to remind them of the rules’. There was also considerable praise, firstly for having the presence of mind on a Friday afternoon to remind the class (in French!) of the school’s ‘theme of the week’ (‘Concentration and Listening’); then for being open and laughing about a mistake she had made; and thirdly for finding the right words to encourage the class to do a job even better: ‘with a little more care copying these words down you’d do even better’. I ended with a final spontaneous reaction to the week and the student’s obvious feelings of being reassured by her progress: ‘Well done! A lot happier than last week.’ Observation 5

A further observation concerned a carousel lesson and aimed to look at the organisation of both classroom and activities and at the changeover between activities:

Before the lesson – fortunately the room was free the lesson before this which enabled you to set up and get things organised. The layout of the room was excellent – four blocks of tables (one per activity) and having the chairs at the front for your instructions was great as it stopped little hands messing with the materials. As the class arrived you told them what to do and where to sit – getting them to have pens/vocab books and put their bags in one corner was another splendid idea. You spent 10 minutes explaining the four activities – role-play, pair work, group work, reading comprehension and writing – and you had everyone’s full attention. You also organised who would sit where – a great start to the lesson. You divided the remainder of the lesson into equal periods, allowing time to collect last week’s homework and a few extra minutes for the first activity – always a sensible move when you are doing something completely different from normal. Your changeovers were effected very efficiently. You told the pupils very precisely where they should move to. Moving around the room it was very clear that the class were thoroughly enjoying their work and that everyone was having a good go at the activities. One or two of the tasks were a shade long for the time available but that was inevitable. One task was open-ended (time wise) – good. Excellent organisation + Enjoyable activities = brilliant lesson! The time flew by!

Figure 4 Observation 5 87

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We had discussed the possibilities of organising the four activities beforehand, and it was fortunate that the student teacher had access to the room before the start of the lesson to set up. I particularly praised her idea of placing the chairs at the front of the room so that she could talk about the activities and format of the lesson without distractions. Another commendable action was to organise the pupils with writing instruments and vocabulary books and with bags neatly out of the way before the start. Indeed, I felt that the whole success of the lesson hinged on what was done before the class started their first activity. I offered further complementary remarks about how the four tasks were introduced. Thereafter my comments centred on the management of time and changeover of activity, as well as my observation of the pupils’ engagement with the lesson as I walked around the room. My general comments summed up my view of a splendidly organised and successful lesson.

Summary My personal theories, therefore, seem to be borne out in practice in that I tend to employ a ‘critique’ mode of observation, based on a largely descriptive style supplemented by personal reaction; this is often focused upon a specific area agreed in advance with the student teacher. There is a considerable amount of praise, but also concrete suggestions for future action and discussion when appropriate. The tone is supportive and encouraging, whilst also offering elements of challenge. It would have been interesting to see if this approach remained constant when working with a less able student teacher.

Weekly Mentor/Student Discussions The weekly mentor meeting was to be used as an opportunity to agree upon, set and review specific targets, as well as to preview and re-examine some of the more general aspects of the life of a teacher. My general aims at each meeting were threefold. Firstly, I wanted to preview the coming week on a general level to check what classes were doing, ensure that any special equipment or materials that might be needed were available, remind student teachers of events in the school diary and point out any other useful experiences that might be gained. Secondly, I aimed to review the preceding week to see how lessons had gone and ascertain the student’s impressions of life as a teacher. Finally I intended to agree a specific target for the coming week, whether that was to focus on a particular skill or aspect of teaching, or to broaden the student teacher’s experience. Whilst carrying out my investigations for the project I recorded several of the meetings on tape to facilitate my own analysis, but also kept written notes. Keeping a record of mentor meetings and debriefing sessions is a must in terms of aiding progression, setting targets, reviewing successes and failures, and enabling good, accurate reports to be written. Where necessary, such records also provide evidence 88

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when dealing with failing students, documenting how they have been helped (see Chapter 2.5). Below (Figure 5) is the collection of my notes of weekly Monday afternoon mentor meetings with the student teacher, held during protected time. Prior to the start of this placement in the Spring Term, the student had spent four weeks with us in the Autumn Term observing our lessons, shadowing pupils and teachers, team teaching, teaching certain classes and even covering for us in our absence. She had already shown herself to be both capable and confident, in control of her groups and very receptive to comments and advice. She said she felt very happy with the level of support provided and was able to make perceptive comments about her own and other people’s teaching. We felt that the most important thing for Week 1 was to get off to a good start, with the student beginning to teach as soon as possible. With some groups she observed or team-taught until topics and assessments had been completed; however, bearing in mind her level of competence and confidence I was keen to ‘challenge’ her as early as possible. Therefore, we agreed that she would teach certain classes on her own immediately, whilst knowing where help was if needed. The student herself decided that her target for the second week would be to get to know as many individuals within the classes as possible, so there was some discussion on how this might be achieved. She had also noticed how some of her Year 7 class were already showing signs of over-familiarity and losing concentration at crucial times, so we spent some useful time discussing ways of letting pupils know when listening was essential. Week 3 arrived following a difficult Friday afternoon session with a lively Year 8 group, which made our choice of target a fairly obvious one. We discussed a variety of strategies for her different classes and noted her success with the ‘hand up for silence’ experiment in Year 7. In our review of the previous week the student expressed the feeling that her ‘honeymoon’ period had now passed and that pupils were finding different ways to try her patience. She was determined to establish her authority over the coming week. The notes for Week 4 show that the student had had a successful week as regards her target of classroom management and discipline and that a number of her lessons had been formally observed and discussed with encouraging outcomes. She was not particularly relishing the prospect of being observed by her university tutor with a challenging Year 10 group, so the regular teacher offered to attend the lesson to provide support and to influence some of the more difficult members of the set. The student felt that in a number of her lessons she was not moving fluently or quickly enough from one activity to another and so she set herself a target of maintaining the flow of the lesson. We discussed the demands this would make on her organisation of materials. She also made the point that listening tasks seemed to be dragging and that it was easy to overdo the process of going through the answers; hence her additional target of making the tasks ‘snappier’ and less of an opportunity for disruption. 89

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Week 1 – 5–9 January Target set – Getting Started NB: Training day Mon Jan 5. We had a brief chat. Nicola to observe and/or team-teach with some classes until end of topic before taking over. Other groups to be taken over immediately. Staff support if needed, but we decided that it would be more fun/challenging to jump in at the deep end! – but knowing where help was if needed. Week 2 – 12–16 January Target set – Getting to know classes and individuals. Discussed ways of getting to know pupils’ names as quickly as possible. Seating plans – possibly. Plenty of oral work based on pupils giving personal details. Nicola felt that Year 7 were already showing signs of ‘over-familiarity’/cheekiness, and talking when instructions being issued. Discussed how to reinforce when listening was essential – decided on Nicola raising hand as indication for silence. Final observation of Year 10 and to assist in assessment, then start teaching them on Thursday. Week 3 – 19–23 January Target set – Classroom management and rules. Would come up with a short set of rules for use with Year 8 (and others?) following a difficult lesson on Friday. I would observe – particular emphasis on classroom management. Talked about different strategies for different classes – Year 7 raising hand to indicate desire for silence had already been successful last week. Year 10 – had OHT sheet with mannerisms/behaviour that irritated. Feeling that honeymoon period over – as last week progressed, increasing signs that classes were ‘sussing’ her out. Determined to establish authority this week. Week 4 – 26–30 January Target set – Changing activities efficiently/Listening tasks. 1. Review of last week – success of class rules for Year 8 – big improvement noted. Observation sheets (×2) on Year 8. Good session with Year 10 – observation by class teacher. 2. Preview – tutor to visit Tuesday (Year 10). Class teacher to attend for moderation and influential reasons. Taking over second Year 8 group from class teacher this week. 3. Target – moving from one activity to another without halting flow of lesson. Demands on organisation. Listening tasks have dragged, especially overdoing the answer check. Make listening tasks snappier, and less of an opportunity for disruption. Week 5 – 2–6 February 1. Last week’s target – making progress. New listening drill tried out – ‘Silence/ Regardez/Ecoutez’ – with some success. Still working on lesson plans in the head as well as on paper. Tutor’s visit successful – see observation sheets. Moderated by class teacher. 2. Preview – Class teacher to watch Year 8. Observe mentor taking assessment with other Year 8. 3. Target – using ‘extra’ resources e.g. video, and design worksheets to accompany the programme. Assessment management.

Figure 5 Notes of weekly mentor meetings

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Week 6 – 9 –13 February 1. Last week’s targets – assessment management – went well with Year 10. Accomplished assessment in double lesson. Excellent lesson using ‘extra resources’. 2. This week devoted to half term assessment – both filled in assessment charts (while discussing and privately) and discussed them the following day. Carousel lesson with Year 9, observed by mentor. 3. Targets – from assessment chart action plan – pastoral involvement, sixth form teaching, teaching of second subject. Week 7 – 23 –27 February 1. Last week’s targets – ongoing through this term. 2. Assessment/marking, particularly ‘writing’; using Year 8 examples. Trialling new departmental policy for writing, content/language/accuracy/effort. Discussed, student to mark and mentor to moderate. Year 10 assessment on Thursday. Observation of colleague’s Year 7 next week. 3. Talked about possible changes to timetable once course requirements/tutor’s second visit and moderation were safely negotiated. Week 8 – 2–6 March 1. Last week – led PSE session on three-legged stool of self-confidence. Had preliminary meeting re teaching of second subject. 2. Continued assessment plan from last week; discussed examples in detail. We agreed 100%!! 3. Target – Survival! Job interview, tutor’s moderation visit, second subject teaching and planning, school production, NEC Education Show on Friday. Week 9 – 9 –13 March 1. Last week – survived (!) job interview. Tutor’s visit went well. Second subject teaching – still negotiating! School production – started rehearsals. 2. This week – Whole School Issues – observation/note taking. Follow member of staff on break/lunch duty. A Level observation then teaching. (Assignment on resources due.) 3. Classroom rules/management – need reinforcing – following half term, things have ‘slipped’ a little. Start of lessons – using the time more profitably while rest of group arriving – revising vocab, finding folders etc. Use this as focus for observation. Week 10 – 16–19 March 1. Last week – observed colleague re class management, resources, etc., second colleague with Year 8 and Upper Sixth (notes taken). Followed third colleague on lunch duty, noted behaviour etc. Start of lessons – observed effective advice re lack of homework etc. with Year 9. 2. This week – reinforce classroom behaviour – ‘règle du jour’? Second subject with Year 7 starting Thursday for 2 weeks. Broaden experience via U6 – support with view to teaching, and also with Year 10 set 1 – support with view to teaching. Weeks 11 and 12 – 23 –27 March; 30 March – 3 April Aims: • to broaden experience as much as possible; • to observe as much as possible, especially in different subjects; • to teach and observe different MFL classes.

Figure 5 (cont.)

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In our Week 5 discussion the student said that she had worked on a drill for conducting listening activities with some success, and that generally she felt she was making progress regarding the previous week’s target. However, she was still striving to keep her lesson plans in her head so as to keep herself on target, without having to refer to paper! As half-term neared, many classes were approaching their next formal assessments and the student was keen to observe as many of us conducting assessment sessions as possible. Her confidence was increasing to the extent that she was ready to face the challenge of incorporating extra, more ambitious resources into her lessons. Therefore she targeted a group for whom she could devise tasks to accompany a video programme on the topic they were studying. Week 6 was the last week before half-term, and so we had an official assessment sheet to complete and were to provide a copy for the tutor’s records. We each completed a copy separately and then met to negotiate a final version. As part of this assessment sheet we were to devise an action plan of targets for the remainder of the placement, two of which, pastoral involvement and Geography teaching, would be beyond her specialised work. In our review of the previous week we were able to note progress with assessment management as she had supervised some sessions herself. We were also able to discuss at length a ‘carousel’ lesson which she had planned and prepared (see above). After half-term, in Week 7, we agreed that the targets from our action plan would remain for the time being. We also talked about changing her timetable to give her experience of as many different groups as possible once course requirements and the final moderation visit from the university tutor had been safely negotiated. We also wanted to focus on marking, and the student was happy to ‘trial’ a proposed new departmental policy on the assessment of writing. This was a scheme based on separate gradings for content, language used, accuracy and effort. Having agreed on the criteria for marking we decided on a suitable task for a Year 8 upper band class and arranged to meet the following week to discuss our results. The notes for Week 8 show that the student had made progress regarding her targets for pastoral involvement and the teaching of Geography. She suddenly faced her busiest period yet, with the moderation visit from the university tutor, a job interview, planning and teaching her second subject and the start of rehearsals for the school production in which she was involved – hence the target became ‘survival’. We did, however, make time to discuss the assessment of writing as agreed. We marked a few scripts together, the student took the rest away to mark, and finally I re-marked some of these to moderate. I can happily report that our marking scores using the proposed system agreed fully! I felt that Week 9 was a very important week for this highly capable student. She had safely negotiated the hurdles of the previous week and so to a certain extent the pressure was off. She could easily have frittered away the remaining four weeks of her placement doing little meaningful work, safe in the knowledge that she had ‘passed’. Fortunately she was still very determined to make full use of the remaining time. With regard to her own teaching, she felt that the starts of 92

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lessons could be improved, and that since half-term discipline in some classes had slipped a little; it was therefore a good time to reinforce her ‘rules’. I felt this was also an ideal time to observe experienced staff once again, not just within the department, to see how they started lessons and coped with classes now that endof-term tiredness was beginning to set in. I also encouraged her to undertake some of the ‘extra’ duties which she would be expected to fulfil next year, such as break and lunchtime supervision. The student arrived at our Week 10 meeting clutching copious notes she had made from observing members of staff; these focused on issues such as class and resource management, A Level teaching, top and bottom set teaching in Year 11 and corridor, break and lunch-time behaviour. She felt that this had been a valuable exercise and would add to her knowledge and experience. Her aim for this week was to teach as full a timetable as possible to get an idea of the demands on one’s stamina. Part of the extra load would be some teaching of her second subject, Geography. During Weeks 11 and 12 we were only able to have brief meetings owing to end-of-term events, one of which was the school production in which the student was involved. My main wish was that she should broaden her experience as much as possible by continuing to teach a variety of classes and observing different teachers. There was also the opportunity to ‘drop her in at the deep end’, namely to prepare work at short notice and cover for the classes of an absent colleague in the department, which she did both willingly and successfully.

Summary This was a particularly able and committed student who needed little prompting to set her own goals and develop her knowledge and awareness. In some ways it is more difficult to ‘challenge’ the able student and to keep motivation and development high once beyond the pass threshold. This student responded well to suggestions about exploring different and wide ranging avenues within and beyond the languages department, and it is thus possible to plot continuing progress and professional growth throughout the whole placement. Again, it would have been interesting to have had the opportunity to carry out my original plan of comparing and contrasting the development of two very different student teachers over the course of a term long placement in our department.

Interviews with Past and Present Student Teachers I interviewed a range of current and recent student teachers working in my school to ascertain their feelings about the general usefulness of their teaching placements and also about specific positive and negative aspects of their PGCE experiences. The six interviewees represented a range of subjects as well as different training establishments. Two were coming to the end of their training year, one in 93

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INTERVIEW QUESTIONS: 1. How do you think you were/have been looked after generally on teaching placement? 2. Which aspects of your placement did you find particularly useful? 3. Which aspects of your placement were less successful? 4. How would you have gone about things differently? Additional question for the full-time teachers: 5. Now that you are teaching full-time, how do you think your placement could have prepared you better? INTERVIEWEES (names are used for easy identification but have been changed) Sandra – a student teacher of Modern Foreign Languages Kirsty – a student teacher of English Carol – a teacher of French with two years’ experience Grace – a teacher of English with three years’ experience Claire – a teacher of History with four years’ experience Daniel – a teacher of English with four years’ experience

Figure 6 Interview questions Modern Languages, and the other in English. The other four were all teaching at the school, two in English, one in History, and one in Modern Languages. Their teaching experience ranged between two and four years, and three of the four had also spent time on placement in the school during their PGCE year. One of the English teachers had undergone mentor training. I was interested in the retrospective angle and in the different academic perspectives that these people could provide, which I could consider for my own mentoring of future students and include in any policy development that resulted from my work. With Question 1 I was looking for any mentor ‘behaviour’ (possibly my own!), which they found restricting or unexpected. All responded positively, although Claire felt that her mentor had been rather preoccupied with other aspects of his job and that others had taken major responsibility for supporting her. Daniel explained that as he had been a late arrival at the school his mentor had been unprepared, and that in fact another member of the department effectively became his mentor. Sandra and Grace disagreed in their remarks about what was expected in terms of preparation of materials: the former felt constricted by schemes of work and the latter felt totally responsible for the production of resources. Carol explained that in the large school she had attended with a number of student teachers from different institutions, students from her university were in the minority and felt a little ‘left out’ on occasions. For Question 2 it is probably not surprising that the actual teaching featured prominently in the answers, along with the follow-up evaluation meetings and discussions. I was pleased to see that feelings of security and support from the 94

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staff featured strongly as well, for I fail to see how a student can be expected to cope in a school where people do not communicate. Question 3 looked at the less successful side of school placements; it was interesting to see both Claire and Grace mention team-teaching, feeling that it was an unrealistic exercise in terms of shared responsibilities. From my own experience as a mentor asking pairs of students to ‘team teach’, one of them has always taken responsibility for the preparation of activities and materials while the other has supported or observed in the classroom. Kirsty felt strongly that her mentor was sometimes too nice, and that more constructive criticism was needed. Carol made a long list of factors we have all found difficult when first starting full-time in the profession, and I trust that I and other mentors are aware of the need to involve student teachers in as much of the ‘whole’ experience as possible. Question 4 was an opportunity for the interviewees to suggest how they felt their placements could have been improved. Many of them would like to have observed and shadowed teachers and pupils more than they did. Grace suggested that there could be a policy for observing lessons, which came as a huge encouragement for someone who was aiming at precisely that! Kirsty felt that her first four-week long placement could have involved more intensive planning with schemes of work and materials, while Sandra was slightly surprised by the fears of experienced teachers at being watched by students. Question 5 offered those now in full-time teaching the opportunity to suggest ways in which they felt they could have been better prepared for the profession. Not surprisingly, three of the four teachers highlighted areas such as report writing and coping with a form as well as other skills acquired at the beginning of one’s teaching career. Carol suggested that more advice and practice could be offered on pacing oneself and on the general ‘set-up’ and workings of a school. Daniel took a different stance; having trained and taught in the same single-sex school, he felt that his weakness might be exposed should he wish to move on to a coeducational school.

Conclusions Undertaking this project helped me to clarify and extend my ideas about mentoring and to look at my own practice from a new perspective. The collection of materials required me to think, act, note and follow up in a way that I had not needed to during previous student placements. The discipline and satisfaction which I gained from doing so will remain with me for future years. My work has confirmed my beliefs in agreeing with Fish (1995: 29) that debriefing and feedback should be conducted in a systematic and disciplined manner if it is to be effective. My main disappointment from a personal point of view was to have had only one student working in the department for the duration of the project, as opposed to the usual two. Not only are students excellent at encouraging each other, both in terms of motivation and of developing new initiatives, but also the presence of more than 95

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one student teacher at our weekly meetings helps to broaden discussions. In particular it would have been interesting to have been mentor to a second, less confident student who would have been in need of greater support and different weekly targets and challenges; I would then have had a greater amount of evidence to enable me to make wider-ranging comparisons of the data collected. Nevertheless, the work undertaken here has encouraged me to think more closely about the formulation of a departmental policy regarding feedback to students and general student/teacher communication. It will help me, and hopefully my department, to observe and debrief in a style and format with which the individual student will be familiar and comfortable but which will still encourage growth.

Thinking About Your Own Practice Do you have a predominant style of feedback which you use with your student teachers? If so, what are the potential benefits and disadvantages of that style? What is the general tone of your written and oral feedback to student teachers? How might this affect their reactions and responses? Do you negotiate regular targets with student teachers? If so, are they mainly concerned with classroom management or language teaching methodology? To what extent does the student teacher set their own targets and to what extent do you need to guide them? How can student teachers be encouraged to continue to progress once they feel safe in the knowledge that they are going to ‘pass’?

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Towards Departmental Consistency of Good Practice in Observing Student Teacher Lessons ELAINE SALMON

Introduction The school in which I work is receptive to student teachers, with a well-developed programme of procedures and activities aimed at supporting the work that they do in the classroom and their all-round development as teachers; in fact the school has recently been successful in its bid to develop as a Training School. We look forward to working with and learning from student teachers. The Modern Languages Department is fully committed to this receptive policy and enjoys the stimulating presence of these new entrants to the profession. Nevertheless, it became clear that the department as a whole did not have sufficient understanding of the experienced teacher’s role in providing effective training, and consequently lacked consistency of approach to observation and feedback. As Head of Department and the modern languages mentor for ITT, I felt that we needed to move towards consistency in these areas, thus maximising our efforts in the process of training new teachers.

Towards an Understanding of Good Mentoring Practice The key question was to establish the nature of good practice in dealings with student teachers, particularly in a large department where the mentor must depend on the work of other staff concerning classes that she cannot observe. To some degree, the experienced teacher must do for the individual class what the mentor does for the overall teaching practice. Shaw discusses the nature of effective observation and feedback, advocating a mixture of clinical supervision and partnership or democratic supervision (Shaw, 1992: 108–109). The former is didactic, ‘fly on the wall’, lends itself to formal assessment and does not lead to reflective action. The latter has a counselling style, the focus for observation is negotiated and reflective action is encouraged. In his suggestions for planning an observation, Shaw draws on the work of Mercer and Abbott in developing ‘partnership supervision’ to promote democratic learning; they identify the key features of their approach as: 97

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(a) the student identifies an aspect of his/her teaching which he/she would like examined in some detail (the focus); (b) the proposed focus is discussed and suggestions are made as to how feedback might be obtained which would illuminate the focus; (c) the student teaches the lesson and is observed by the tutor who gathers data by making field notes; (d) a post-lesson conference is held, during which the evidence regarding the chosen focus is examined by the tutor and the student; (e) a new focus is identified and the process begins again. (Mercer & Abbott, 1989: 142–143) The essential elements in the process are: • • • • • •

having a planning meeting; having clearly defined criteria for effective teaching; having a focus; to have decided on the style of observation and feedback; giving feedback as soon as possible; setting targets for the next stage.

According to Shaw, ‘the quality of the feedback is the single most important factor in improving performance’ (Shaw: 1992: 112). If individual members of our department can deliver feedback of the right quality, based on focused observation, then our student teachers will be able to reflect more accurately on their teaching and take appropriate steps to improve their practice. Within this model of good practice there are various issues that the mentor needs to make clear to participating staff. Those giving feedback will need to recognise the stage that the student teacher has reached, they must know how to observe and they must be aware of possible targets towards which a student teacher can work.

Stages of Student Teacher Development Maynard and Furlong (1994) identify the early stages of student teacher development as early idealism, survival, and recognition of difficulties; these would probably occur during the Autumn Term in the student’s first block teaching placement. At this time staff would need to work closely with the student teacher, encouraging the ability to ‘see’ what is happening in the classroom and to understand what will and will not work. Collaborative teaching can work well at this point, with the student teacher learning to plan, develop skills and observe the class teacher’s actions. The next stage identified by Maynard and Furlong is ‘hitting the plateau’ (1994: 72), where the student teacher has found a way of teaching that works but experiences difficulty in focusing on what the pupils need to learn over time. At this 98

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stage experienced staff coach the student teacher, who has now been given control over the teaching process, in the competences or standards against which judgement will be made, agreeing which ones to focus on during observation. They also encourage the student to experiment with styles and techniques. The final stage to which they refer is that of ‘moving on’ (Maynard & Furlong, 1994: 73), when the emphasis turns to the pupil learner. The student teacher is helped to reflect on how pupils learn rather than so much on their own teaching. Maynard and Furlong link this last stage with the reflective model of mentoring, although it can be argued that the reflective model links just as well with ‘hitting the plateau’. The aim of this model is to make pupils’ learning more effective. Student teachers need to ‘develop a deeper understanding of the learning process; thinking through different ways of teaching and developing their own justifications and practical principles from their work’ (Maynard & Furlong, 1995: 21) in order to expand their professional learning. The point of reflection is ‘to understand the underlying implications of working in particular and different ways’ (Maynard and Furlong, 1995: 16). Fish maintains that reflection on practice must take place if the meaning and significance of an activity or task are to have an effect on future practice (Fish, 1995b: 69). The student teacher with whom the department was working during the course of my investigations could be described as operating at the stages of ‘hitting the plateau’ and ‘moving on’.

Observation Staff are used to the idea of observing student teachers but as Fish points out, they approach the task of observation with an understanding coloured by past experiences in teacher training and in schools generally; observation is linked in teachers’ minds with judgements that can change the course of a person’s career (Fish, 1995b: 111). It is used for summative purposes in teaching practice assessment, appraisal and inspections, and in assessing failing teachers. However, ‘by contrast, observation of teaching is perhaps at its most useful when used as an approach to help teachers and students to learn about and to refine their teaching’ (Fish, 1995b: 111). In fact: Observation is a central tool of learning as well as of assessment in ITE. But, if it is used inappropriately, without a clear purpose, and in ignorance of its nature and potential as an approach to find out about teaching, it can provide a thoroughly unhelpful experience not only for students but also for mentors. It can also produce highly distorted evidence about the achievements of teaching. (Fish, 1995b: 110) Attempts have been made within our school to change teachers’ perceptions of the role and nature of observation, but it is still approached with a certain amount of wariness. This is an area where perseverance is needed, and hopefully over time 99

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attitudes will change. As a department we need to work towards avoiding inappropriate use of observation which could prove unhelpful for student teachers by giving them an incorrect view of what they have achieved. Hagger, Burn and McIntyre point out the need for focused observation: ‘unfocused observation, without a clear purpose, is generally demoralising and counterproductive’ (1995: 40). An unstructured approach could be used initially, but the aim should be to narrow down an observation focus which will become the basis of oral and written feedback (see Fish, 1995b: 113); this will give the student teacher a chance to grow in understanding and to feel that he or she is making progress.

Target Setting The purpose of setting targets is to enable the student teacher to improve on present form. This assumes that the mentor and other experienced teachers know what types of activities or different ways of working would stretch the trainee beyond the current level of competence. As well as being stretching, targets need to be specific and achievable. As can be seen from the investigations reported below, staff found this aspect of the work difficult to put into effect with any degree of consistency.

My Investigation As a focus for my project work I decided to investigate the level of understanding that individual members of staff had of their role in the education of student teachers and to develop ideas for improving that understanding and their practice. Student teachers working within our department would be the first to benefit from any improvement in our practice, but I was also aware of the potential advantages for staff themselves, a theme developed by Kelly et al. (1995). Working effectively with student teachers necessarily contributes to the professional development of experienced teachers by causing them to question their own practice and by thus provoking change as insight is gained into personal needs, strengths and weakness. Staff also develop their skills of observation, feedback and counselling. My investigations took place during the long teaching practice in the Spring Term of 1998. The Modern Languages Department at that time had seven full time members of staff, four of whom volunteered to have the student teacher work with one of their classes. One teacher had five years of teaching experience and the others had been qualified for 20 years or more. I met with the department, gave information and discussed requirements, considered the written feedback that staff gave, had interim discussions with individual staff, and held a further meeting with the department towards the end of the practice. I also had a separate meeting with our student teacher to obtain her perspective. 100

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Briefing the Department As in the previous academic year, staff were given various documents to assist them in their task. I had prepared a programme which would be covered by the mentor (Figure 7), and also guidelines for staff working with the student teacher (Figure 8); both of these had been discussed with the mentors and tutors of the partnership and amended accordingly. Staff also received a copy of the appropriate official form used to assess the placement and of proformas used within the school for lesson plans and observation notes.

PROGRAMME TO BE COVERED WITH THE MENTOR DURING PLACEMENT 2 All sessions will include time devoted to issues and concerns raised by the Student Teacher who should come prepared for this. All sessions will include consideration of the events and progress made since the previous session. As far as possible, an agreed specific goal will be set in each session for the coming week. The student’s file will be inspected each week. Week 1 – Target language used by the Student Teacher to manage the classroom and set up activities. Practical examples. What if the pupils do not understand? Week 2 – Eliciting target language from pupils – set phrases: • responding to patterns; • games/pair and group work; • independent use? Departmental policy on differentiation. Week 3 – Consideration of marking. Student Teacher should bring samples of marking done (photocopies will suffice). Week 4 – the National Curriculum – Programme of Study Part I related to the exercises with which the Student Teacher is currently working. Level descriptions and their role in assessment and planning. Marking. Week 5 – Half-term review including use of the teaching evaluation chart (ringing 1–4). Mentor to observe at least one other class. Week 6 – Assessing oral work – practical issues. Mentor to observe at least one other class. Week 7 – Further consideration of differentiation. Modern foreign languages and Special Needs. Week 8 – Equal opportunities in modern foreign languages. Week 9 – Review using final report. Week 10 – Job applications. What a Head of Department looks for. Week 11 – Concluding remarks.

Figure 7 Programme to be covered with the mentor during Placement 2 101

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GUIDELINES FOR STAFF WORKING WITH THE STUDENT TEACHER Placement two lasts for the whole of the Spring Term. The aim is to develop further teaching skills and assessment and recording strategies. Consideration will be given to specific issues arising out of the teaching of modern foreign languages, as well as other whole-school issues. As in placement one, from time to time the Mentor will arrange with staff to cover her lesson so that she can observe the Student Teacher in a variety of classes. Similarly, staff are asked to continue to give written feedback once a week on the self-carbonating report sheets. As well as the discussion following each lesson observed, it is important to give the Student Teacher the actual notes made during observation as an aide-memoire to the discussion. The student should set appropriate targets as a result of this feedback. The Student Teacher will teach most classes independently. He/she will teach mainly collaboratively with the class teacher where a particular class demands it. The role of staff in placement two will be: • to conduct discussions in advance with the Student Teacher on what is to be taught during an agreed period, sessional or weekly as appropriate; • to help him or her with the planning of lessons, staff input into detailed planning being reduced appropriately over time; • to give positive and constructive feedback on his or her teaching, in the course of which staff may give the opportunity to work with a group for more structured observation or more collaborative teaching if this would be helpful. Staff may choose periodically to teach a class themselves for further student observation and so as not to lose touch with the pupils over such a long time. Attached is a copy of the form to be used to assess the second placement. Please use it to inform your criteria for observation and return it to me when requested with your comments towards the end of the practice. Observations Observations could be general, looking at the whole of the lesson. For this staff should refer to the form mentioned above. Observations could be focused on a particular point, either agreed between staff and the Student Teacher or requested by the Mentor. Feedback Over the period staff should use a variety of techniques which could be: • a descriptive account of what took place in the lesson. Discussion is based on this; • a descriptive account which includes judgements on some of what happened; • selected points of the lesson which are noted and evaluated; • a number of pre-selected headings against which judgements are made; • comments which are focused on one or two aspects previously agreed with the Student Teacher. Specific issues to be tackled with the Student Teacher by all staff Target Language In the first two weeks staff should include focused attention on the use of the target language in managing the classroom and setting up activities. The aim is to develop

Figure 8 Guidelines for staff working with the student teacher

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in the Student Teacher an active range of teacher language which will be used according to the age and/or ability of the pupils. Assessment and Related Issues The Student Teacher will need help to become efficient in this. From Week 2 staff should specifically address: • marking the work and managing the amount of marking generated by the class – this may involve marking a few pieces together to set a standard; • recording, according to departmental policy and criteria, National Curriculum related tasks; make sure that a range of these are done over the placement, i.e. at least one per skill. Differentiation This is a challenging matter for all staff and therefore even more so for the Student Teacher. Bearing in mind departmental policy and discussions, staff should encourage the Student Teacher to develop and manage strategies and materials for differentiated tasks. Some strategies apply to every lesson, e.g. by outcome, while others might be more reasonably applied over a greater number of lessons.

Figure 8 (cont.) The previous year’s experience had shown that simply giving these documents to staff and expecting them to put the contents into effect would not work; colleagues were still unaware of the implications for the department, and hence for themselves, of the changes in teacher education and of schools’ new role in training and assessing student teachers. I therefore decided to hold a meeting to discuss the requirements, with a set agenda (see Figure 9) and with emphasis throughout on the crucial new part which we have to play in the training process. I was at pains

AGENDA (1) Framework of responsibilities – partnership with the University (2) Staff responsibilities during the placement (3) Observations – what to look for • Identify again at least four or five things that we each look for (4) Feedback (a) Types (b) The good student (c) Setting targets (5) Written feedback once per week – how are we going to do this?

Figure 9 Agenda for the departmental meeting 103

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to stress that the process was now quite different from in the days when any of us had trained or started to teach; no longer could we adopt a passive role, relying on frequent visits from the university tutor to provide all the relevant input. Staff responsibilities were clearly set out in the guidelines, and the placement assessment form based on the Standards for the Award of Qualified Teacher Status (DfEE, 1998) gave broad areas on which observation could be focused; as did the modern languages mentor programme. Three particular issues which regularly need working on are target language use, assessment and related issues, and differentiation. Staff did not find information about possible styles of feedback in the guidelines particularly easy to understand. It would have been useful to give more examples here; for instance, selected points in the lesson could be the beginning, the end, setting up group work or the use of the tape recorder, amongst others. When talking about aspects on which to focus we needed to look again at the assessment form criteria and the mentor programme as well as having more in depth discussion; staff need to have such issues as the need for different types of feedback made explicit, as this will determine the nature of the debriefing session. Fish (1995b: 131–132) identifies four modes of debriefing, but staff in the department will probably only use the first two of these, namely critique mode and reflective mode. Although staff contribute to the formal assessment, debrief in this mode is more likely to be conducted by the mentor, and time constraints will limit staff input into self-assessment mode. Critique mode looks at the positive and negative points of a lesson, offers professional judgements and indicates how the student teacher might do better next time. Reflective mode looks at why the lesson was as it was; the theories that underlie actions are explored as well as ideas as to how to improve. I did not feel that the meeting was sufficient to make staff fully aware of the processes involved in debriefing a student teacher. Staff had already recognised the quality of the student teacher who had been assigned to us since we had worked with her during the Autumn Term. I shared with my department work which had been carried out at a Partnership languages mentor meeting to identify characteristics of a good student and possible targets to stretch them, as illustrated in Figure 10. We finally considered the question of providing written feedback once per week, and decided to use the triplicating sheets supplied by the university, filling them in whilst observing. This would mean that the task was completed without the need to copy up, a delay which had led to several not being produced for my records in the previous year. It meant, however, that at the same time staff had to consider who the feedback was for; the mentor’s copy would inform her about the student’s progress, but primarily it was for the student’s benefit and should be addressed to her.

Monitoring the Department’s Work The meeting had taken place at the beginning of the Spring Term, and my intention was to monitor the written feedback given to me by staff to see if the 104

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THE GOOD STUDENT Already has: good classroom management; awareness of school procedures; ability to plan and deliver; measurable gains for pupils; the beginning of the ability to focus on the pupils rather than on themselves. Should start to work at: • differentiation: group work, range of materials, stretching the more able, supporting the least able; • teaching styles, carousels, independent learning, using a wider range of resources such as video, ICT, drama, foreign language assistant; • A Level work where possible; • focusing on developing a certain skill area e.g. reading, writing.

Figure 10 Identifying the good student documentation and the meeting had made any difference to the quality and effectiveness of our work with the student teacher. I soon realised that there was little change in the ability of staff to deliver what I was asking of them and that we needed more in-depth discussion, including at least one follow-up meeting to review and to iron out difficulties. Although I received more copies of written feedback than in the past, these became less frequent after half-term. This could be because staff were present in fewer lessons after that point, giving the student space to develop without someone else always there, or because they felt there was nothing new to say. It was also clear that staff often wrote up their comments after the event rather than at the time, contrary to what had been agreed in our meeting; this would make it more likely that they would write as in a report to the mentor. Staff may have been self-conscious about writing a final draft straight onto the A4 self-carbonating paper and thus have preferred to copy up neatly later. It could also be that they did not have the special sheets to hand at the time of the lesson, or even that they simply forgot to make notes at the time. I also realised by half-term that staff needed to be encouraged to use the mentor’s programme week by week. Just before half-term one teacher wanted suggestions for a possible focus for a lesson with a particular class; I had not anticipated the need to give such direct input at that stage. Consequently, I planned a further meeting with staff to review the experience from their point of view, ascertaining the positives and negatives and identifying what they felt we could do in the future to fulfil our obligations to student teachers. I also planned a meeting with our student teacher to allow me to build as complete a picture as possible.

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Analyzing the Written Feedback I analyzed the written feedback given to me by staff to look for evidence of those aspects of good practice outlined earlier, paying particular attention to the three issues of: appropriate response to the stage of development; focused observation; and target setting. In the following the student teacher is referred to as Jane and the staff as teachers A, B, C and D. Teacher A Teacher A provided five pieces of written feedback (Figure 11). They were sometimes short, perhaps indicating a reluctance to commit to paper comments which might be seen as critical. The teacher was ambivalent about to whom the feedback should be addressed; in the first feedback sheet (see below) she first wrote ‘Jane’ which she then bracketed and inserted ‘you’. In the second, she avoided such references by writing in note form; this could have been deliberate because of continuing confusion, but it gives a better effect. The remaining pieces all referred to the student teacher in the third person, revealing that the teacher was uncomfortable with the idea of written feedback which speaks directly to the student teacher and challenges in a similar way to that in which the teacher would challenge a pupil. Teacher A had a focus for all but one of the pieces. After using the agreed target language focus in her second observation she struggled a little to find appropriate aspects, but ‘management of a less structured oral lesson’ and ‘conduct of a listening exercise’ would enable the student to develop her techniques. Target setting for

OBSERVATION FOCUS: GENERAL + TARGET LANGUAGE • Start to the lesson – students quickly collected and answering questions. • NB: important that they can ASK as well as answer questions. ? Query use of English when an answer was repeated or you commented on an answer. • A lovely, but noisy class (Jane) you quick to dampen down noise (the noise is work related not chatter). Nevertheless work still to be done on noise – (she) you (has) have started the process! Will keep students behind if necessary. Done humorously but firmly. • Instructions for test given in French – good (explanation in English was required but correctly elicited from a student). • 12 countries tested, might be better to stick to a regular number for tests, 10, 15, 20. That way students get used to the reward system (obviously as many as appropriate can be set for learning!).

Figure 11 Example of feedback from Teacher A 106

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another adult did not come naturally to Teacher A; targets were only agreed as a result of the second observation. These were: Next step – encourage the use of target language from the students: – in exchanges with teacher; – in exchanges with partner. Feedback tended to be descriptive and was always positive and encouraging, with comments such as ‘patience amply demonstrated’; ‘good use of target language to guide students through’; ‘progression shown not only in the increased competence of the students but also in the variety of questions/answers deployed and in their speed and confidence demonstrated’. In the final set of notes the teacher hinted at how the student teacher could move on from the plateau attained by starring with an asterisk two items of professional knowledge for Jane to note, thus taking her forward in her professional understanding: • perhaps need to stress the need for an individual response – to train oneself in listening – unlike other exercises. Sharing answers offers little help to the student who has not completed the work herself; • often it is useful to play a particular section of the tape a third time after the answer has been given so that students can realise what was being said. However, Jane was not challenged to think about why she had done something or how she could do it better. Teacher B Teacher B provided three items of written feedback (the teacher was absent for a while). One feedback sheet combined two weeks. Here again there was some vacillation in addressing the feedback. In the first one it was mainly Jane who was addressed, with only one instance where she was referred to in the third person. The combined feedback was addressed to the mentor, and the third was to Jane. Teacher B’s feedback was well considered and came after the oral feedback; therefore written feedback was not used as a basis for discussion. The first piece covered a wide range of descriptive points which included some judgements on Jane’s performance, a style suggested in my notes (see Figure 12). The combined feedback was mainly descriptive, giving an assessment of the progress of both Jane and her pupils. It did not answer Jane’s needs as a teacher, but gave the mentor a clear idea of the seriousness of her approach to a particular task (the teaching of grammar, focusing on verbs, including provision for differentiation and in particular stretching the most able pupils), and of the quality of the discussions which had taken place between her and the class teacher. The oral discussions would have been of far more use to Jane herself than the written feedback in this instance. A different style was used in the final feedback item where the teacher took up one of my suggestions and chose to use headings from our normal school observation proforma, namely ‘quality of 107

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(1) Need to ensure that lesson aims and objectives are clearly stated on lesson plan. Think about what strategies can be used to ensure that pupils are also aware of where they are going, e.g. English/French at the beginning and draw together at the end? What kind of detail? (2) Lesson well structured in terms of activities and teaching strategies used to convey relevant information. Use of strategies and resources – T + C, board, worksheet – managed effectively. (3) Good use of TL – instructions, explanations drawing out info/explanations from pupils in TL in a variety of areas. (4) Time management was good for the most part – need to look at strategies to instil more of a sense of urgency amongst some pupils. Pupils were on task – but speed/pace of delivery – response mechanism could be increased over lessons. (5) More advantage could be taken of the fact that pupils are well motivated and genuinely interested in the subject – increase challenges and expectations of most able perhaps (once identified). (6) Pupils have good level of competence in subject. They respond positively to Jane’s use of TL – they have gained confidence in their own use of TL over the period of Jane’s teaching. They are not afraid of making mistakes – as they are encouraged and praised effectively. Perhaps look at encouraging use of TL between themselves in certain activities – i.e. encourage independence of use. (7) Good management of pair work activities – ensures good balance of pupil-centred and teacher-centred work. (8) Pupils have made good progress in their ability to understand TL + give feedback on activities, e.g. AT1 responses. (9) Pupils’ increased understanding of avoir + être conjugation + present tense. More of this please. For (a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

the future – I suggest focussing upon: pace/timings; stating objectives to pupils – strategies? eliciting more TL to increase confidence; differentiation – strategies more able? incorporating grammar into each lesson (verb of the day) – need to identify weaknesses here.

Figure 12 First example of feedback from Teacher B teaching’ and ‘quality of learning’; as a result she provided a series of challenges linked with improvement in the context of those headings. There was even a hint at encouraging reflection on what might have happened with a lower ability group (see Figure 13). Teacher B did not seem to have difficulty with the concept of focused observation, and the focus had clearly been agreed in discussion with the student teacher. 108

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OBSERVATION FOCUS: USE OF IT Objectives: Production of personal CV in French using IT Quality of teaching: • Focus in most of lesson was on pupils, with teacher’s role being supportive. Explanation of purpose in TL. Use of publisher package + dictionaries + textbooks as aids to production of CV. • Need to focus on development of own IT skills if expecting a class to use a package even if most of pupils are skilled in IT. • Need also to look at introducing IT focused vocab in TL, e.g. instructions for word processing + printing, etc. • Lack of 2 above was not necessarily a problem with such an able and resourceful group. With less able you could have problems! Most would expect you to know all the answers! Quality of learning: • Pupils were hampered by the fact that some computers were not working – i.e. more pupils (4) to some computers than envisaged; took longer. • Also need to look at what the rest of the group are doing when others are word processing – i.e. giving help, doing a different exercise etc. – as many were not on task all the time. Pupils produced an excellent set of CVs + had used + extended knowledge of CV writing in French. NB: did you provide any homework?

Figure 13 Second example of feedback from Teacher B Teacher B also set out targets or points on which the student teacher was to work. Furthermore, if there was anything with a negative tone this formed part of the targets for the future. Advice was given and some suggestions were made to encourage improvement. The teacher did not present the written feedback in quite the way that I had intended, but her comments about the teaching of grammar demonstrated that she had had conversations in depth with the student about how to teach. She also made attempts to move the student on from her present stage, but, from the evidence available, perhaps had some way to go in encouraging reflection. Teacher C Teacher C found it personally challenging to work with the student teacher in the way that I required. However, the teacher was very conscientious in giving me copies of feedback, completing seven in all, and by the end of the practice the teacher had managed to shift the approach used. The group concerned was a low ability Year 7, set six of six, and therefore teacher and student teacher worked 109

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together closely. The first two written feedbacks were directed at the mentor, and were summaries of the lessons observed and of discussions with the student (Figures 14 and 15). Although targets were not explicitly stated, it was obvious that they had been made, for example ‘Jane and I have discussed the need to increase the pupils’ ability to use French in everyday classroom situations’ and ‘Jane and I have discussed the problem of what to do with those who have time to spare’. One has the impression in this case that to some extent teacher and student teacher may be acting as co-enquirers because of the confidence that the class teacher has in Jane; also, their discussions lead to the adoption of strategies. However, the challenging edge is missing and as such the feedback does not take the student teacher further forward. As I was reading the second piece of feedback Teacher C asked if that was what I wanted. I praised her use of a focus and encouraged her to continue this, and was able then to emphasise that the written feedback was supposed to be for Jane, as if one were talking to her. The teacher should challenge specific actions, asking the question ‘Why?’ From this point on, written feedback from Teacher C began to take on a different tone and style. In the next two in particular, feedback was aimed at the student and was to the point. The teacher chose to focus observation on a selected number of areas in both and to make some judgements about them. In the first, the teacher highlighted the start of the lesson and made suggestions as to how pupil fussiness could be improved. When focusing on differentiation she commended the technique of using stronger pupils as a model for weaker students to copy, and imparted some teacher knowledge about individual pupils (absence and learning difficulties) which the student teacher would not otherwise be able

OBSERVATION FOCUS: ENCOURAGING PUPILS’ USE OF TARGET LANGUAGE FOR PRACTICAL CLASSROOM PURPOSES This week Jane is concentrating on teaching the class the French names of certain countries and their position in Europe/the world. This is proving to be enlightening for many of the pupils, widening their general knowledge as well as improving their French. Jane has produced some eye-catching cards to encourage the pupils’ use of everyday phrases in French. Today she introduced ‘Madame, s’il vous plaît’ to attract her attention or ask for help, and ‘Moi?’ The class entered into the spirit of this with enthusiasm, although the least confident among them didn’t find the opportunity to use them (yet). Because of the nature of this group the situation often arises where the quickest pupils finish their written work or copying vocabulary etc well before others. Those with the most severe Special Needs need plenty of time for such tasks. Jane and I have discussed the problem of what to do with those who have time to spare, and we have thought of some possible strategies.

Figure 14 First example of feedback from Teacher C 110

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Start of lesson: time wasted through fussiness of pupils – we have to look at ways to minimise this. Perhaps suspend the ‘personal organisation chart’ for a while? Or complete it discreetly at a later stage? Also if possible come into the room earlier to set up tape recorder & select flashback cards. Differentiation: it’s a good idea to use the more able pupils first to remind others of recently learned structures. The weaker pupils then join in & with repeated practice are becoming more confident. X is struggling because of absences in previous lessons – needs particular attention. Y has severe difficulties with all reading & writing activities. Target language: pupils are making progress in using French for ‘real’ purposes, e.g. ‘Madame, c’est bon?’ Pace & sequencing: the position in the lesson of the worksheet activity meant that the lesson lost its momentum – so many pupils moved on to time-filling activities while the slowest were still finishing the worksheet. Need to consider further differentiation, e.g. more planned support for the least able, let them finish the drawing for homework, more examples for the more able. There is such a wide range of ability in this group. Relationships: excellent understanding of and sensitivity to the pupils. You have shown outstanding patience!

Figure 15 Second example of feedback from Teacher C

to take into account. As pace and sequencing were considered, Teacher C gave Jane constructive criticism about the use and structure of a particular worksheet; for example, ‘the position in the lesson of the worksheet activity meant that the lesson lost its momentum’ and ‘need to consider further differentiation, e.g. more planned support for the least able’. Comments on use of the target language and on relationships gave encouragement about the good progress of the pupils and the student teacher’s attitude to them. In the second sheet, Teacher C focused on four areas of the lesson: graph, differentiation, target language and pace. In most areas the teacher offered some advice or reminders which would give some edge to the student teacher’s teaching technique. However, this did not take Jane past the stage that she had reached. In subsequent feedback, Teacher C returned to the third person on just one occasion. Although there was a tendency towards general comment, the focus of observation was tighter than at the beginning, and generally included something to do with future working. The teacher recognised the need to involve the student teacher in assessment and reporting, an activity that would provide challenge and the opportunity to develop the craft aspect of teaching. The penultimate feedback was mainly given over to listing the steps which the student teacher needed to 111

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take in order to conduct a lesson incorporating ICT; this was quite valid and showed the results of discussions with the student teacher. It was the only occasion on which Teacher C used the term ‘target’, although target setting was implicit in other comments. Throughout the practice Teacher C lacked confidence in how to give adequate support and challenge to the student teacher. This was in spite of the improvement in the feedback evidence from Teacher C and my reassurances to that effect. Conversations with the teacher included comments such as ‘I can’t think of how to challenge her. She is so good; what she is doing is just right . . . I don’t think I could do it any better’ (differentiation); ‘you know what has to be done but we have no training in working this way’. There were echoes of these sentiments when we had the review meeting. Teacher C needed more practice, clearer guidance and encouragement. All the signs were that this teacher would succeed in the task. Teacher D Teacher D was the least practised in giving feedback with the required approach; the teacher had not worked with our previous student teacher. Four items of feedback were provided. All were reports to the mentor, but there were a few comments which the student could use as advice on teaching technique. The teacher’s style was to give a detailed description of what took place in the classroom, covering activities, pupil understanding and behaviour and teacher interventions. The teacher then made general comments which summarised the teacher’s feelings about the lesson. Three of the descriptions included a judgement on the difficulty of an activity; one was quite detailed about why the pupils were having difficulty over, among other things, the concept of agreement and the confusion caused by English prepositions: They did, however, find the work difficult, because there was so much to understand in terms of grammatical structures etc. The tasks required thorough knowledge of the present tense of être, grasp of irregular participles, paradigm of verbs, and the concept of agreement of the past participle. It also required understanding of concepts such as ‘I went’ necessitating use of ‘allé’ but ‘I went out’ needing ‘sorti’. These are very confusing concepts for children given the reduced awareness of grammar in English, and in fact the class were trying hard to succeed at the task. This added to the student teacher’s professional understanding but did not give advice on how to better the approach the student had taken. Of course, the advice might have been given during conversation. Use of the target language was the focus of the first two feedback items, and this was referred to positively in the general summary of those lessons; there was no focus in the other lessons (Figure 16). Teacher D needed to take more account of the student teacher’s stage of development. There were points where insight and challenge could have been given. 112

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OBSERVATION FOCUS: ELICITING SECOND LANGUAGE FROM PUPILS Pupils arrived slowly from various PE lessons around the site. Soon got organised, but responded quite slowly to the ‘levez-vous’ command. Called to order, and lesson started with a question or answer from each pupil (sit down after successful production). Pupils responded well to the French-speaking situation. Some background whispering quickly dealt with in TL. Move on to presentation/practice of previously introduced vocabulary (bedroom) using pictures. Good practice insisting on production of whole sentence (‘Dans ma chambre il y a . . .’). Vocabulary listed in books (English words on board/French words supplied by pupils). Fairly purposeful atmosphere; organisational matters dealt with efficiently. Register taken. A couple of pupils chattering instead of getting on – quickly identified and called to order. Feed-back/checking on board. Fair response from class. Several alternatives suggested for some words, showing evidence of research, dictionary work, etc. Homework set: learn vocabulary – test next week. Considering the way the class arrived, the lesson was quickly brought back on track, and a working atmosphere established and maintained. The class was generally attentive and involved. They listened to each other, and the response was good. Last week’s homework was re-tested after the bell for those who did not score half marks – a good follow-up which will focus their minds this week! General points: The lesson was fairly varied and quite well paced, though the topic is not particularly exciting. The pupils were using the target language for most purposes, including clarification or other enquiries. This is possibly the time to move on (after the spelling test) and see what can be made of the next topic. There has been some ingenuity in finding ways of exploring this material, and it has challenged the class and kept them working.

Figure 16 Example of feedback from Teacher D

For example, a comment that ‘the lesson was fairly varied’ was an opportunity to give suggestions as to how the lesson could be moved on from just being ‘fairly varied’. For the student teacher to gain more from the feedback, a more focused and challenging approach would be necessary. The information which I had provided had only minimal impact on Teacher D in that targets were neither set nor implied, and while there was some recognition of the need for a focus it had not enabled this teacher to make a realistic attempt at extending the experience of or deepening the professional knowledge of the student teacher.

The Student Teacher’s Perspective Towards the end of the placement, with the knowledge of staff, I spoke to the student teacher to ascertain her view of the help that she had received from the department. I asked her the following questions: 113

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What did you find most helpful in your debriefing sessions? If written feedback was helpful, how was it helpful? How could feedback have been more helpful? How could we improve?

She had found informal advice and conversations more helpful than either the written or oral debriefing sessions, as the former had been in response to specific questions. She instinctively wanted experienced teachers to make it clear to her how she could improve her own expertise. This reflects the concepts discussed above. McIntyre and Hagger emphasise the responsibility of the mentor in making teaching knowledge explicit: ‘it is important that mentors should themselves take the lead in making their own craft knowledge accessible’ (McIntyre & Hagger, 1994: 97); this must also apply to other staff working closely with the student teacher. Generally, the student teacher felt that some staff were too ‘nice’ in their written feedback, as indeed in their oral feedback. One member of staff was usually ‘nice’ in the written feedback but would give criticism orally if pushed. Jane felt that there had been no negative comments and added that ‘it’s very teacherish to be positive’. This response revealed some interesting points. The student teacher lamented the fact that, in her opinion, staff had not criticised her enough; she did not see the need to avoid making a judgement that something could have been done differently or better. On the other hand, since she was a good student, it seemed either that staff were reluctant to commit such things to paper or that they did not consider that they had much to teach her. Jane welcomed comments which questioned her practice; superficially she was doing very well, but she was aware that there is more to being a good teacher than just planning and executing an apparently good lesson. Some staff were aware of her stage of development but had difficulty in addressing it; they were unused to the automatic sharing of comments which could maximise the student teacher’s potential. Jane felt that more detailed feedback would have been more helpful, with comment on specifics in order to say what improvements or action could have been taken. Whereas she felt the mentor provided this, going through the lesson and giving an overview of what could have been better, other staff either seemed simply to give an overview of detail, or a more general comment, without saying precisely what had happened in the lesson. She was concerned to have concrete points to take away from feedback. She needed to know what she had done in a lesson, i.e. what she had really achieved and why. Positive generalisations did not highlight her weaknesses and therefore could not help her improve. The difficulty which staff had experienced in identifying foci for observation and in drawing out relevant development points contributed to the generalised nature of feedback and the lack of a positive impetus towards progress. Jane’s suggestions for improving our practice were as follows: Be more critical. Give the positives but also show how one can improve. ‘What do you think you could have done?’ is a helpful question. It makes you 114

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think. Don’t take any notice of the student’s feelings! Be positive, but be more critical. Not all student teachers will be as prepared as Jane to face the truth about their teaching, but in my experience the majority want to know how to maximise their potential. Jane always expressed her appreciation of the support that staff gave her, but her basic point throughout was the need for constructive criticism which causes the student teacher to reflect and hence to change practice. It was natural that this should be her main concern because that would be action that directly affected her improvement. Having a real focus for observation accompanied by reflective discussion and the setting of targets are some of the factors that make that type of constructive criticism possible.

Staff Views on the Experience I also met with staff towards the end of the practice and asked them the following questions: (1) What did you find difficult about giving feedback (a) in written form, (b) orally? (2) What did you find easier about giving feedback (a) in written form, (b) orally? (3) What do you think is the point of (a) student teachers spending time in school, (b) classroom teacher involvement in initial teacher training? (4) What would help you to provide a better ITT experience for the student teacher and for yourself? The main difficulty experienced by staff was that of finding time to plan and also to give oral feedback. They only had snatched moments, particularly after halfterm when the school programme was much busier. Jane had been a competent teacher and so had been left by some to do her planning and teaching alone in the final weeks. Time would have been an even greater problem if the student teacher had been a weak one. One person had difficulty finding time to write up the feedback, a problem which would have been solved by completing it as agreed at the time of observation. Reference was made to the difficulty of the observation process, that is, of recording what has been seen and making comments on it, especially where feedback needed to be organised under specific headings such as differentiation. This point highlights difficulties experienced by the department with the concept of observation in general and the need for developmental work in this organised by the mentor. Staff also found it difficult to set challenges, whether in written form or orally, because of Jane’s competency. Her ability made them feel unable to be ‘helpfully critical’. The comment was also made that ‘constructive praise is difficult and I don’t like being negative. It feels like nit picking’. No one identified ‘easy’ areas. The most extreme reaction to the second question was ‘nothing. I have been struggling from beginning to end. I want to be able to do it but I feel inadequate’. 115

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These responses reflect accurately why Jane did not feel challenged, and why she referred to some staff as being too ‘nice’ in their feedback. Her assessment of the positive approach as ‘teacherish’ contrasts with their idea of criticism as ‘nitpicking’. We have to attempt to bridge this gap between student and departmental staff concerning perception and practice. Staff responses concerning school involvement in ITT were positive and thought provoking. Student teachers receive practical experience in what to do and what not to do; permanent staff pick up good and fresh ideas and their enthusiasm is rekindled. Staff felt that it was also good for the pupils to have someone else who is ‘generally young’. One member of staff said that the experience of being in school depends very much on the quality of the student, since: One can make a good student better, but with poor students it is doubtful. Why are they poor? Are they frightened of pupils? If they are poor because they are the wrong personality for teaching then they can’t change. This practice confirms either that the student is good or bad. There is much in these sentiments to stimulate further and separate discussion. However, the significant point here is that this member of staff believes that the performance of a good student can be improved; yet this is the very aspect which the department seemingly failed to tackle adequately. The question of what constitutes a poor student and how to work with such a person is not one illustrated through the data presented here, but future action will need to encompass those issues. Staff saw many benefits for themselves: involvement with the student teacher is a learning experience for the classroom teacher which shows what to do and what not to do and clarifies areas where we may be slipping, for instance in differentiation. It provides the opportunity to discuss teaching with another professional. Being an observer helps you to focus on your own relationship with a class, on how they are learning, and on how you will use your teaching strategies when you have them back again. Such comments from the staff reflect a degree of recognition of the professional development spin-off for classroom teachers from involvement with student teachers. My colleagues identified in their own experience the staff development theme highlighted by Kelly et al. (1995) mentioned above. Colleagues were quite clear about what was needed to help them to provide a better ITT experience for student teachers and classroom teachers alike. They needed more time to spend with the student teacher, either in a dedicated period or at lunchtime. Given that there is already an obligatory dedicated hour per week with the mentor, that would be difficult to arrange. It is most likely that staff and students will have to continue to work within the constraints of the time available, using it as creatively as possible. Staff recognised that they needed more practice and reassurance to combat their hazy understanding. They also wanted more ‘theory’, that is, examples of focus and challenge. In short, they felt the need for more help to do the job properly. It was suggested that this is a staff development issue to which 116

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whole-school training time should be given; a matter for the Head of Department to raise with Senior Management.

Conclusions My analysis of the term’s activity underlined my perception that my plans for bringing about consistency of good practice had not been as successful as I had wished. Although there was no hint throughout the period that any of the staff felt the student teacher’s arrival simply releases the class teacher to do other things, I have nevertheless come to the conclusion that it will take a different kind of intervention on my part to change the perception, built up over years, that our role is to give student teachers practice in teaching rather than to be actively involved in training them. I had made too many assumptions. The biggest assumption was that in thinking that staff, who are just as busy as I am, would have the time to read and digest all the information I had given them, not to mention to put it into practice. I had provided them with documentation from which they had to extract ideas to put into effect; I learnt that this had to be done for them, and to be kept as clear as possible. I had thought that after the first meeting they understood that their written feedback was to the student teacher and not to me, and that I simply wanted a copy of what they had written to help inform my opinions; in fact, throughout the whole practice staff vacillated between addressing the student and reporting to me. I had assumed that all staff understood the process of observation as summarised by Shaw (1992), referred to earlier in this chapter; that was obviously not the case. Where there was understanding of this, staff had difficulty in relating that understanding to the student’s stage of development and in knowing what to do in order to stretch her fully by setting appropriate targets. In carrying out this project I discovered through experience the truth of conclusions expressed by McIntyre and Hagger (1994: 98–99), who emphasise the mentor’s responsibility to maximise the input of departmental colleagues. I agree entirely that ‘learning through practice is generally more effective if it is supported by a competent, experienced practitioner’ (McIntyre & Hagger, 1994: 90). Staff in the department are supportive, competent and experienced; their expertise is evident from what happens in their classrooms and they are indeed ‘one of the major resources available to mentors’ in managing the learning opportunities of the student teacher (McIntyre & Hagger, 1994: 98). However, whilst the staff in our department know themselves what they are doing and why, they are not immediately aware of the need to articulate that expertise to the learner teacher. The student may ask focused questions to which staff will respond, but staff need to be made aware of their responsibility to make their professional knowledge accessible even (and perhaps especially) if the student does not ask. Being supportive is no longer quite enough. Student teachers need to observe different teaching strategies, discuss different perspectives on the teaching of their subject, receive 117

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advice or teach collaboratively as necessary and be given insights into their strengths and weaknesses. Even willing departmental members ‘are likely to develop the necessary understanding only if the mentor makes deliberate efforts to ensure that that happens’ (McIntyre & Hagger, 1994: 99). Carney and Hagger (1996) develop the same theme in their study of the Oxford Internship Scheme. Teachers in their study wanted the mentor to facilitate a deeper understanding of the learning needs and priorities of interns, more opportunities to discuss teacher education commitments more formally as a department, and written guidelines for working with student teachers. This implies an initial time investment on the part of both mentor and staff. Carney and Hagger comment that: The reluctance of mentors to encourage and guide subject teachers’ work with interns suggested that much of the potential impact of this work with interns is being lost. (Carney & Hagger, 1996: 100) However, mentors did not want to be too prescriptive, or to impose any role on their colleagues (Carney & Hagger, 1996: 99). This summarises precisely my position, and probably that of most other subject mentors. Even where the mentor does see the input of departmental colleagues as crucial to the quality of learning outcomes, the promotion of these subject teachers as teacher educators in order to give their work with student teachers appropriate attention is a more difficult objective to achieve. Having recognised the need to take a more pro-active role to support members of my department in this challenging and vital role, I identified a series of issues which would need to be tackled in order to improve our practice. Staff would need to be given further in-service training on the value and practice of observation, and to be encouraged to see that properly focused observation is important for the development of student teachers, as well as being a tool for improving their own performance in the classroom and departmental practice generally. We needed to tackle the issue of awareness of the student teacher’s stage of development as discussed in the context of the good practice model cited above. Departmental meetings on the topic of ITT would need to consider items in greater depth, in particular looking at some of the ‘theory’ of observation, sharing the essential elements of the process and reflecting on the points made here about the importance of focused observation. We would need to clarify the difference between a focus and a target, whilst acknowledging that a target could become a focus in a future lesson. We would also need to consider how to tackle the three departmental issues of target language, assessment and related issues and differentiation. I decided to draft an observation sheet for staff to use when observing student teachers and as a basis for discussion at our meetings (see Figure 17). I drew on some of the formatting ideas used in our own school observation sheet, but making the new version specific to our needs, by encouraging staff to set a focus for observation and to set challenging targets. A wide variety of focus ideas would mean that the sheet could be used across all stages of development. The sheet would 118

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Modern Languages Department Lesson Observation Sheet (ITT) Student Teacher:

Observer:

Lesson:

Date:

FOCUS OF LESSON – max. of 4 relevant issues, including from next two sections.

In your lesson I focused on: .............................................

General: (including description of lesson, pace, objectives met, teaching techniques, evidence of planning, expectations, management of lesson/pupils). Specific: pace, range of/particular teaching techniques/use of resources, e.g. worksheets/OHP/taperecorder/computers/video/whiteboard, etc./general planning/planning re. NC POS and ATs/practising past items/presenting new items/pair work/group work/Q&A techniques/body language/ time pupils spend on task/pupil progress – gains in knowledge/use of the FLA + support staff/equal opps – high expectations notwithstanding background or ability/evidence in planning and execution of lesson/health & safety issues.

.............................................

You ....................................... .............................................

Department wide focus: which (if any)? Target language. Assessment and related issues (including homework, marking and the formative use of evaluations). Differentiation. Other relevant focus? What? Reflect: Why did you .................................................................? Have you considered...................................................? How could you have....................................................? Would this work with X group.....................................? Do you think.................................................................? etc. My advice is ............... (if appropriate)..................... You should/must/could .............................................. It would have been better if...................................... This did not work because........................................

Your target for (next week/ lesson) is .............................................

............................................. Agreed target: Improve, develop, attempt to use, extend use of, etc. Start/end of lesson, sequencing, instructions, timing, pace, organisation, preparation, objectives. Next (week/lesson) I shall Differentiation (group work, pair work, materials, stretch focus on the following issue the more able, support weaker pupils), other teaching when I observe you style – which? – carousel of activities, range of ............................................. resources, ICT, independent learning, Other ............................................. Agreed focus: see above.

Figure 17 A lesson observation schedule 119

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give prompts to guide staff through coaching the student against standards in which judgements are going to be made, so the ideas for focus would include a significant number of these. The observation sheet should also remind staff of questions that invite reflection and can lead to deeper professional understanding, and would prompt clear target setting. In addition to these measures, the mentor needs to issue a selection of his or her own observation notes to serve as examples. Feedback need not just be a point by point description of what has happened in a lesson; it should, however, generally give the positives and negatives and lead into discussions concerning ‘why?’ and ‘how could you . . .?’ and so on.

A Personal Perspective I found the process of studying and reviewing our departmental practice enormously beneficial and challenging: beneficial because it has given me a clearer idea of my role as mentor and of the implications of working with student teachers; challenging because the results imply working with other professionals to deepen their understanding of their own part in the process. The project has benefited the department because staff had to reflect on their own practice, and to a greater or lesser degree individual staff members are becoming aware of the need to change that practice. The implementation of a new observation sheet to use with students represents a significant step forward in the task of establishing consistency of good practice across the department. For me, together with the other actions outlined above, it is a way of moving forward without appearing ‘pushy’ or over demanding. The importance of setting targets in order to improve on current practice is exemplified in the above; our departmental target will be to improve consistency through more focused observation, more constructive and challenging feedback and through setting more appropriately challenging targets. Subsequent review and refinement should lead to a system that delivers quality experiences for student teachers. As a final comment, I must pay tribute to the staff who were involved in the project, but also to those who were not, since all want to ‘do the right thing’ for our student teachers and desire to move forward in this age of partnership with the university’s education department. They are willing to adapt their practices, but need help in doing so.

Thinking about your Own Practice What role do other members of departmental staff play in terms of working with the student teacher? To what extent do those members of staff understand the new roles for them created by partnership courses? What awareness is there within your department about student teacher development? 120

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Is there consistency within your department in the quality of feedback to and target setting for student teachers? If not, how could you address this issue? What steps could you realistically take to improve the whole experience of ITT for both student teachers and members of your department?

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Chapter 2.4

Focusing on the Learner INGE JOHNSON

Developing a Focus on Pupil Learning One of the main difficulties undermining progress during student teachers’ school placements is that they are constantly preoccupied with their own performance; they tend to forget that the real measure of their achievements is the amount of pupil learning resulting from their lessons. McNamara warns of this: What, of course, is neglected is the focus upon children’s learning and providing the appropriate tasks and activities which are related to their various abilities and which are intended to advance their learning. . . . It is in this respect that the contributions of the mentor and tutor are important for the effective promotion of learning in a specific class of children with their various abilities and aptitudes. (McNamara, 1994: 59) McNamara’s emphasis on the advice of mentor and tutor is crucial; however, if student teachers are to gain any degree of independence they need to be helped to find for themselves the tools which can help them to assess pupil learning as a means of informing their lesson planning. It is such autonomous analysis, rather than advice, which can enable student teachers to transcend practices in a particular school and to reflect independently. Teaching is not a skill which can be developed purely by imitation; to some extent it must be developed by the student teachers themselves. Mentor and student must together find ways through which this goal can be achieved. In addition, student teachers’ perceptions of their ‘performance’ are often based purely on their subjective feelings; these can differ considerably from the perceptions of the mentor and equally can bear little relationship to actual pupil learning. Ways need to be found of helping students to distance themselves from the classroom situation in order to analyse it more objectively. It can also be helpful for the mentor to achieve a greater measure of distance from personal practice so as to open up this practice to scrutiny in terms of pupil learning. My project work for the Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring as described below centres upon this issue; I decided to trial a range of strategies aimed at focusing the student teachers’ 122

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attention on pupil learning, with the aim of helping them to plan more effective differentiation and classroom management strategies and ultimately of leading to improved pupil learning. An initial challenge for myself as mentor was to become more explicitly aware of my own practice. Tomlinson states that ‘analysing and communicating teaching strategy is a different skill from deploying it in practice’ and that ‘modern insights into skill would suggest that experienced practitioners tend to become intuitive at their activities’ (Tomlinson, 1995: 71). For the benefit of both student and mentor, intuitive actions and reactions needed to be made more conscious and open to analysis. In order to achieve these aims, the student teachers and I would need to work as an equal team evaluating lessons in terms of the pupils’ perspective, particularly in terms of pupils’ responses to different teaching styles. It would be useful to focus particularly on the less able and the more able learners. We would need to use the Autumn and Spring Term placements (which student teachers in this particular year spent in the same school) to collect evidence about what kinds of teaching and learning activities were likely to enable pupils to learn as much as possible. We would need to focus on such questions as: • During what proportion of lessons were pupils actively engaged in some activity? • What are the identifiable factors which seemed to affect pupils’ learning in the classroom? In order to establish a more objective approach to the issues, student teachers needed to be presented with a wide range of evidence appertaining to pupil learning which they would then be asked to analyse. The evidence which we collected included the following: • video recordings of lessons taught by both mentor and student teachers and analysed according to various formats; • detailed mentor observations of student teachers’ lessons; • evidence of pupils’ perceptions of lessons.

Towards a Definition of Good Practice If student teachers were to evaluate lessons they would need to have some working definition of ‘good practice’; we therefore started discussions at the very beginning of the students’ placement about the kinds of teacher activities and pupil activities which they thought constituted a good lesson. To prompt our discussions I referred to some of the questions raised by Fish’s discussion of various views of good practice (see Fish, 1995b: 91–109). The first issue which we discussed was whether or not we should accept the government’s view of good teaching practice. For modern languages teaching the 123

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recommended methodology is outlined in the Programme of Study of the National Curriculum (DfEE/QCA, 1999). Modern language teachers may ask themselves whether following those guidelines does indeed constitute good practice; this then leads to Fish’s question as to what would count as evidence (Fish, 1995b: 92). The student teachers and I decided that the answer was to find ways of looking more closely at pupils’ learning and to let what we learnt from that guide our lesson planning. That conclusion, however, poses the difficult question of how we can determine how much pupils are learning. We would need some means of determining whether pupils of different levels of ability were fulfilling their potential. We would need to find appropriate ways of observing pupils and teachers. We would also need to be cautious about how we used the evidence which we gathered, as time was quite short to achieve our goals. Fish points out the need to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of one’s observation tools: Once the overall purpose is clear, then the focus for the observation, the specific tools for observing, the methods of recording and the ways in which this whole process might be learnt from can all be decided. But though very useful, these tools are also highly dangerous, and they need to be employed in the fullest possible knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. (Fish, 1995b: 112). We therefore also had to take into account the fact that our means of observation may distort the truth by having an effect on what we had chosen to observe. In addition, the most important aspect of observation is for the observer to reconsider his or her view of good practice. Fish underlines the importance of finding out when evaluating lessons what theories the learner-practitioner has proceeded upon (Fish, 1995b: 115). Student teachers are often still fairly close in time to their own school experience, and at the beginning of their teaching placements they tend to look at lessons as they themselves would have perceived them as pupils rather than from the viewpoint of the actual pupils in front of them. The particular student teachers with whom I was working during the project also arrived with rather rigid concepts about acceptable classroom behaviour, which were unrelated to the quality of pupils’ learning. My task as mentor therefore included prompting the student teachers to reconsider their personal views of good practice in the light of different perspectives. Fish stresses that there are many possible interpretations of events observed in a lesson and that awareness of this ‘is especially important if, for example, the observer is watching activities that run contrary to his/her own preferred way of teaching’; she goes on to say that ‘the best that an observer can do is to seek several differing perspectives on the event and a range of possible interpretations of it’ (Fish, 1995b: 114).

Making Use of Video Recordings It is important for student and mentor to plan improvements and new strategies together, at least during the early stages of their work. However, student and 124

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mentor form quite close personal relationships which can get in the way of honest criticism, and it can be difficult to discuss shortcomings in each other’s teaching. In order for genuine collaborative work to take place a maximum degree of objectivity needs to be injected into the evaluation process. After discussing ways in which we could distance ourselves from our own work and performance and be more honestly critical of each other, the two student teachers and I decided to use the school’s video camera to record lessons. By watching recordings rather than being directly involved in the situation, we felt that we might find it easier to analyse our own as well as the pupils’ performance. Originally we agreed to video lessons taught by the student teachers, which could then be analysed during subsequent meetings with the mentor, in an attempt to address the difficulty mentioned earlier of learner teachers’ subjective perceptions of their work. The camera would need to focus on pupils at work as well as upon the teacher concerned, in order to facilitate a reassessment of the lesson in terms of the new criteria. However, Fish warns that ‘the mentor will need to be well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of his/her own practice and be able to discuss this with students’ (Fish, 1995b: 98); we therefore decided that a first important step would be to record and discuss a lesson taught by the mentor. The mentor provides an early role model for student teachers, and must therefore be prepared to model teacher learning; he/she needs to provide a learning environment not just for pupils but also for teacher learners. Calderhead (1987) reports on a study whereby he found that the student teachers’ image of a ‘model’ lesson resulted in ‘fairly stereotyped teaching’, with students mainly wanting to fit in with the supervising teacher’s practice (Calderhead, 1987: 273). To try to avoid such a situation, I feel that it is important for the mentor to throw his or her practice open to discussion and criticism in order to introduce a genuine atmosphere of searching and growth. Student teachers should not be allowed to view teaching as a ritual about which there is nothing to say, as indicated in Calderhead’s study where the learner teachers had a ‘ “driving test” conception of the field experience’ (Calderhead, 1987: 277) and where their attention was so much involved in demonstrating polished performance that they were unable to reflect on the children’s progress.

Introducing a Degree of Objectivity into Observation The student teachers and I decided that if they were to learn from observing pupils they would need to know what they were looking for and to have a simple way of recording what they saw. It would be useful for the mentor to use the same format so that comparisons could be made. Some kind of proforma seemed necessary for establishing the proportion of a lesson during which pupils were really working; our aim was to find ways to improve our lesson planning by engaging the maximum number of children actively for the maximum amount of time in any given lesson. We would also take the opportunity to track individual pupils at times. To achieve 125

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all of this we would need to come to an agreement about criteria for observing lessons. We therefore agreed to devise a form to focus our observations, which we did after making the first video recording, this being a lesson taught by the mentor. Fish emphasises that ‘forms are inevitably reductionist’ (Fish, 1995b: 132); we felt that we agreed with this statement, but that a form could give a certain degree of objectivity to lesson observation which we saw as necessary to allow comparisons. We were trying to judge a specific aspect: whether or not pupils were fully occupied in the course of the lesson. We were also trying to reduce our subjective involvement in highly emotional situations in order to benefit our evaluation of methodology and classroom management. The form was to be used as a basis for discussion of what was valuable in a lesson, judged on the criterion of whether or not it promoted learning, as well as discussion of what indicated a need for further reflection and subsequent improvement. We therefore decided to go ahead with the creation of a form to record our observations, whilst fully aware of its potential limitations. There are various ways in which a simple format can be devised, but we felt that it was important that the main input should come from the student teachers, so as to increase their feelings of involvement and commitment to the project. They were therefore asked to list the outward signs of learning perceived in pupils which they thought were significant.

Alternative Observation Style In addition to use of the proforma which we devised, we also discussed the potential usefulness of a more ‘naturalistic’ method of observation to supplement the more objective recording system. Because of the dangers of reducing lessons to a simple prefabricated list, we decided that occasionally full observation notes should be taken, giving a chronological record of lesson events. This could lead to what Fish describes as ‘telling the story’ (Fish, 1995b: 140), which she considers an important stage in debriefing. Initially this can involve a more emotional evaluation of the lesson but the mentor’s task is to guide students beyond this towards seeing patterns in their practice, thus transcending that practice through analysis and generalisations.

Post-Observation Discussions Fish’s discussion of modes of debrief identifies four principle modes: critique, reflective, formal assessment and self-assessment (Fish, 1995b: 131–2). In our investigative work we felt that the most suitable approach to employ would be the reflective mode, which offers observer and observed a means of exploring what happened during the lesson in order to think about how it might have been perceived, why it was as it was and how to improve next time. This approach lends itself to tutor assessment or self-assessment, or more usually a combination 126

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of the two; during the project our aim was to move more thoroughly into selfassessment mode, and for the student teachers to take increasing responsibility for their own professional development. Analysis was usually undertaken by all participants together, in order to help both the students and the mentor to discover weaknesses in their own practice. The most important stage was of course subsequent planning, which looked at ways in which pupils’ learning could be enhanced in future lessons – all analysis needs to be followed by new target setting if it is to be of practical use. Although also necessary for the developing teacher mentor, this is particularly important for the student teachers themselves during a comparatively short teaching placement where all practical experience is of necessity contracted and intense.

The Role of the Student Teachers as Enquirers During the whole process of evaluation I felt that it was important for the student teachers to feel that they were in charge. They had listed the criteria for the observation form and one of them was nearly always in charge of the video recorder so that they felt they were the ones deciding what was important to film. Both students tended automatically to pick out negative features in classroom behaviour and to dwell on those far more than on positive aspects such as pupils working hard and paying attention. For example, when they were filming the mentor’s lesson they frequently pointed the camera at two pupils who had slight problems with paying attention, and at a third pupil who is normally conscientious but had not done the necessary drawing of a street plan at home in preparation for oral class work. This led to an interesting series of questions about classroom management, raising the issue of whether it was better practice to concentrate on dealing with negative aspects of classroom behaviour or on reinforcing the positives.

The Video Recordings As the video recordings themselves cannot be reproduced here, the following gives an outline of what was observed and what findings were discussed by the ‘evaluation team’ consisting of mentor and student teachers. The lessons are outlined in chronological order, as they reflect various stages of development in the student teachers as their placement progressed. Lessons were selected mainly at random according to the availability of the camera and of a volunteer to carry out the filming rather than in order to demonstrate our purpose. Lesson 1 (taught by the Mentor) The mentor’s lesson which was chosen for filming was last lesson of the day, with pupils coming to an outlying prefabricated building after a PE lesson; this particular lesson is therefore not without its problems. Target language use is as 127

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a result more restricted during this lesson than in the pupils’ second lesson on the following day due to the emphasis on clarity and classroom control. An unforeseen incident raised an interesting point in crisis management for the student teachers; a pupil had pressed a button on the video recorder so that it did not work at first although it had been tested a short time before. As mentioned above, the student teachers frequently focused the camera on particular pupils; therefore as we subsequently watched the video with our retrospectively developed evaluation forms we concentrated on those individuals. Although most pupils responded well to whole class questioning, there was noticeable renewed energy perceptible in the class at every change of activity. The pupils had to give instructions to a partner to enable them to draw a plan; subsequently they compared their plans, which should have turned out identical. The ensuing writing task, which entailed putting those instructions down in writing, encouraged the two pupils who seemed to have a shorter attention span than some of their peers, to be back on task. We clearly identified that it was a change of activity which each time brought back most of the pupils’ full attention. Lesson 2 (taught by Student Teacher A) The same class was filmed on a Friday morning being taught by Student Teacher A. The recording made it clear to the student teacher that she would have to do more work on projecting her voice and giving clear instructions; she herself suggested those targets after watching the lesson. She also recognised herself that the questioning phase had been too long, and that the shouting out of answers made some pupils lose attention; the evidence was clear. After a long phase of questioning one pupil even appeared to be asleep! When the pupils then started asking each other questions using a ball dice, all murmuring suddenly stopped and nearly all the pupils seemed enthralled. Again it seemed that a change of activity and in this case some physical involvement, i.e. catching and throwing the ball, made the difference. At the end of the lesson too, when pupils were asked to get up in order to perform a role-play they had prepared, the atmosphere in the classroom livened up considerably. As she watched the video of her lesson the student teacher immediately realised that she would have to develop a greater awareness of what was going on in the rest of the classroom while she was monitoring pupils during a pair work activity. One able girl had her hand up for a long time but was not noticed. Student Teacher A had no difficulty in setting herself new targets for development after this lesson. Lesson 3 (taught by Student Teacher B) The third recording was of a lesson with a lower ability Year 9 group taught by Student Teacher B. It was clear to the student teacher as she watched the lesson later that there were some differentiation problems which she would have to 128

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address. The camera was a useful tool here in reducing the learner teacher’s emotional involvement and decreasing her feelings of powerlessness, anger and frustration. Relationships during the lesson were very difficult, leading to a highly charged, annoying situation. The opportunity to look at the classroom management and differentiation problems objectively with her mentor and fellow student some time afterwards was felt to be a useful experience. She was able to see that there were pupils in the class who wanted to work and seemed interested but did not have enough support to do so. Use of target language seemed to be abandoned because of the classroom situation. It was interesting to note that when oral work started, more pupils put up their hands and seemed interested, although they were given little opportunity for actively absorbing words through repetition. Pupils also seemed more involved during a game at the end of the lesson, though they were also undisciplined. As a result of the distance created the student was able to see those problems clearly for herself, and to embrace the important planning issues and new targets arising from this evaluation without so much emotion. For example, she addressed the question as to whether the whole-class approach seemed suitable for the whole lesson, as well as simple management issues such as the wisdom of turning one’s back to the class for prolonged periods when writing on the white board. Other matters which became obvious were the difference between the calming effect of writing activities for a higher ability group compared with the unrest caused by a similar activity with this lower ability group, and the need for a wider range of activities. Lesson 4 (taught by Student Teacher B) This lesson with a mixed ability Year 7 group also took place during the first few weeks of teaching placement. The student teacher had not included clear target setting at the beginning of the lesson. Part of the lesson included the organisation of a class test. At the start of the lesson three pupils were shown in closeup; two of them were talking and the third one asking for help. There seemed to be fairly long periods without interaction between pupils and student teacher. During a writing activity pupils seemed to be chatting but as soon as they were put into a test situation for writing and listening tests, all pupils appeared to be concentrating; they now knew what to do as the instructions given by the student teacher had been clear. During a whole-class questioning activity after the tests, many pupils put their hands up, seeming to respond well to a new activity. Lesson 5 (taught by Student Teacher B) This was a follow-up lesson with the Year 9 group described earlier, which showed improvements. There was more structured oral work at the beginning, which elicited much better pupil response. Positive reinforcement was much more noticeable, with pupils being praised for correct answers. The target language was 129

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used much more extensively, and, although not many pupils put up their hands during whole class questioning, the group as a whole, with a few exceptions, was more attentive. The pair work was more structured and more pupils took an active part. The most noticeable difference which came across very clearly on film was the much more forceful presence of the student teacher; she herself was very aware of this improvement when she saw the video, and gained considerably in confidence as a result. Lesson 6 (collaboration between Mentor and Student Teacher B) A further lesson videotaped involving Student Teacher B was with a Year 8 group undergoing oral tests at the end of a unit. Mentor and student teacher collaborated in this lesson and started off by giving a demonstration of the information gap activity which pupils were to carry out for their test. Some pupils at the back seemed unsure and were slow to start, but the individual monitoring carried out by Student Teacher B during the practice stage helped them and they managed the test satisfactorily. Pupils on the whole were eager for individual help at this stage and received clarification of points they may not have fully understood. When the testing was over, pupils performed their prepared role-plays in front of the class for the last few minutes of the lesson. The pupils responded enthusiastically; one of the last pair was the pupil who had been asleep in Lesson 2. Lesson 7 (taught by Student Teacher A) The next lesson which we recorded was a Year 10 lesson which had been prepared by Student Teacher A with the help of the mentor. A new grammatical point was being introduced; pupils were to establish a rule by deduction and then practise the newly learnt language material orally. The main problem with the lesson was a rather monotonous and somewhat unconvincing delivery. The GCSE examination group showed great tolerance and appeared extremely attentive, but there was little response to questions at first. When the student teacher started to use visual material related to the activities about which the pupils were to form responses, she elicited a much better response. A later activity involving the matching of pictures with sentences was particularly successful in this respect. Overall, although the lesson had been planned with a number of different activities, it lacked impetus and pupil response was disappointing. During later discussion the student teacher seemed fully aware of the problems; seeing herself on video helped her considerably to analyze the problem. Lesson 8 (taught by Student Teacher B) The improvement in Student Teacher B’s classroom presence was obvious at the beginning of a later lesson with a second Year 9 group. Whole class presentation 130

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and questioning were very successful and the student teacher was able to hold the attention of the whole group. She seemed confident and in command. The class teacher, who had offered to videotape this particular lesson, felt unable to continue after the first part due to the weight of the camera, so we were unable to see how the lesson developed.

Analysis and Follow-Up of the Recording Work Our work confirmed the danger warned of by Furlong and Maynard, that student teachers, even at an advanced stage in their teaching placements, did not sufficiently consider the quality of the learning experiences which they were devising for their pupils: Students, it seemed, were, in the main, still not engaging with the quality of the learning experiences they were devising for their pupils and their lesson evaluations remained superficial. For most students a lesson was thought to have ‘worked’ if the pupils enjoyed it or seemed interested. (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 90) In order to overcome this tendency we discussed the importance of considering attainment targets and programmes of study as identified in the National Curriculum documentation (DfEE/QCA, 1999) when working with pupils of different ability levels. Variety of activities seemed essential for pupils of all levels if they were going to be involved during lessons; attention to attainment levels was important if pupils were to be stretched and to make sure that pupils of lower ability were not given tasks which were too taxing and could result in them becoming inattentive. The student teachers would need to include attainment levels in their lesson plans as well as identifying how their proposed activities matched the programmes of study. This had been a theme at one of the Partnership mentor meetings, when we had decided to add separate columns to the students’ lesson plan format to log programme of study coverage and the extent to which task levels were appropriate to the pupils’ ability. The video recordings could here become misleading; it is often easy to consider a lesson very successful when all pupils are participating, yet the content may not be pitched at the right attainment levels to stretch all the pupils. Pupils can be very enthusiastic during lessons centred upon content at a lower attainment level than they are capable of. Student teachers sometimes plan such lessons because they appear to be successful, in effect prolonging activities beyond their usefulness for learning. Content is often restricted to the learning or revision of relatively simple vocabulary in an imaginative way. Pupil involvement here would not signify a high degree of pupil learning. It is important for student teachers to be very conscious of the level at which pupils are capable of operating. After seeing her lesson with the Year 9 lower ability class it seemed that survival in the classroom should be Student Teacher B’s prime aim for the time being, yet planning towards a wider variety of 131

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activities at the right attainment level would be a significant aid towards this goal. The pupils would probably be more involved and attentive, and certainly some of the classroom management problems would be automatically solved.

Providing a Focus through the Analysis of Observation Sheets Student teachers did, it seemed, need some direction to guide their enquiries. I decided as mentor to focus their attention on two areas: classroom management as a factor in pupil learning; and differentiation. During the Autumn Term I had observed student teachers’ lessons with a specific focus on less able and more able pupils, and was able to use relevant observation notes to highlight particular discussion points and guide the student teachers’ ‘seeing’; I was now able to give the student teachers copies of those observation notes to be analysed for evidence of the need for differentiation and suggestions for effecting it. To make student teachers aware of the need for differentiation strategies early on in the course, I had first of all tracked an able pupil during a Year 7 French lesson. The pupil responded particularly well to whole class questioning, praise and changes of activity. I had pointed out the need to take in written work regularly in order to check on the standard of writing in the target language which was being produced and to give further insight into how much pupils had learnt in a lesson. In a later lesson I selected two pupils for observation: the able pupil from beforehand, plus a less able pupil. Both pupils responded well to teachercentred questioning, but more group or pair work would have given the student teacher the opportunity to help individual pupils during monitoring as the less able pupil clearly needed help with a new grammatical point. During oral pair work the less able pupil had been confident about giving answers but found asking questions difficult and needed more support, perhaps by means of written instructions. Later lessons showed that games were equally effective in keeping the attention of more able as well as of less able pupils, but that when games were extended to encourage pupils to ask questions the less able pupil again needed help. Less able pupils frequently lost attention when they found themselves unable to formulate questions correctly. During a third lesson with this group, clearer and more explicit teaching of a grammar point was recommended to give the able pupils within this mixed ability group more independence in ensuing work and to stretch them. Notes on a Year 9 lesson pointed out the importance for pupils of all abilities of providing a visual focus, as well as indicating that marks for listening work should be recorded in order to motivate pupils of all ability levels. In a Year 10 lesson with a highly motivated GCSE group, some able pupils had started to talk because they were not sufficiently challenged. The motivation of all pupils had increased considerably during a game, but turning oral work into a genuine information gap activity would have stretched them more and further increased participation. 132

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A Year 7 lesson with a different group highlighted the link between classroom management problems and the lack of challenge for abler pupils; extension activities were recommended to reduce discipline problems, along with more careful structuring of the linguistic material to ensure that pupils were supported in rising to the challenge. In a Year 10 listening activity pupils again needed more challenge, including the opportunity to infer meaning from context if they did not know all the words. Other issues which had been highlighted to promote the learning of both able and less able pupils were clarity of instruction, immediacy of feedback and seating arrangements.

Listening to Pupils As we were trying to find out how much pupils were learning, we did not neglect the pupils themselves as a source of evidence. Due to time limits we questioned them informally; obtaining pupil opinions in a more organised way with questionnaires and interviews would be an interesting extension of this work. Nevertheless, despite our informal methodology we were able to ascertain a certain degree of consistency in pupil responses to lessons; it was always the lessons where we had perceived a high degree of restlessness which were pinpointed by pupils as not having been successful in making them work hard and advance their learning.

Conclusions As we evaluated the evidence, the student teachers and I were aware of Gore’s warnings about action research as a vehicle for improving supervision: ‘the complexities of all educational practice make it easy to be “lost among the trees”. Adopting a focus allows one to find some clarity’ (Gore, 1991: 267). We knew that we were trying to isolate specific issues from a very complex process, and that our evidence was being gathered over a comparatively short period of time from a variety of teaching groups where other factors influencing our findings in particular lessons were not always known. Nevertheless, we all felt that given the limitations of time and circumstances, our investigations had advanced our understandings of pupil perspectives and helped us to improve our own practices. In our discussion together based on analysis of the collected evidence, we reached the following conclusions about pupil learning: • in order to stretch able pupils in mixed ability classes it was best if the content of the lesson did not aim at the lowest common denominator, rather that the presentation of material should include challenge for more able pupils. Careful monitoring during subsequent group, pair or independent work would enable the teacher to provide the individual help necessary for weaker pupils; • in predominantly less able groups it seemed wise to aim the content of the lesson at less able pupils and to give them as much clarity as possible in the 133

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presentation phase; extension work should then be given to abler pupils in the group as necessary; pupils of all abilities responded well and worked hard in test situations, involving writing, listening, as well as oral assessment. Both summative and continuous assessment were extremely motivating for pupils and resulted in increased concentration during revision for the test as well as during the actual test; testing also gave the student teachers and the mentor a good idea of how much pupils were learning in the different skills. The student teachers’ programme required them to carry out end of unit tests on a regular basis; also to be responsible for marking and recording according to attainment targets using the departmental marking schedule as part of the whole-school assessment system. However, our work and discussions enabled them to see assessment not just as a statutory chore but as a valuable tool in the evaluation of their own teaching; regular marking of homework in exercise books with follow-up feedback kept both able and less able pupils on target. It was motivating as well as diagnostic; self assessment tasks, such as ‘I can’ statements related to a particular section of the scheme of work as revision for tests, were found to be very motivating, as were mock tests preceding real tests, aimed at focusing pupils’ minds; the teaching of grammar motivated able pupils and allowed them to be more independent and creative; all pupils were able to learn more in an orderly calm classroom atmosphere where there was no talking, shouting out or background noise; more learning also seemed to take place when pupils faced the front of the class room; at the same time it was important to give pupils opportunities for physical movement during the course of a lesson, for instance catching a ball when answering questions; standing up or going to the front of the class when responding to questions, giving a short talk or performing a role-play; moving around the class carrying out a survey; or getting together with others to form small groups; pupils respond very obviously to the teachers’ voice, and student teachers realised in their evaluation that they would have to learn to project their voices more effectively; pupils themselves like to vary their voices in repetition; various patterns like changing from loud to quiet repetition or using rap when learning numbers, months of the year or days of the week can help them to memorise and to pay attention; mime, even just simple hand or arm movements while sitting down, can be effective in helping pupils to learn new words and phrases; able as well as less able pupils only respond well if instructions are clear and the teacher’s voice can be heard without difficulty; 134

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• clear target setting at the beginnings of lessons promotes the learning of all pupils, especially if the teacher returns to those targets at the end to summarise the lesson; • if whole-class questioning is well structured, changing from questions offering alternatives to more demanding questions, it can involve pupils of all abilities and evoke lively responses from pupils together with a high degree of pupil learning; • most of all it is the variety of activities to which pupils of all abilities respond well and which contributes to pupil involvement and learning. Being asked to state which activities they had selected from the programmes of study encouraged student teachers to use a wider range as well as to allow for differences in ability to be catered for within the programmes; • paying attention to attainment levels is also of great importance when stretching and involving pupils of different levels of ability; • planning lessons with pupil learning in mind has beneficial results for classroom management and often solves problems in that area; • a new seating arrangement, maybe just through making pupils feel they are making a new start, has a very beneficial effect on learning at the start of a new term. All of this could have been ‘passed on’ to student teachers by an experienced teacher as ‘tips for teachers’; however the main benefit of the project work was that the student teachers involved were led to ‘discover’ these themes for themselves as a result of generalising from a range of evidence during their actual practice. They therefore experienced ‘ownership’ of the knowledge gained. In particular, as we proceeded the advantages of using video recordings and other procedures designed to increase objectivity became clearer: the students were more able to distance themselves from the high degree of emotional involvement which they experienced during the lessons themselves and thus from their own performance. As a result they found it easier to analyse the pupils’ behaviour, reactions and participation as an objective observer. We had to take into account the fact that the presence of a camera and/or observer may well distort the evidence, but this did not detract from the benefits. Student teachers were quickly able to understand, for example the importance of developing a forceful personality in the classroom. They were able to see for themselves when their presence was not strong enough to hold the pupils’ attention and to work on that; they were subsequently pleased to see evidence in some of the recordings that they suddenly seemed more confident and to have more of a presence. Another aspect of the project work was that, in spite of friendships formed between observer and observed, as well as of our awareness of the limitations of our methodology, the importance of the aims which we had formulated collaboratively made it easier to suggest improvements based on what appeared to be objective evidence. Students and mentor were able to discuss each other’s lessons 135

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freely; the filming and discussion of lessons helped develop a kind of camaraderie which brought about improvements in the teaching and learning of all involved. The collaborative nature of the project did much to promote honesty and mutual trust as all participants searched for objective evidence which they hoped would lead through informed evaluation to improved practice. Cooperation between the two students was encouraged as they arranged to video each other’s lessons. As they searched each other’s lessons for evidence they became more and more aware of their own practice; much more time than just the weekly mentor period was spent on analysis and reflection. Hierarchical distinctions between mentor and student teachers were to a certain extent broken down by the fact that all three were involved in the collection of evidence. Often, in fact, it was the students who were in a position of superiority – not least because they were more expert at handling the video camera. Tomlinson refers to this phenomenon of reducing the interpersonal aspect of the mentoring relationship via a focus on collaborative investigation: During all of this time the interpersonal aspect of course never disappears, however, the combination of close collaborative planning for externally established teaching goals and focus on joint action tend to help keep a functional concern. (Tomlinson, 1995: 201) Tomlinson outlines four stages undergone by student teachers: • • • •

acquisition of awareness and strategies relevant to teaching; engagement in teaching activity which displays such strategies and awareness; monitoring of these teaching activities and their effects; adapting strategy and awareness in the light of reflection on such feedback. (Tomlinson, 1995: 20)

The final two stages of monitoring, reflecting and adapting, have formed the central part of our project. We have tried to put the student teacher into a position where during the evaluation process he or she can be an analytical observer of his or her own as well as his or her fellow student’s practice and the mentor’s practice. Through video recordings, lesson observation notes, an observation form and joint reflection during discussions and planning sessions, we have looked for possible ways to distance ourselves from the complex, emotionally charged situations encountered by students and mentors in the classroom. Although we tried to draw the rest of the department into the project by giving colleagues a clear written description of what we were trying to do at the beginning of the teaching placement, time did not allow us to spend sufficient time with other members of the department to allow them to participate fully. This may well be possible next time now that the mentor has gained experience. The mentor, as Head of Department, is considering using some of the strategies trialled in the project when addressing problem areas within the department as part of the departmental review process. 136

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Thinking About Your Own Practice Have student teachers working within your department been able to distance themselves enough from their own performance to concentrate on pupil learning? How do you think actual pupil learning can be assessed? What techniques could you realistically employ within your own department to: (a) help student teachers to obtain a more objective view of their own work; (b) help them to focus on pupil learning rather than on pupil behaviour; (c) provide opportunities for student teachers to draw conclusions about effective teaching from a wide range of evidence rather than being ‘told’? To what extent do you agree with the conclusions about effective teaching drawn by the investigating team?

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Chapter 2.5

Good Teachers Can Wear Turquoise Socks or When Good Mentoring is Simply Not Enough CARMEN D’ARCY This chapter describes the tale of a failing teacher: the difficulties she encountered, the steps taken to support her and the reasons for their lack of success. It outlines a case in which mentoring could not succeed; it was ‘water off a duck’s back’; mentoring presupposes the willing cooperation of the trainee.

Introduction: Setting the Scene It was my second year at the school and also my second year as Head of Department; I was still unsure of the school ethos. In addition to two full time members of the department, i.e. Jenny and myself, four people taught languages part-time; two of them held other responsibilities in the school. The department had expanded very quickly at the end of my first year as we extended the language option at Key Stage 4 to include the whole ability range and lead in naturally to a ‘languages for all’ policy in the following year. Jenny had been teaching for two years when she started working in the department; she was appointed at the end of my first year from a very weak field. I was a little worried about her lack of presence and ‘mousy’ appearance, but hoped that with plenty of support she would gain in stature and assertiveness. My first impression was soon confirmed as worries and complaints about her began to reach me from all directions: pupils (all sets, including sixth form), parents, and colleagues. Colleagues complained that she had no control over her classes; pupils complained that they did not do any work in her lessons or that she lost their homework; sixthformers complained that she did not talk to them but simply read from books; parents expressed concerns about their children’s lack of motivation and progress.

Shielding Her As Jenny was not a student or Newly Qualified Teacher, I hoped that she would settle in and establish herself with time. She seemed an easy target, so I shielded

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her as much as I could while monitoring her work and classes discreetly. At that point I felt that my role was to keep a watchful eye on her while giving her the space to assert herself. I had to assume that she had already proven her ability to teach in her previous schools so I did not want to undermine her confidence by providing the open and systematic support which I would have given to a Newly Qualified Teacher; I would suggest ideas for her classes in a way which seemed simply to share good practice in the department, for example: ‘by the way, I used this transparency with my Year 9 yesterday. They really enjoyed the activity and it proved to be good reinforcement of . . . Here’s a copy for you, I thought you might like to try it’. I would subtly praise anything positive she had done: ‘you know, when I came into your class to get the clock, your pupils were doing something with cards. It looked really good. Do you want to show me? That is lovely. Perhaps we could share that with the department at the next meeting, and explore more ways in which it could be used?’ In all honesty, I had the impression that it was a fairly pedestrian activity, but the fact that Jenny had actually produced some material was to be seized upon as a springboard for further development. She was always pleased when I made that sort of suggestion. Unfortunately Jenny was guilty of something in addition to poor classroom management which could not be easily forgiven by colleagues: she was regularly late and often absent. She would normally arrive halfway through morning briefing, or after briefing. She tended to go home at lunchtime and return late for afternoon registration or sometimes ring at about 1.20 pm to say that her car had suffered some mechanical problem or other, and that she would therefore be late. I felt responsible for everything that happened in the department, and I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable as I could see all the problems which her presence was causing; however, I felt that I had to support her until she could cope with her duties. At the same time I was beginning to wonder if I was being a good Head of Department – surely I should be able to tell Jenny what to do, and she should do it; or I should find a better way to help her! I kept a watchful eye on her while filtering the complaints which I received and cushioning her against colleagues’ growing impatience. By the end of the Autumn Term I had to tell her in no uncertain terms that being late (at best arriving as the bell was ringing), morning and afternoon was not acceptable, and that she would simply have to set her alarm clock 15 minutes earlier. I told her that having to walk her dogs was no excuse, that other colleagues had to juggle with young children, nurseries or child minders and no transport, but they managed to be on time. Her punctuality improved marginally for a few days before reverting to the previous pattern. Her attendance continued to be unreliable, particularly on Mondays. Her repeated lateness and poor attendance were undermining her already dull image. Colleagues resented her. The pupils had no trust or respect for her. There was no doubt now that a lot of work would be needed to help her achieve some credibility.

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A Teacher’s Public Image Jenny was an old looking young woman. She was about 28 years old and usually wore drab greyish jersey skirts with a pink or grey cardigan. She could have modelled the postwar hairstyle, neat right side parting and tightly permed curls. None of this would have mattered if she had had some sparkle, but she walked with her shoulders bent, looking down, clenching her handbag strapped around her body, and with no spring in her step. One morning as we left the staff room together, I noticed a turquoise sock on her right ankle as she stepped down into the courtyard. ‘Have you hurt your ankle?’ I asked naïvely. ‘No, my tights had a ladder.’ I was speechless. At that point her left ankle emerged from under her grey jersey skirt. She was actually wearing turquoise ankle socks. All the way across the yard, up the stairs and along the corridor to the language rooms, I knew that the pupils were looking at her feet, laughing and mocking her. Jenny, however, did not notice a thing. I left her outside her classroom, wondering how long it would be today before I was called to restore discipline. ‘Jenny, can I see you at lunchtime today, please?’ I had decided that today was the day I would talk to her about her image, since all my gentle hints until then had been to no avail. I warned another colleague in the department that I was going to have an unpleasant conversation with Jenny about her image, and that I feared it was going to be hurtful. This colleague had tried to help Jenny change the way she presented herself; in fact we had both conspired to make her look younger with hints like ‘Oh, Jenny, you should wear this colour more often, it suits you’, or ‘Oh Jenny, I have a special offer from my hairdresser, two for the price of one next week. Shall we go together?’ I asked my colleague to be particularly kind and supportive today. At lunchtime Jenny came to see me; see Figure 18 for our conversation. I hated having to say such things to a colleague but I believed that it was my responsibility as her Head of Department. I had already tried to give hints and advice and they had been completely ignored, so I knew I had to be blunt if Jenny were to take any notice. I knew that colleagues talked about her, though never in front of me. Sometimes if I guessed members of staff were talking about her I would join the group on purpose so that they immediately stopped; I had already told them it was unprofessional and they should give her space. Our staff room was generally a friendly place; people tended to be supportive rather than ‘bitch’. This was probably one of my most difficult days as Head of Department; when I arrived home I cried because it had upset me to have to say such hurtful things. There was a slight improvement, which I encouraged through little compliments (‘this blue really suits you, Jenny’); I enrolled the help of colleagues to try to reinforce my encouragements. I regularly reminded Jenny about standing straight in front of her classes. I was well aware that much more had to be done to improve her effectiveness, but I decided to wait until the next term.

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‘You have had time to settle in but I wonder if you feel the pupils’ response is what you expect? I am called very often to restore discipline in all your groups, I play the mediator between you and parents and some pupils. What do you think?’ ‘Well, it is very tiring, and the pupils are very difficult.’ ‘This is not an easy task for me but I believe it is my duty as your Head of Department to alert you to one of the causes of the difficulties which you encounter in trying to establish discipline in your lessons. In our job we have a public image, whether we like it or not, and we ignore it at our peril. You don’t seem to realise that the way you dress and look matters. Personally, I don’t care what you wear or don’t wear but the pupils seize it as an opportunity to mock you.’ ‘Yes, it is none of your business!’ ‘No, but the fact remains that they laugh at you. If you had charisma you could wear anything, and they would never laugh at you.’ ‘I haven’t much charisma, have I?’ ‘Never mind charisma. Jenny, the pupils don’t even notice you walking into the classroom. You walk in late and in a flush, nearly apologising for your presence and you never address the whole class. I have given you advice which you have ignored so far, but we have reached a point where you must make an effort. Do you agree that something has to be done?’ ‘Yes, but I don’t see what.’ ‘Well, let’s try a couple of steps at a time. Try to be aware of what you look like. Do not wear ankle socks, please. If your tights have a ladder, don’t wear any tights! Your first target is going to be to present the right image to the pupils, and to make a stance in the classroom: be noticed, do not start until all the pupils are quiet and listening. Try arriving before the class. Stand up straight as you greet them and maintain eye contact so that they know you are waiting for them to be ready, and that you will not start before then. Do you think you can aim for that?’ ‘What if I wait so long that I don’t have time to do everything?’ ‘If they don’t listen while you talk, you’re not being effective anyway. You are wasting your time. Do you agree?’ ‘Well, yes, I suppose so.’ ‘So for the next week, you will concentrate on obtaining silence before you start, in your lesson and also in your tutor group. Before you become effective they need to take notice of you. Remember the eye contact. I had already told you to look up more often. For example, when you teach Year 12, the students had complained that you do not talk to them. The same applies to all your pupils, try to talk to them, not to yourself’.

Figure 18 Conversation with a failing teacher

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Planning Lessons Popping into Jenny’s lessons in order to get something out of a cupboard did not suffice any longer as a way to check her classes and give her hints on materials and ideas on classroom management. Jenny always had a ready explanation for any problem: the pupils were difficult; the tape was too long; the OHP was in the wrong place; she had not found the worksheets; the lesson was too long; or too short, etc. Formal observation had become necessary so that I could support her better and list evidence that might convince her that the problems arose from her poor management rather than from the pupils. My first observations showed that: • she did not address the class to introduce the lesson or to introduce the activities – instead she told the nearest row and told them to tell the others; • there was a total lack of pace; • there was no clear aim; • as I was sitting at the back of her class she made an effort to wait for silence from time to time, but it was obvious that the pupils were used to ignoring her; • acetates were hand scribbled with no effort to make them clear or striking; • there were some potentially good activities but they just ‘happened’ as if with no purpose, i.e. just something to do; • there were also many pointless and boring tasks – in fact some were the type of exercises which we had discussed at meetings and which I had disapproved of, for example ‘copy 20 forms of verbs (she eats, they sing, we work) and translate into French’. For Jenny it was a way to keep them busy. Unfortunately she did not make anything of the exercise, and it was not appropriate for her class. I debriefed Jenny every time to show her how each mistake had an instant effect on the pupils’ behaviour, and how she could have avoided it. At the time there were no other role models for Jenny in the department; the majority of the parttimers did not want to think about what or how they taught; they were not in the habit of planning long-term and sometimes even their day-to-day lessons were lacking in purposeful planning. I had started to tackle this apathy by devoting at least half of each departmental meeting to ‘good ideas and strategies’. Gradually people started experimenting with some of these strategies and exchanging a few ideas. I also made a point of commenting on my own mistakes in order to avoid being seen as an awesome model of perfection. It was clear to me that Jenny’s lack of pace and purpose came from an absence of vision concerning what she wanted her pupils to achieve. Therefore she could not transmit any sense of urgency or drive to the pupils. Her lessons consisted of a list of things to do to occupy them, so that it did not make much difference whether she stopped after the second or the third activity; she could always continue 142

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next time. To avoid singling her out, I organised a series of departmental meetings on how to make the best of our schemes of work. These formed the main frame of our work; they gave lexical and grammatical content, direction, progression, differentiation and a vast selection of ideas for activities. No one in the department could ever go short of ideas or materials. I made ‘planning’ our main item on the departmental agenda. I showed how I planned my work, my notes for each class, my half-term planning and my individual lesson plans. For much of the year we reviewed each unit, comparing ideas, deciding what was best for each class and how much of the lexis and grammar was appropriate for them, etc. I wanted every teacher to decide what they would teach from the scheme of work and how. Everyone was to give me the skeleton planning (lists, bullet points) for each week, for each half-term, for each one of their classes. Jenny could never produce her planning until halfway through the half-term; she always had some excuse. The truth was, as she admitted a few times, that it was not done. She could not see the need for long-term planning; it was ‘causing her stress’. I insisted that it was her professional duty to plan an appropriate progression for her pupils, as she knew them better than any publisher and better than I did. No textbook could plan for her specific classes. I sat down with her and planned work for a couple of classes, insisting that she was the person who knew the pupils and knew better than me what they could do. Jenny was now, reluctantly, planning for each half-term. It was time to look at individual lesson planning.

Working on the Pace I established with the department as a whole that it would be useful to observe each other’s lessons if I could negotiate the time. It would have been a good idea even in a successful department but at the time I had to find a way to remedy Jenny’s urgent problems without singling her out. Jenny therefore came into some of my lessons. I succeeded in making her share the excitement of good lessons but was worried in case it seemed an unreachable goal. I analysed my lessons for her and deconstructed them. I told her to experiment with the ideas I gave her but also to adapt them to her own style. I stressed the fact that what worked for me might not work for her and vice versa. I wanted her to think about her teaching persona and develop it. I pointed out what I could see as possible strengths in her so that she could build on them. Formal observation of her lessons allowed me to give precise examples of points which could have been dealt with in a different way, for example: ‘Look, Jenny, when they finish their role-play, they start to chatter. Why don’t you stop the roleplay before they start to chatter, and focus their attention straight away’. I provided her with some ideas for focusing attention, such as: • re-order jumbled up sentences which have just been used in the role-play; • find the missing letters in sentences which have just been used. 143

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Another situation where she tended to lose control was after 10–15 minutes of vocabulary work, when I suggested that she could turn the acetate which she was using back-to-front and challenge the pupils to decipher the words, to give her a moment’s breathing space and help her keep in control. Having established with Jenny that she needed to inject some pace into her lessons, I asked her to give me her teaching plans for the week so that I could respond with ideas. She accepted that her lessons needed to be more focused and snappy, and I tried to show her the link between pace and having clear aims in her own mind. To support this work, and to avoid making Jenny feel singled out, ‘increasing the pace of your lessons’ became a constant element in our departmental meetings so that ideas could be shared. Gradually my other colleagues became keen and started bouncing ideas off each other. Jenny remained silent during those meetings, but I hoped that she would at least benefit by osmosis. Unfortunately it did not happen. Jenny’s perception of the job itself prevented her from taking advantage of the new atmosphere within the department. She was not prepared to think ahead and take responsibility for her pupils’ curriculum, and the consequences of non-existent or at best superficial long-term planning were last minute lesson preparation, disorganisation and unnecessary stress. She never managed to give me plans for more than a day at a time; she found planning her lessons for several days ahead ‘far too stressful’. As soon as Jenny arrived in the morning (as long as she was early enough and there were a few minutes before briefing!) I would look at her plans and give her immediate feedback, continuing this at break and checking with her how everything had gone. I would constantly give her hints and praise her for any progress. This continued in bursts of two to three weeks each half-term throughout the year. She was pleased to experience some measure of success but still failed to see that in order to improve her classroom management and raise the pupils’ motivation she needed to plan her lessons in detail. Pace does not ‘just happen’, particularly when someone has so little classroom presence. I began to suspect that Jenny had an extremely simplistic understanding of what the job entailed; she believed that her function was to impart knowledge while the pupils sat and listened. During all these months I had reflected deeply on my own practice. I needed to analyze and identify the elements of my own teaching which made my lessons good. So many techniques had become second nature to me that it took a lot of self-analysis and self-criticism to deconstruct my own lessons into their smallest components. As a result I increased my own effectiveness as a teacher and refined many strategies that I had previously taken for granted. In trying to help my colleagues (not only Jenny), I developed a much more explicit awareness of the hundreds of elements that produce good lessons. That does not mean of course that all my lessons were perfect, but I was certainly able to look at them critically in order to improve them.

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Organising her Time Jenny’s poor attendance fuelled the staff’s frustration. The department was unfairly getting a bad name (‘Reports missing?’ – ‘Must be languages’ – ‘Cover needed?’ – ‘Languages again!’). I felt responsible and frustrated that I could not train Jenny more quickly. I felt guilty for her lack of reliability towards the rest of the staff. Remaining positive and keeping the momentum going for her sake was a strain. I had the impression that I was dragging a dead weight. Even more worrying, frustration in the department was growing (Figures 19, 20 and 21).

Staff room talk: ‘Done your reports?’ ‘The deadline is this afternoon, isn’t it?’ ‘I bet Jenny is absent!’ ‘You guessed right. ****! I’m covering her class again!’

Figure 19 Situation 1

Department meeting – Tuesday afternoon 3.45 – Main item on the agenda: each teacher to bring their GCSE recordings and mark sheets. Tuesday lunchtime Jenny goes home to walk her dogs. At 1.30 she phones to say that her car won’t start. She will come in as soon as possible. We know that she will not be back this afternoon.

Figure 20 Situation 2

Departmental meeting – Wednesday afternoon 3.45 – Agenda: Spanish Year 9 unit of work on Christmas. Jenny’s task to prepare the transcriptions of a couple of carols which she was to bring to the meeting. Wednesday morning; she is absent. The following day I ask her for the carols. ‘I haven’t done them because I could not find the tape’. ‘But Jenny, we shared the work out six weeks ago. You have had plenty of time to say you could not find the tape. Why didn’t you ask?’ Jenny responds with a sharp ‘I haven’t got time now anyway’.

Figure 21 Situation 3 145

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I always reminded the department of approaching deadlines (reports, parents’ evenings, mock exams, marking, etc.) well in advance so that they could organise themselves. All important dates were in the school diary. Jenny left everything to the last minute. I talked to her several times about the problem and pointed out to her that she was causing her colleagues a lot of stress by not meeting deadlines; this had repercussions on their work, especially tutors and Heads of Year waiting for reports. She always had too much work to cope. My role had now become twofold. On the one hand I continued to help Jenny, on the other I pressed her to meet deadlines and to do her share in the department. Keeping positive was exhausting at times.

Absence of a Professional Attitude An example from early in the Summer Term of the first year will serve to illustrate the ongoing situation: We carried out GCSE orals in March. On the first day Jenny and I were due to start examining at the same time, 9 am. By 8.45, her first candidate was nervously waiting to be given his exam cards; mine was busy preparing. No Jenny anywhere to be seen. I reassured her candidate and prepared the room, tape recorder and tapes for her. At 9 o’clock she arrived and hurriedly set up her exam cards. A few minutes later, as I was about to start my first examination, Jenny knocked on my door and with a sheepish smile said that she had forgotten to check how to record using a microphone. At the end of the day I asked Jenny to see me. I told her how unprofessional her behaviour had been, and reminded her that if she wanted to avoid being monitored by the Head Teacher she would have to improve her punctuality. I was still regularly mediating between Jenny and her classes to maintain discipline; I tried to do this without undermining her already flickering authority. It was a demoralising job because Jenny was so often the cause of the problem in the first place, for all the reasons outlined above.

A Mentor’s Self-Doubt The Senior Management Team was well aware of the situation and knew what I was doing to support Jenny, but personally, I was beginning to question my ability. I reminded myself that the student teachers I had worked with in the past had all benefited a lot from my guidance, and that all had qualified with distinction. Despite that I still felt useless, and began to doubt seriously the quality of my own teaching and leadership. I also wondered if I was asking too much of Jenny. I was not asking her to do anything that I myself did not do, and yet I began to feel guilty for being too demanding. What was I doing wrong? What was

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I not doing? Although I appeared as positive and enthusiastic as ever in public, strong doubts were building up about my own effectiveness. At that point I decided to act upon advice that I should keep a written record of what was happening. I began to log everything that I asked Jenny to do, every bit of support I gave her, and how she responded in every case. I was advised to document my mentoring as potential defence against any criticism that might be directed at me regarding her work. In effect, jotting down the dates and content of our conversations proved a very therapeutic way to get rid of the weight that Jenny had become on my mind. Jenny shortly received a confidential warning from the Head Teacher about her lack of punctuality. She was told that if it did not improve she would receive an official warning, which would go on her record.

Selecting Groups for Her to Prove Herself In view of Jenny’s difficulties I continued to provide ideas and to comment on her lessons and classroom management. At the same time I tried as far as possible to give her the opportunity to teach ‘good’ groups. Year 13 French I asked Jenny if she would like to do something towards the Year 13’s coursework. We held a meeting to establish the way to plan it, and she became quite enthusiastic. The best way was to choose a theme, book or film that she liked and would enjoy studying with the class. We looked at the materials available, and I offered help to find any other resources that she might need. I asked her to think about it and then tell me a fortnight later what she had chosen. She chose to study Topaze, but the reason which she gave when prompted was not very promising: ‘because I did it at university’. I suspected she might simply recycle her own notes on the book. I tried to prompt her further: ‘I like Topaze too. What is it that appeals to you? What is it that you would like to communicate to the students?’ She could not really answer so I suggested various ideas; she agreed with everything. I felt that the best way forward would be to give her a lead into the book, and to suggest ways to make it interesting for the students. I warned her against reading page after page, translating as they moved through the book, pointing out that that would be a sure way to ‘kill the book’. I planned the first three weeks of work with her: Let’s start with the idea of fairness and honesty, and let’s make it relevant to a context that they are familiar with. Don’t start by telling them that they are going to do a book. Take the dialogue between Topaze and the pupil’s mother. Make it into a discussion or role-play by giving the students briefings so that they can act the various characters. Brainstorm with them about similar

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situations that they have heard about in their school life. Afterwards you can start exploring the ideas of fairness and honesty through various activities (matching sayings to types of people, discussing the decision taken by the headmaster, writing reports). I planned the vocabulary and grammar that would be studied at the same time. After about a fortnight I suggested she could show the students the clip of the film where the very situation that they had discussed was featured. The students would then be well equipped to understand it and comment on it. The book could then be introduced, and certain parts highlighted for specific development of the themes. Further on in the book when the notion of honesty touches on politics, I suggested she could relate it to events involving politicians of today. Jenny seemed pleased with the initial plan. I told her to plan the remaining weeks on Topaze and to show me so that I could help her. The first part of the plan was successful: Jenny was pleased with the students’ response. They were keen, and tackled the work with enthusiasm and involvement. I reminded Jenny that she needed to plan the other weeks. No plans appeared after a week, a fortnight, after three weeks. Jenny avoided me. When pressed she became defensive and said that she was coping. Every time I passed her room I could see the students and Jenny looking down at their books; there seemed to be very little communication going on. One day I asked her: ‘you are not reading through the whole book, are you?’ Obviously she was. I never obtained a plan of work from Jenny, simply an annoyed response: ‘I don’t see why you want that plan anyway!’ At the end of the half-term she gave me a piece of paper with the essay title that she had set on the book. I had thought carefully about how much more support I could give her. It seemed evident that she did not want to plan her own work and that she did not see this as part of her duty. Action would need to be stepped up. Year 10 Spanish There were 12 pupils in the Year 10 Spanish group, all of them well motivated. At the beginning of the year I had spoken to Jenny about her disastrous results from the previous year. I showed her a table comparing her Year 11, Set 2 (expected to gain a couple of As, a third of Bs, a third of Cs and a few Ds) with my Year 11, Set 4. The graphs were similar, which showed that there was an anomaly. Comparing teachers’ results in the department was not normal practice but served the purpose of making Jenny accept that there was a problem. I told her that she really had to show what she could do with this Spanish option group. I continued to monitor and offer help. The first month went well, but the impetus did not last beyond September. Through monitoring her lesson plans I could see that she was not planning for progression. She was still making the same mistakes.

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Enlisting the Opinions of Other Professionals By the end of term my list of notes about our conversations was quite long. It helped me to look at the situation objectively. Glancing at the notes was sufficient to see that she was not doing her job, that she had not heeded the advice given, and that she had not changed her view of what the job entailed. The record helped me to see that I had given every possible help and that I was not too demanding, but that she was simply not doing her job. What I needed was other people’s views of the situation. Fortunately there were staffing developments in the school which helped me with this. Firstly, a post of second in department was created; I worked well with the person appointed and was able to ask for her opinions. Secondly, a new Head Teacher was appointed, and I decided to give Jenny a chance to prove herself to the new Head. I continued to support her, advise her, give her ideas and monitor her work for a third year. I had lost my trust in her willingness to try to improve and in her professionalism; as a result not only was I supporting her but I was also checking on her homework marking, making sure her work was done. I no longer helped her for her own sake, but for the sake of her pupils and of the department. The second in department’s considered view was that Jenny was not even trying to do her job. Her Head of Year felt that she was totally unreliable and incompetent; she too had given Jenny support in her role as form tutor. She too believed that Jenny had ignored all advice. She had come to the same conclusion: Jenny did not see that it was her responsibility to make things work. Listening to the opinion of my colleagues helped enormously, as I really was in danger of blaming myself for Jenny’s failure.

Enough is Enough After three years of receiving advice, being monitored and observed, and engaging in joint planning and observation of others, Jenny had made no real progress. Her initial problems persisted: • • • • • • •

her punctuality was just about acceptable; her absences had increased in length and frequency; her classroom discipline was bad and worsening, particularly with top groups; her lessons were as insipid as ever; she did not see the point in long-term planning; she blamed the children for everything; she did not listen to advice.

At the heart of the problem was Jenny’s failure to visualise what the job entailed. She refused to accept her responsibility to ensure good class management through good lesson planning. She herself admitted once that she should have taken a ‘9 till 5’ job. 149

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I could not do any more than I had done, so I decided to involve the Head Teacher in the monitoring of Jenny’s work. When I showed her my list of notes she said that it was more than enough to start compiling her file. She told me not to blame myself for anything as I had done everything possible. From then on Jenny, the Head and I had regular meetings. Everything was minuted and Jenny was given the minutes of every meeting. The Head was very supportive but constant and determined in her monitoring. Jenny was accountable to both of us for her lesson planning. She had to meet deadlines. She began to increase her absences. The Head decided to start formal procedures, but following union advice Jenny resigned. She had been unable, unwilling, or both, to see the connection between the discipline problems which she encountered in the classroom and her own lack of punctuality; poor public image; failure to plan both in the short and long term; and consequent lack of pace and purpose in her work with pupils. To sum up briefly, she had an inappropriately simplistic view of the profession.

What Had I Learnt About My Mentoring Role? Although it was an extremely unpleasant experience, my encounter with Jenny provided many useful lessons for me: • analysing my own practice and deconstructing my own lessons had allowed me to articulate the numerous elements that constitute good teaching; • a vital part of my role had been the attempt to raise Jenny’s self-awareness; it is essential for the mentee, whether qualified or student teacher, to develop his or her own teaching persona; • being a role model means showing what is possible, and inspiring the inexperienced teacher to experiment with ideas until they find a style with which they are comfortable; • I should not have blamed myself for Jenny’s shortcomings; • my colleagues’ views had been invaluable in helping me to see the situation objectively; • I had to believe in my own teaching and leadership skills.

Thinking About Your Own Practice It is hopefully rare for a mentor to have to deal with such an extreme situation; certainly in Initial Teacher Education there should be several avenues of support as well as sharing of responsibility. In Partnership schemes the mentor should alert both school and higher education partners at the first warning signs; SCITT schemes should also have procedures and support systems in place. Nevertheless, Carmen’s account raises important issues which all mentors need to consider; even when working with a seemingly able student teacher, things can go wrong. 150

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Do you already keep a log of meetings, decisions, targets, progress made, concerns and issues which arise during your work with the student teacher? Such records are useful not only as evidence for quality control systems and inspections, but also as a form of selfprotection. You may not think that you need this, but when you do it may be too late. What support systems are in place for you as a mentor? Where can you turn for help, advice or even a sounding board for your concerns as soon as you begin to feel uncomfortable about a situation? Professional counsellors have regular mutual counselling meetings where concerns can be expressed confidentially and in a supportive atmosphere. Mentors too need a similar outlet to alleviate the personal stress and the potential conflict of roles involved in supporting and simultaneously assessing a colleague. Before you agree to ‘mentor’ a student teacher or a colleague, find out what measures the School or Partnership has in place to support you as an individual. How can you protect your own self-esteem? Mentoring under trying circumstances can undermine your self-confidence and thus potentially your own effectiveness as a teacher and/or teacher educator. It is good to be challenged and questioned, indeed the real professional is constantly questioning and challenging him or herself. Nevertheless, the balance between support and challenge discussed by Daloz (1986) and Martin (1996) amongst others is equally important for the mentor as for the learner teacher. Too little challenge can lead to complacency, but too much challenge without appropriate support can lead to defensive reactions on the part of the mentor; this could undermine the student teacher’s whole experience of learning to teach. Just as a teacher needs to be self-confident and resilient enough to focus on the pupils’ needs rather than on their own, the mentor needs to have enough self-esteem to allow them to accept and understand the learner teacher as a separate and unique individual without experiencing that as a threat to themselves. Selfknowledge and self-belief without arrogance are important prerequisites for the effective mentor. Can you keep your experience with an individual mentee in perspective? Mentoring one or two learner teachers per year is a far more intensive experience than teaching a whole class. If one or two pupils in a class are difficult, their effect on our feelings of self-worth is outweighed by the reactions of the majority. If a student teacher is difficult or even diffident, there is often little to balance out the negative effect on a mentor’s self-esteem. It is an important aspect of my role as tutor to support individual mentors by putting into perspective occasional negative or lukewarm feedback on their work from student teachers. Genuine Partnership implies that mentors should feel comfortable about discussing their concerns with tutors in a professional, symbiotic relationship. I personally find this one of the most rewarding aspects of my job and have developed a deep respect for the mentors with whom I work. Mentors working under different systems need alternative ways of keeping a sense of perspective. Are you prepared for failure? Mentoring does not always achieve the desired results. We assume that student teachers are motivated to learn. My experience as a PGCE tutor has taught me that whilst the vast majority fit this description, sadly a small minority of our 151

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candidates are motivated to ‘pass the test’ rather than to learn; this is quite a different matter. These individuals want their ‘driving licence’ so that they can get out there and earn money, and do their own thing. There are others who are motivated but who find it difficult to learn, often because of their immutable preconceptions about learning and teaching. As in teaching, we can only do our best, and sadly our best is not always enough. I was once told by my own PGCE tutor that I must ‘ learn to fail’. I never did. Accepting failure as a tutor or mentor of learner teachers is an even more devastating experience because so much more is at stake in the lives of our protégés; but sometimes despite our combined best efforts, and thankfully rarely, we have no choice but to accept defeat.

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Mentors in Action

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Introduction to Part 3

The second area of practical investigation continues the discussion of mentor pedagogy with a closer look at examples of interaction between mentors and their student teachers. Many writers refer to the importance of talk in learning, as discussed in earlier chapters; Bassey states that ‘talk aids the organisation of experience into thought, and this is central to learning’ (Bassey, 1995: 34). As mentioned in the introductory chapter, part of a project undertaken by PGCE tutors at The University of Birmingham in 1994–97 involved the tape-recording of several series of the weekly mentor/student tutorial meetings which are a contractual obligation for partner schools. Analyses of the recordings by the project team in an attempt to identify predominant mentoring styles and to investigate whether mentors adapt their approach in line with student teacher development have been published elsewhere, along with in-depth reports on the project itself (Williams et al., 1997 & 1998; Soares et al., 1998). Some of the data collected for that project is re-used here, supplemented by additional subsequent data and analyzed for different, subjectspecific purposes. The following chapters represent an attempt to clarify individual mentors’ understandings of their role, the ways in which they implement that role in practice, and the reactions of individual student teachers to their specific practice. More importantly, perhaps, they try to give an indication of the particular language-specific themes which mentors and students discussed over the course of their meetings and the ways in which individual mentors both articulated their own personal theories on those themes and prompted the student teachers to develop their own practical theories or guiding principles. Wherever possible an interview was held subsequently with the mentor to explore their view of the mentor role; the students were also interviewed about their experience of mentoring. It must be remembered that the series of recordings for each mentor was by no means complete, and that the weekly mentor meetings may only constitute a relatively small proportion of mentor/student interactions. The evidence available for analysis therefore constituted no more than a series of snapshots of the whole experience. This evidence was, however, substantial enough to allow differences of style and approach to be suggested, and overall gives useful insights into what language mentors talk about 155

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and how. As an appendage to this section I also include a parallel analysis of tutor/student teacher interaction which was recorded under similar conditions. This is not held up as a model to imitate, rather as a convenient example of how the university-based tutor might operate in exposing and prompting the development of ‘theory’. It might help in some small way to further mutual understanding and to answer the accusation that university education tutors themselves are in no small way responsible for dismissive attitudes to their work: ‘the teacher education community has neglected the task of making its work known to a larger public. Teacher educators have been too busy responding to external demands, often inimical to their deeper educational aims, to cultivate public approval’ (Golby, 1995: p. x in the Foreword to Fish, 1995a). The material used as a basis for the following chapters was collected and transcribed during the Spring Terms of 1996 and 1997, partly by Alan Marr as Research Fellow to the project, and partly by myself. The chapters therefore owe much to collaborative work between myself and Anne Williams, Alan Marr, Susan Leach, Allan Soares and Graham Butt.

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Chapter 3.1

Reassuring the Student Teacher that Everyone Experiences Difficulties How Does the Mentor Perceive the Role? Mentor A is working with one student, here identified as Student 1, so that exchanges are intensively focused on the needs of the individual. The mentor sees the weekly meetings with the student teacher as an opportunity to discuss student concerns which have accumulated over the course of the week, and also for her to have input into the student teacher’s development; she may need to raise issues highlighted by other members of the department as areas for concern but which they have perhaps not had time themselves to discuss with the student at length. The mentor’s approach to her role is based on an appreciation of the student teacher’s need for reassurance: the learner teacher is not expected to be perfect and should not expect herself to be perfect; even the best planned lessons of an experienced teacher do not always work and it is not necessarily the teacher’s fault. Difficulties encountered by teachers need to be discussed openly and frankly without the feeling of failure; self-criticism and flexibility are the keys to success in teaching. The mentor is concerned throughout to support the student teacher’s morale, and believes that argument is healthy although past experience with more difficult candidates has taught her that ‘there is a point beyond which you have to stop the arguing and look back at what you’ve done’. The particular student teacher with whom she is working during the project seems to have developed into quite a good learner who takes ideas forward herself: ‘she’s got a lot of ideas of her own, she needs taking to the starting line and then she’ll be away running; she needed that initial push and still needs support, but she will pursue an idea’. The mentor also finds the mentor meetings personally useful as the student teacher sometimes raises issues which she herself hadn’t thought about deeply for a while; she is thus prompted to do so. She also appreciates the energy with which the student prepares and executes her teaching: ‘I’ve often thought, I wish I had the time and energy to do these kind of lessons myself’.

What Personal Theories Does the Mentor Reveal? The example in Figure 22 illustrates the mentor’s approach to target language use, encouraging adaptation to the needs and abilities of the pupils and a slow build up from the simple to the more complex; particularly in cases where the 157

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An Example of Tutorial Discussion Mentor:

Student:

Mentor:

Student:

Mentor:

Yes, I think you started off with the sentence ‘Je veux que vous’ something or other and I thought ‘Crikey, we’re going to be in the subjunctive in a minute’ (laughter from both). No, no, no, but it’s easy because you are speaking French as an adult who speaks French as a language, as your first foreign language, say, or whatever, you’re used to speaking like that, which is why I was saying go for your very simple and easy and keep it in the imperative so they’re used to hearing the same sound to do something with, each time you say something to them. I mean you’re speaking to the class as a whole so obviously if you use the imperative form you’re almost always going to be using a word with an ‘ez’ sound at the end of it, aren’t you? – ‘ouvrez, fermez’ or whatever, whereas hitting them with a sentence like ‘je veux que’, even if it was vocabulary they’d recognised before, they might not have recognised it in that form, if you see what I mean. What I tend to do though – I don’t know if you’ve noticed – like with the sevens and the eights, I tend to give a complex sentence and really explain it dead easily because that way, otherwise they’re not going to hear anything that actually flows and anything that . . . just to get the sound of it and reexplain really simple like, oh, I say something quite quickly and then say it simply, slowly. I have done that. Yes, I think personally – and you might try this to see which does work better in your opinion and at the end of the day it will come down to how you think it worked; it’s not an easy thing to quantify – I would be more inclined to take it coming from the opposite end of things. Start simple and as time goes by build up, rather than start off by giving a more complicated version and then reduce it to the more simple. Because if you do things that way round I think you might well find that they’ll just not bother to listen to the first version because they’ll know the easy version is following on. Some of them, though, put their hands up or actually say to you ‘this is what it is’ and recognise it and they’ve learned things. They learned things like ‘Qu’estce que c’est?’ through me never even saying what it is and they can even use it themselves. So they’ve learned it through that. So I don’t know. Perhaps I was wrong in using it with the year nines, but I’ve found that some, especially ... I wouldn’t use the word ‘wrong’ by the way. I think, don’t be too hard . . . I really don’t want you to be too hard on yourself apropos of that year nine. Until you’ve taught a class, and this applies now and it will in the future, until you’ve taught a class for a little while, you’re bound to spend some initial time homing in on what they as a class and they as individuals are capable of . . .

Figure 22 Example of interaction between Mentor A and Student Teacher 1

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pupils have not been used to extensive target language use from their regular teacher. Inappropriate use of target language can obstruct the building of relationships with a class: ‘by saying things to them which they didn’t understand you’ve produced another barrier for yourself between you and them’. With such classes, especially those which the student teacher finds difficult to manage, the mentor recommends not setting homework in the target language: ‘if you give them the slightest reason for not having done exactly what you wanted them to, there will always be a few who will take advantage’. The discussion sample, however, also underlines the mentor’s insistence that there is no such thing as ‘wrong’ in teaching and that the student teacher must develop her own judgement. This is supported by constant encouragement to keep building a stock of ideas and strategies, and never to throw any away, because ‘it might not be wrong in another situation’. Much of the advice given to the student teacher reveals the mentor’s own emphasis on building pupils’ confidence and adapting methodology to their needs, as well as selecting activities to support classroom management. She is adamant about the priority of developing relationships with pupils: ‘you’re not so much teaching French as teaching children. . . . To me, it’s not so much a question of what you teach and how you teach it as much as you are talking all the time of relationships between you and a class and you and the individuals in a class and the relationship of the individuals to each other in that class. It’s a very, very complex thing and so much can affect it’. This basis guides the practical advice offered concerning methodology. Listening and speaking are the essence of language work and would normally form the main focus with which to begin a lesson; whenever possible the teacher needs to concentrate on speaking activities to build the pupils’ confidence. However, it is sometimes necessary to ‘switch your original idea’ in order to calm a class down and establish some form of control before coming back to the intended activities. The mentor tries to steer the student teacher away from an over-emphasis on spelling with less able groups in order to encourage communication and speaking; she would rather that pupils were able to say a word in French correctly but not spell it, rather than the other way around. The point at which this issue is raised would have been a good opportunity to focus on the differences between the written and spoken forms of the French language and the need to introduce each carefully and appropriately, but they quickly move on to another topic. Top sets are to be challenged to the highest pitch in both speaking and writing; yet sufficient support must always be provided. The student teacher is experiencing difficulty in motivating a Year 9 class, and suggests the possibility of trying to engage them in talking about their holidays in the past tense to interest them; the mentor suggests that the members of the class would not be able to do this without a great deal of support, commenting that ‘I always make the assumption they’ve remembered nothing of what you did at the end of last term’. Pupils are reluctant to go over old ground even though they have not yet learnt it, so the 159

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teacher needs to ‘practise a small amount of material in as many different ways as you can’. The mentor’s policy is to revise something which the pupils already know in order to encourage them, but without making it too obvious that they are going over the same work again. She offers a few examples of how to achieve this. In addition she recommends concrete and finite challenges for older pupils, praising a hard puzzle activity which the student teacher has trialled as it would demand intensity of concentration as well as giving a specific target for pupils to aim at. In terms of classroom layout, the mentor prefers to have all pupils facing the front rather than grouped around tables, so that ‘you can see from their eyes whether they are looking at you or not’ – this makes it easier to assess whether pupils are listening. She acknowledges, however, that ‘you can’t possibly know if thirty people in a class are all listening to you at any given time’ and recommends question technique as the only way to establish whether or not a child is paying attention. This can, of course, only operate with one individual at a time, and the student teacher should ‘try to maximise the situation without expecting it to be a hundred per cent’. The mentor alerts the student teacher to the need to approach different ability groups in different ways; when the student teacher suggests the use of spot tests to keep pupils on their toes, the mentor approves this with top ability sets but explains her theory that lower ability sets need routines and frameworks to provide a sense of security, even though activities within the lesson itself should be varied. Middle ability groups are more difficult to pitch work for and thus to manage than the more homogenous groups of more able or less able pupils, and ‘at this point your idea of differentiated work becomes important’ – the mentor provides some examples of possible extension activities to help the student cope with this. A further piece of advice concerns alternating activities which the pupils seem to like with ones they like doing least, asking them, for example, to cooperate for 5 minutes with what they regard as an unpleasant task whilst offering the prospect of a more amenable one next. Emphasis on the need to build pupils’ confidence is reflected in the mentor’s attitudes to fellow teachers. On several occasions she reiterates her point that teachers should feel able to talk about difficulties which they experience without feeling that they are indicators of failure. She compares the English system unfavourably with the French style ‘conseil de classe’, whereby all the teachers who teach one class meet regularly to discuss problems, issues and individual children in order to pool ideas for improvement.

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circumstances so that when similar situations recur she will have a more informed repertoire at her fingertips. The emphasis seems to be on building up a stock of techniques and strategies, with the assumption that experience will teach the student when and how to use them: ‘it’s worth thinking of devices that get pupils going, that get bright pupils going, lower ability pupils going, devices that get you out of awkward situations, that help quieten a class down, making if you like almost a little mental reference folder of recipes for “What might work well for me in the future” ’. At one point the student teacher is asked to explain in detail why she is unhappy with the behaviour of a particular class; she expresses her concern that the pupils will do whatever the normal class teacher wants them to do, including respond to the register in French, but refuse to do likewise for her. The mentor offers a range of strategies for coping with this, but also warns that there is no guarantee that they will work because it depends upon getting to know a class and building relationships with them. Persistence with a class seems to be the best policy: ‘even with a naughty class you will probably succeed if you’ve had them for the last two years because you learn to predict’ – experience again seems to be the best way to learn. There is further evidence of encouragement to the student to develop her own policies, for example when the student teacher comes into conflict with a member of staff because she wants to give a class detention. She is asked to identify what she would do if she carried out her intention, and is guided gently into seeing that she may be creating more difficulties for herself if, for example, a considerable proportion of the pupils fail to turn up or the pupils decide to play her up even in detention. The mentor skilfully weighs up the conflicting points of view and clarifies the reasons behind the opposing standpoints. On the whole, challenge arises only out of crisis situations which occur and which the student is seeking to resolve. There seems to be no conscious attempt to challenge the student, beyond general advice to learn from experience and to weigh up what works and what does not in each situation.

What Other Strategies Are Used? Information is provided by the mentor on school policies for dealing with pupils who do not turn up when asked or who do not produce work on time. This is coupled with advice about keeping a professional distance and not allowing pupils ‘forgetting space’, i.e. sending notes to form tutors at afternoon registration or to the teacher who works with a class before lunch to remind pupils of arrangements. Timetable arrangements for dual linguists are also explained, as well as the possible reasons why they become dual linguists. There is strong emphasis throughout on confirming and encouraging the student teacher; the mentor is insistent that she should ‘keep things in perspective’ as experienced teachers themselves often have difficulty with certain classes or pupils: ‘it is almost always a combination of things from within the class’. In fact, if one teacher is having difficulty with a teacher or a class it is highly likely that 161

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others are too. For the sake of the teacher’s own sanity and self-esteem it is important to remember that ‘whatever you do there will always be times when things go wrong’. The mentor is aware that the student teacher finds it difficult to be more flexible, and acknowledges that ‘it’s very easy as an experienced teacher to say this, and not easy to do when you haven’t done a lot of lessons’. Praise is given for the student teacher’s persistence with and enthusiasm for use of the target language, even if this needs tempering for certain classes. The student teacher is also praised for managing to elicit homework from a particular group which she has to keep chasing: ‘I should say you’ve done exceptionally well there, it’s a very major achievement with that particular group to get that percentage. You’re getting a lot better response than you got in the beginning’. Congratulations are also given for innovative work with a sixth-form (Year 13) General Studies group, and for the way in which the student has dealt with teaching situations where a substantial proportion of the group has been absent due to trips or rehearsals; the mentor comments that teaching time was used effectively without leaving the absentees behind.

How Does the Student Teacher React to the Mentor’s Approach? The student teacher reported that she had found it useful to be able to discuss behaviour policies for use with a difficult class; it is interesting to note that she characterises the topic as ‘behaviour policies’, whereas the mentor was trying to help her identify the type of activity and methodology which would engage the pupils, rather than simply tactics for dealing with misbehaviour. She also found it useful to receive information about referral routines and detention procedures. Appreciation was expressed for the mentor’s little anecdotes which demonstrated that such things could happen to her, even as an experienced teacher; this was a very supportive tactic and helped the student to develop a sense of humour over the knocks and shocks of her classroom experiences. The student also responded very favourably to the mentor’s tendency to look forward, recommending that she build up a range of tactics and strategies to help her in her future career, ‘picking up the different issues and giving different viewpoints and making you think what you might do next time’, largely because ‘it gives me a little bit of hope that I might get through all this’. It was encouraging that the mentor admitted sometimes that for all her experience she did not know the answers; this made it easier for the student teacher too to acknowledge the huge gaps in her own knowledge and experience. However, overall the main message which she thought she had gained from the interchanges was that ‘you can’t win all the time’ and that ‘it’s not always your fault’; there seemed to be a kind of resignation that ‘it depends which way the wind is blowing’. Although the student recognised that in some ways it was necessary to face up to the unpredictable elements of teaching, she would have liked more concrete advice on ‘how to make the wind blow a different way’ in the here and now. 162

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There was actually a contradiction in the student teacher’s reactions to mentoring: on the one hand she was defensive when she felt the mentor was being critical of her work, yet on the other hand she yearned for more suggestions and input, more ‘constructive criticism’ and ‘advice for moving on’. In other words, she wanted to be pushed but actually resisted being criticised. She acknowledged that she had been given suggestions for improvement, in the sense of ‘have you thought of?’, though she seemed a little defensive about this in that she felt her own ideas were sometimes dismissed or criticised without being heard. At the level of practical work she seemed more able to accept help from another member of department with whom she had worked closely in teaching quite a challenging class; in this situation ideas could be worked out and analysed in practice. Because the only class of the mentor’s with which she had worked had been ‘my best class’, feedback from the mentor based on actual evidence was always extremely positive; her input on less successful aspects of the student’s practice was less concrete: ‘she says yes to my ideas, not to what she actually sees’. When asked to explain how the support from the other teacher was different, she summarised it as: She gives me suggestions, gives me ideas, discusses things with me, asks me for my ideas, bounces things off me, lets me bounce things off her, discusses why things worked, why things didn’t work, ideas for next time, ideas for improvement targets, structured help, critical analysis . . . that is mentoring as I see it.

Summary In the example of mentoring described above, there are many clear examples of the mentor offering support and encouragement to the student teacher. Difficulties are put into perspective and the student is frequently reassured that she will learn from experience. The mentor obviously has quite strong beliefs and policies herself, all centred around a focus on the learner and a need to adapt methodology to maximise learner motivation and achievement; there is little discussion, however, of the student’s need to develop her own basic principles. The emphasis is upon the student’s need to collect ideas and to decide ‘what works’ when. Perhaps inevitably, the inexperienced teacher’s interpretation of ‘what works’ seems to be linked more to her preoccupation with managing the behaviour of a difficult class and with obtaining homework from pupils than with an interest in the quality of pupils’ learning; this interpretation does not seem to be challenged. The mentor’s input into the student teacher’s development is purely reactive; the agenda is set by the student herself on the basis of what she discovers incidentally through action and experience and what she herself is able to recognise as important to learn. This is, of course, a vital aspect of learning: ‘individuals will tend to learn what they think is worth learning, but this will also differ from one person to another’ (Williams & Burden, 1997: 205); however, she often invites teaching 163

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and is encouraged in response to adopt reflective practice. The concept of reflective practice in itself is not regarded as problematic. Specific questions are suggested to guide reflection such as ‘Why aren’t they succeeding with this? How can I change the situation so that they can succeed?’ Nevertheless the student appears to need more proactive input, both to develop her range of techniques and strategies and to stimulate the creation of her own policies; not content with simply being a weathervane she wants guidance in becoming more able to ‘change wind direction’ in the classroom. She learns the important lessons that self-criticism and flexibility are the keys to success in teaching, but needs practical help to develop both flexibility and firm yet sensible ideals against which to criticise herself. She appears to gain the former from intensive collaboration with another member of the department; Chapter 3.5 of this section will look at ideas for support in the latter. Many writers speak of what Tait calls ‘the taken for granted nature of teachers’ thinking, that is, teaching utilizing a set of implicit assumptions about how to teach which are contained in their stock of recipe knowledge which they have accumulated over their years of being a teacher’ (Tait, 1996: 86). In this particular case, those implicit assumptions do not seem to have been made explicit enough to make sufficient impact on the student teacher. In addition, there is an assumption on the part of the mentor that the student teacher is capable of learning from experience and reflection, without realising that the student teacher does not have the experienced teacher’s ‘rich professional knowledge base which contains extensive repertoires of past experiences on which they can draw in order to analyze current problems’ (Vonk, 1996: 128). Thus the student teacher is unable to gain maximum profit from the mentor’s obvious considerable experience and expertise. Furlong and Maynard found that ‘teachers’ knowledge base and their “thinking” is extremely complex and difficult to articulate and pass on to students’ (1995: 62); the mentor in question perhaps needs support to develop greater conscious awareness of her own beliefs and to articulate these more emphatically to student teachers. This may help her to gain the confidence to become more proactive in discussion and in challenging the student teacher’s own developing beliefs, and to draw the mentee’s attention to the interdependence of practice and policy.

Thinking About Your Own Practice If you recognise aspects of your own work with student teachers in the above, consider the following suggestions: • remember that however competent they may appear to be, the student teacher does not have access to your accumulated pedagogical content knowledge and therefore does not have the range of techniques and theoretical underpinning which they may need to develop flexibility and reflective practice; 164

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• learning from experience is both complex and limited: complex in that the learner needs to be able to interpret that experience appropriately and isolate the important learning points; limited in that it restricts the basis of learning to personal practice, which in the case of the student teacher may be quite naïve and narrow in range; • if students are to collect ideas for practical work in the classroom, they need access to many different sources including observation of many different members of staff, departmental discussions, practical publications, meetings with fellow student teachers – and time to consult these sources and absorb information from them; • if students are to decide ‘what works’ they need to have very clear ideas about what they are trying to achieve; this may mean pushing them, perhaps reluctantly, beyond classroom management concerns and into discussions concerning language teaching rationale; • if student teachers are to feel in control of their own and their pupils’ learning, they need initiation into the thinking skills and complex reasoning which the experienced teacher takes for granted; this may mean that as a mentor you need to develop greater conscious awareness of your own beliefs and of the importance of discussing these openly with newcomers to the profession.

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Being There

How Does the Mentor Perceive the Role? Mentor B was working with two student teachers, identified as Student 2 and Student 3. They describe him as always cheerful and supportive, ‘lovely’, ‘really good’, ‘accessible’, very friendly and caring and a teacher who really enjoys his job, is enthusiastic and well organised. In summary, student teachers regard him as ‘a very good mentor’, ‘ever so nice and easy to talk to’; ‘when something went wrong he always knew how to say it, and he didn’t make me feel bad, he never said anything to upset you’. His implicit theory of mentoring seems to parallel the theory of language learning which he makes explicit to the student teachers, i.e. that the major feature is that of bolstering the learner’s confidence by making the work accessible. However, whereas he clearly structures the work of his language learners extremely carefully and is adept at explaining this structure to the student teachers themselves when prompted, like the mentor in the previous chapter he seems to assume a reactive rather than proactive role in mentoring, in particular during the second block practice: ‘in the second practice you’ve got to be left alone more’. The mentor and his colleagues are always keen to do their best for the student teachers and willing to cooperate with any requirements or suggestions for the improvement of practice.

What Personal Theories Does the Mentor Reveal? As the example in Figure 23 illustrates, one of the most important themes which the mentor emphasises is that of understanding how a non-linguist thinks; language teachers need to avoid the trap of crediting pupils with their own level of understanding about how a language works. Care needs to be taken not only in the presentation of verb forms but also in changes of article, for example from ‘un’ and ‘une’ to ‘le’ and ‘la’. There is frequent discussion of the particular circumstances of the modern languages classroom, which the mentor claims differ from those of many other subject areas. This is a theme commonly raised at Partnership modern foreign language mentor meetings. Mentor B talks, for example, of the 166

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An Example of Tutorial Discussion Mentor:

Student 2: Mentor:

Student 2:

Mentor:

Student 2: Mentor:

Student 3: Mentor:

Remember on Friday when you were changing from I travel to you travel, he travels every day, when you came to a new sentence it was ‘which is it that I want to use now, is it “I” or is it “he”?’, they were asking all sorts of questions. That‘s where I think you’ve got to be very careful. I think the whole sort of linguistic structure in German about saying whether you like doing something is complicated, but I think the best thing to do is to break it down into as small as possible sentences and say first of all that they do something and then introduce the idea of liking to do something, and then use the idea that he or she . . . and then once again introduce the idea of liking something, before you start confusing it. I wouldn’t say that you did this on purpose, but I think the idea of moving into he and she is something that you want to leave until a later stage, that would be my advice. What, stick more to I? Stick more to I or stick more to he, providing you give them the idea of what you want them to say, but I think you want to leave the idea of he. If I say ‘I want’ and then you question someone else and say what does he like doing, I would leave that until they are very competent in that one. Because it comes up quite a lot in the textbook. I haven’t tried it with ‘liking’ because it seems quite difficult, there are a lot of words, but I‘ve done it in a few basic things, like where do you live, where does he live. That has worked so far but I realise that that’s getting harder. Yes, that’s probably partly because they are sort of able to cope with that. When you introduce them to the verb and they’re having to do that with verbs that are different, a lot of them find that difficult and I think if you try and introduce these complex things at that stage you begin to lose them and they begin to lose their confidence very quickly . . . It’s difficult because you think, ‘this is the sort of thing I need to do’. Yes, it’s very difficult, but . . . I suspect that one of the most dangerous things you can do is to put your own learning experience forward as the way you should be doing it . . . you do think of the way that you’ve been taught and that has been successful for you . . . But it’s been easier for you. Exactly, when you said that you’d learnt quickly, that’s one of the things that you do when you’re confident and competent in the subject, you could do the verbs, but with these younger kids I think that’s very dangerous. When you think about it for a linguist in most languages you could present the verb as the verb and you could say, give me the different parts of the verb, I, you, he, we, and that kind of thing, to a linguist that wouldn’t present a difficulty would it? But to a non-linguist it’s quite frightening; it’s quite daunting I think.

Figure 23 Example of interaction between Mentor B and Students 2 and 3

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need to provide pupils with some sort of stimulus and to create a focus which encourages speaking. This is allied to the constant need to build pupils’ confidence and convince them that the goals are achievable; areas of language must be constantly revisited, and an essential start to any language lesson is the recycling of recently covered material, as ‘pupils probably want to use that language’. All of this emphasises ‘how exhausting it is to teach languages’. Target language use is another difficult issue raised; in one particular meeting one of the two students is trying to devise a test to check on the learning of ‘invitation’ phrases, and wants to bounce ideas off the mentor. Discussion ensues about the various types of test activities which could be used, i.e. oral or written, translations or free composition. There is an exchange about the relative merits of target language testing and translation compared with the demands of examination frameworks; the mentor expresses his concerns about the limitations of target language testing, particularly at higher levels of achievement where the nuances of language become difficult to express in visual terms. The students are in fact invited to contribute towards policy making in the department when it comes to determining what can be regarded as ‘justifiable use’ of English in the modern language classroom. As in the previous chapter with Mentor A, Mentor B supports a learner-centred approach to the teaching of languages. The student teachers are encouraged to persist with difficult pupils, to keep trying to make the work approachable and understandable for them; this includes admitting when you have done something wrong which has increased the difficulty of learning for pupils. Differences in the amount of planning required for different classes and the difficulties of appropriate timing, so essential to a good lesson, are explained by the varying ‘pace’ of classes and the need to gear the pace of the lesson to pupils’ learning. Mentor B refers to the range of factors which can influence pace, not just pupil ability but time of day, environment etc. Student teachers are encouraged to focus upon observing the learners themselves for the key to this: ‘I think perhaps when you start you think you control everything, but you don’t do you? You control lots of things but you’ve got to be aware about how receptive they are’. Assessment is a key issue, and the mentor points out that schools have reacted differently to the requirement to mark and assess according to National Curriculum directives. An explanation is given of the reasons why the particular school has chosen its overall approach, though the opportunity is not taken up to discuss what should be assessed in language work and how, that is, the question of underlying principle rather than individual school responses to a directive. What is addressed well, however, is the issue raised by one of the student teachers that it is difficult to know whether a pupil is struggling or just being lazy – the mentor points out that asking those sorts of questions ‘is really what assessment is all about, isn’t it?’ Such cases are an invitation to the teacher to look more closely at the pupil involved in order to determine precisely whether he or she is an underachiever. In this general sense then, the underlying purposes of assessment are discussed. Allied to this, the mentor raises the difficulty of having to make decisions about ‘tiers’ in 168

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the GCSE examinations, particularly for those pupils who are likely to obtain a C grade: the teacher faces the dilemma of whether it is to the pupils’ advantage to be entered for the Foundation Tier where it seems easier to obtain a C, or whether they should be given the opportunity to attempt Higher Tier examinations with the wider possibilities on offer. He thus gives some important insights into the kind of decisions which teachers need to be able to make. The mentor realises that a lot of the difficulties which the student teachers encounter are due to their developing understanding of the complexity of the job: ‘it’s seen by the outside world as an easy job, and until you’ve actually played out the role of teacher you don’t really realise how many demands are made on you’. It is also a very personal job, and the mentor is careful to make student teachers aware of the wide variety of different teaching styles in the department, and the effect which these ‘idiosyncrasies’ might have on the classes themselves, which in turn might affect the class’s reaction to their new teacher. Further valuable insight is given into the mentor’s approach when he helps student teachers prepare for a parents’ evening. He underlines the need to be positive and ‘try to get parents on your side’, in much the same way as working with pupils. He talks of showing concern, of giving what he terms ‘a careful presentation of the truth to enlist the parents’ support’. Parents are seen as important partners in encouraging pupils to work to their best ability, so that it is the teacher’s responsibility to liaise with parents in a way which acknowledges that and which forges working relationships: ‘you won’t sort out difficulties if there’s a confrontation, and it’s the same with kids’.

What Challenge is Provided to the Student Teachers to Develop Their Own Policies? There are examples of student teachers being challenged to express and discuss their own emergent policies; some of which are inherent in the discussions outlined above. Direct challenges are provided on specific occasions, as for example when the mentor is providing information about the school’s homework policy and challenges the students to identify what they see as the purpose of homework: ‘do you think it’s something they should all be able to achieve?’ This prompting leads to a discussion about potential difficulties when marking a more ambitious task which has been set for homework. In a similar vein student teachers are asked to outline the kind of strategies which they are using to get pupils to produce work, and to discuss the effectiveness of those strategies. This is followed up with specific advice to be more assertive and determined. A further topic which the students are asked to discuss is the use of structured question and answer techniques, and in particular the ways in which these could be adapted to work at advanced level, with older classes such as sixth-form groups who also need confidence building to overcome their reluctance to speak. There are, therefore, some elements of challenge, though often the mentor is seduced into supplying the answers to his own quest169

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ions so that the extent to which the student teachers actually feel prompted to develop their own policies and their practice is questionable; in fact there is evidence, which will be discussed later, that the students concerned actually became quite complacent during their placement.

What Other Strategies Are Used? The student teachers are given information about homework policies, including procedures for collecting and chasing homework and the possible sanctions in case of absent work, as well as about marking and recording policies, procedures for detaining pupils and expected conduct at parents’ evenings. The mentor deals skilfully with the distress caused by what one student regards as overly negative feedback from another member of the department; starting with the question ‘how have you reacted to that?’ he gently teases out of the student that she agrees with some of the comments made and is aware of what she did wrong. She also feels, however, that there are things which she did ‘in the right way’ which have been ignored; she is asked to explore these, and gradually the negative feelings are dissipated. A major strength of Mentor B lies in his focus on the ‘feel-good factor’: questions which are often employed are ‘have you any concerns?’ and ‘are you happy with . . . ?’. In addition to this tactic, the student teachers are constantly being encouraged that they are doing well and that the kind of mistakes which they are making are natural; for example, the student teacher who experiences technical difficulties with tape recorders and counters just at the embarrassing moment when the tutor calls is reassured that ‘I’ve done that, everyone does that’. The students are told that the reports to be sent to the HEI will be ‘highly supportive and full of praise because I think that is what you deserve’, and that ‘the school has been very lucky’ in being able to work with them as individuals. They are asked to contribute their ideas in departmental meetings, and also trusted to report back on the progress made by their pupils ready for handing classes back to the normal class teacher. They are told that pupils and staff have had sufficient confidence in them for them to have been left largely alone; in other words, in many respects they have been treated like ‘real’ teachers, which is one of the things which many student teachers seem to desire most.

How Do the Student Teachers React to the Mentor’s Approach? In discussion with the mentor at their final recorded session, the students respond quite favourably to his probing about their perceptions of the overall experience. They feel that they have always been able to talk to their mentor if anything went wrong, but they also express a desire for more observation and feedback: ‘I would 170

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have liked you to come in a bit more because I need the feedback’. Although the student teachers have seemed to the outside world to be competent enough to develop their own practice, with the mentor available to discuss difficulties, both seem to have recognised the need for more critical input and challenge if they were to have confidence that they were really making progress. Later, when interviewed by a third party, the student teachers identified their weekly meetings with the mentor as ‘a time when you knew that you would have an opportunity to talk’, which they very much appreciated. It was useful to be able to compare ideas and problems with each other, and to obtain advice from the mentor about how to approach a certain teaching topic: ‘we would talk about methodology sometimes after our mentor had seen us teach, and he would have suggestions or feedback to give us . . . or if occasionally I wanted to introduce a topic and didn’t have any ideas or didn’t know how best to go about it, we would talk about that’. It is clear, however, that the mentoring process was reactive rather than proactive: ‘we tended to talk about things only when we had problems – but if we didn’t feel we were having problems then we didn’t talk about it’. The students seemed to regard the mentor’s input as a series of useful tips rather than as a challenge to them to think about issues: ‘little tips that he thought would be useful, things like suggesting that we speak in the language before the lesson as a little bit of a warm up, to get the class into thinking in the language’. They felt they were given useful advice when they asked for it, for example in the teaching of grammar points, as a prompt for developing their own ideas; but that discussion tended to revolve around ‘the organisation and management of teaching but not the methods as such’. Wider school issues were not addressed with the mentor, as, in the words of one of the student teachers: ‘they didn’t really come up in the lessons so I didn’t feel there was much need to spend time talking about them’. The students were quite satisfied with this approach: ‘I valued teaching and having someone to come back and talk about it with within the school’. However, Student 2 recognised that complacency had set in due to the lack of external challenge. This came out through discussion of her decision not to go into teaching after all because of the demands of the job: ‘to pass this course we had to work harder than many teachers who have got jobs. Even after you’ve been in for many years you still have to work that hard to do it properly’. In fact, ‘the only teachers who appear not to be stressed out are those who have been in it for a while and are brilliant or those who aren’t committed, and I don’t want to be forced to make the choice between trying to be brilliant and being uncommitted’. She regarded her fellow student as one of the latter type of teacher who had reduced her own input as the placement progressed. She saw this as ‘part of the reason why our discipline got worse towards the end of the practice’, thus giving expression to her implicit understanding of the connection between planning/methodology and discipline. One of her main criticisms of the course was the lack of time for herself; she felt she had ‘no opportunities to reflect on what I was doing, what I wanted to do in the classroom, what I wanted in the rest of my life’. There was not enough 171

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time to meet people, to discuss, to think things through. The course was ‘a conveyor belt’ which did not allow enough time to discuss ideas. She did acknowledge that the mentor sometimes explained why he recommended certain styles of teaching or courses of action, but felt that this had been far less in evidence than his encouragement of them and provision of practical ideas in response to specific queries. She would perhaps have benefited from a reduced teaching timetable and a more discursive style of mentoring. Student 3 demonstrated during interview the more ‘laid back’ approach attributed to her by her peer. She was very appreciative of the mentor, though felt that ‘he didn’t tell us much about teaching really, not regularly’. She would ask him if she wanted advice about teaching, particularly as she did not like the way other staff in the department taught and ‘did not really trust their answers’. The student was very selective about what advice she would take, especially from one member of the department: ‘sometimes I felt she was right and listened, other times I knew that she did not like what I had done, not because it was bad, but because she disagreed with it’. This student had clearly developed her own personal theories and had the confidence to reject non-compliant advice from others, even from experienced teachers; this may mean, of course, that she simply ruled out certain sources of sound and valuable advice. Student 3 felt that the mentor meetings were very useful and the mentor very good, but her perception of those meetings is that they largely centred upon the feel-good factor: ‘we talked about how we felt, how the lessons were going, . . . he just asked us how we felt, were we happy?’ Although this had the desired effect of making both students feel supported, cared for and therefore secure and confident, it did mean that ‘we didn’t address issues specifically at any time’ and that they mainly talked about classroom management and discipline, which naturally were the students’ principal concerns. Student 3 expressed awareness of the difference in attitude between herself and her peer: ‘I did not prepare like she did; I did not worry about the details like she did’. It seems a shame somehow that the student teacher who had really understood the challenges of the profession and had worked hard during the course to be the best teacher she possibly could be was the one who decided not to enter teaching as a career, whereas the one who began very quickly to take short cuts and rely on her ‘natural ability’ rather than work at developing her own practice went on to teach, despite admitting that she was beginning to operate like the very teachers whom she claimed to distrust.

Summary In this situation, the mentor carries out extremely effectively the supportive role which he has defined for himself; he is very encouraging and provides appropriate information and practical advice whenever prompted. He also often explains his own rationale for proffering certain pieces of advice, or for the way he chooses to teach, but does not emphasise this in any depth or challenge the student teachers 172

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to engage profoundly with the issues involved; hence the student teachers do not seem to notice this as an important aspect of his work. The mentor is clearly an effective and thoughtful teacher who greatly appreciates the benefits of working with learner teachers and acknowledges their significant input, but who perhaps needs help in exploring his own ideas and their wider implications explicitly and more particularly in articulating them more forcefully to the student teachers themselves in order to push them on. The first step in developing his work with the student teachers might be to start asking them ‘why?’ questions, i.e. asking them to talk through their own reasoning for the strategies which they have employed, which he can then challenge and redirect as appropriate. Both students seemed to hit a ‘plateau’ beyond which they were unable to move without direct challenge. There is also a tendency for the discussions, being learner directed, to focus primarily upon classroom management and control strategies and on procedures for ensuring that work is produced, rather than upon the quality of that work and on progression in pupil learning. This highlights a need for the mentor to have input into the discussion agenda and try to move the students beyond their natural concern with control. The students need to be challenged, and given time, to think deeply about issues, to justify what they are doing and to think of alternatives for themselves, or to weigh up alternatives offered.

Thinking About Your Own Practice If you recognise aspects of your own work with student teachers in the above, consider the following suggestions: • although the feel good factor is extremely important, if student teachers are made to feel ‘too good’ and too supported, this can lead to complacency and the ‘plateau’ effect, even to a decline in standards as placements progress. We have all experienced this syndrome with able GCSE classes; • being regarded as a ‘real’ teacher is important for the students’ self-esteem; however, they are still learners, and in order to gain maximum benefit from their time need continuing observation, constructive criticism and challenge; • in a reactive mentoring style, where the student teachers themselves are allowed to set the learning agenda, there can be a tendency to focus on classroom management and control concerns to the detriment of a concern for the quality of pupils’ learning and their progression; • even if the mentor is willing to express his or her own personal theories and explain the rationale behind them, if student teachers are not forced to engage in the investigation of issues and prompted to develop their own personal theories through discussion the importance of this aspect of ‘being a teacher’ may be lost or students may quickly fossilise within their own ideas; 173

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• student teachers certainly need to get used to the ‘real life’ of being a teacher in order to prepare them for their first post; however they also need space and time to think if they are to develop the necessary understandings to help them cope with that reality. Is teaching practice a rehearsal for or preparation for the real thing? You can only rehearse properly once you have understood and learnt your role; student teachers need time for this preliminary aspect of preparation before being launched into full reality. Some may be more reluctant than others to prepare so fully; others may need longer before they feel they have captured the essence of what is required. Differentiation means not just giving learners what they want, but assessing what they actually need and to a certain extent imposing this upon them.

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Reflective Practice and Collaboration

How Does the Mentor Perceive the Role? Mentor C is very keen to discuss methodological issues and to elucidate her own views about teaching and about mentoring; this is evident both from her discussions with the two student teachers with whom she is working and from a subsequent interview with a third party. Her enthusiasm for teaching shows through the discussions, along with a strong emphasis on the interaction between methodology and discipline. She firmly believes that ‘the evaluation of teaching methodology is the key to the success of future practice’. Working with a pair of students offers opportunities to generate discussion, through which learner teachers can develop their professional judgement: ‘the more opportunity you give them to express their own opinions, the more they can develop their own judgements’. An important aspect of enabling such discussion is that of creating an appropriate environment; this entails developing a ‘human’ relationship with the student teachers whereby mentor and student get to know each other personally as well as professionally, thereby developing trust. Reciprocal learning is a key feature of the mentor’s approach; she appreciates the opportunity to learn about herself and her own work from the student teachers, in particular focusing upon possibilities for improving her own work: ‘obviously that is part of the process of reflection that you go through with students’. There are, of course, limitations on the work of the mentor, the main one being time. Here Mentor C identifies two prime difficulties: having sufficient time to spend with the students; and sharing the time equally when there are two. ‘The temptation is to concentrate on the student who has lots of problems, and it is easy to neglect the good student’. During interview the mentor clarified how she would identify a weaker and a more able student, the weaker one needing more shortterm, rather than longer-term targets as well as a lot more encouragement. As with pupils, short-term targets can help them to see that they are developing quickly, even though the steps may be quite small. Good students are more independent and enthusiastic, and want to take over. They need less guidance in discussions, are prepared to give their own opinions and suggestions and contribute interesting 175

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ideas which perhaps the mentor hasn’t even thought of. Mentor C sees her role in working with an able student as being less prescriptive and involving more listening. Mentor C is also able to identify certain key difficulties which student teachers tend to encounter: • gauging the ability of pupils, especially with regard to their understanding and use of the target language; • planning for differentiation; • realising how small the learning steps need to be for certain pupils; • finding out how much pupils can do with a small core of knowledge well taught, as opposed to a mass of knowledge which pupils can neither cope with nor apply.

An Example of Tutorial Discussion Mentor: Student 4: Mentor: Student 5: Student 4:

Mentor:

Student 5:

Mentor: Student 5:

Mentor: Student 4: Mentor:

So what do you feel could be the advantages of group work . . . what do you feel are the main advantages, why do you feel you should want to do it? It’s a way of keeping interest through variety . . . Introducing variety, yes, indeed. It focuses their attention on one particular task as well . . . it also helps them help each other and cooperate with each other. I find that if you put them into a group of four they’re less likely to talk about some things. Because some of them might be left out, whereas if they’re in twos . . . Ah, now you’re comparing group and pair work. What I meant to ask was to bracket the two together . . . and say what do you see as the advantages of group and pair work? I think it helps with differentiation because you can put the groups together how you like, and choose a task for each particular group . . . which you think they can get on with. Then you would have to organise your groups in a different way, wouldn’t you? Of course, and you would have to know the pupils very well . . . on the other hand I find that even if you give every pupil a different task, they will always see a pupil who is more able than the others and can put them on the right track so . . . So you find it a good way for the less able pupils to be helped? Would you agree with that, (Student 4)? I don’t know. So what advantages does it have, because it isn’t easy to organise, and unless you can see obvious advantages, you have to ask yourself whether it is worthwhile I think it is worthwhile but . . .

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It also depends on the activity really . . . You can give them a clear set of instructions, they know how to start and what is expected of them at the end. It doesn’t matter what the activity is, if you give them instructions step by step then they are more likely to respond. I’m also looking at it in a more global kind of way . . . don’t you think that both activities take some of the focus away from the teacher? Because on the whole when you start your teaching practice you tend, especially at the beginning, to have a very much teacher-centred approach. It’s natural, isn’t it, and as you become more experienced you can have a more pupil-centred approach. It involves the pupils in a much more active way, and I think it is particularly important in foreign languages. You have to actually make them use the language, and they use it in groups and they use it to each other, and that’s the way they practise it. Choral repetition is the first step, but it’s not a situation where you can make them feel ‘this is real’.

Figure 24 Example of Interaction between Mentor C and Student Teachers 4 and 5

What Personal Theories Does the Mentor Reveal? In the selected example (Figure 24), the mentor explores the student teachers’ understandings of group and pair work before revealing her own theories; she is careful to ensure that both student teachers are given the opportunity to express their ideas. Their input demonstrates that Student 5 is both more forthcoming and also thinking in more complex terms than Student 4. The mentor’s intention is to steer both student teachers away from the very teacher-centred approach to which they are ferociously clinging, and convince them of the benefits of moving towards greater involvement of learners. Her mentoring style seems to reflect this, in that she makes frequent use of questions and tries to engage the two students in evaluating and discussing each other’s ideas; she does, however, offer her own personal theories as a further dimension. Continuing with the theme of teacher-centred versus pupil-centred strategies, Student 4 defends her own approach by pointing out that involving the pupils takes a lot of time out of the lesson and stops her from getting through her lesson plan. Mentor C skilfully counters this by refocusing on the learning which is taking place: ‘you can go through a lot of activities with them and go through everything you’ve prepared, but the test in the end is what they’ve learned, and if through doing an enjoyable activity they’ve retained more, they’re able to produce those key phrases which you’ve been trying to teach them in spite of the fact that you feel that you have wasted time, . . . I think the outcome is really the important thing’. She then goes on to give several suggestions for team games to increase the degree of pupil involvement. Student 4 is still quite defensive, and talks about the need to bring in reading and writing to increase the level of challenge, so this is highlighted for a future discussion about covering the four attainment targets across a series of lessons. That discussion in turn raises 177

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the issue of the sequencing of activities, and, as well as inviting both student teachers to reveal their understandings, the mentor offers her own rationale: I myself feel that the passive skills should precede the productive phases, so that . . . comprehension comes before reproduction, and speaking comes before writing but it should be preceded by comprehension – listening or reading. This is the way it works with our own language isn’t it, because your passive knowledge of the language is greater than the active one, and the stage at which you can reproduce language is a much more advanced and difficult one. I’m thinking of that lesson again, except that the timing wasn’t quite right, you can’t get everything into one lesson. The ‘theorising’ is linked in with concrete examples of the students’ own practical work, which is often used as a springboard for discussion or to provide illustrations. On the other hand, practical tips are frequently accompanied by the explanation of an underlying rationale. When Student 4 is advised that it is better to start off a lesson with oral practice rather than a test, this is justified by the reasoning that it gives the pupils confidence before starting the test, focuses their attention on the teacher at the beginning of the lesson, and starts the lesson by providing a sense of achievement on a rather dull Friday afternoon. Student teachers are advised to present pupils with the spoken word before giving them access to the written word ‘because it is so easy for them to acquire faulty pronunciation and for it to become established, and then it is much more difficult to correct’. Regular marking of books is encouraged not just in line with departmental policy, but as a diagnostic measure: ‘it is important for your teaching’. Criticism and praise are also supported by the provision of a rationale. When Student 4 is reluctant to repeat any attempt at pair work due to a particularly unsuccessful trial, the mentor suggests that a common reason for oral activities not to go as well as anticipated is the lack of sufficient support for pupils; they need to be ‘equally confident in asking questions as in giving answers’. Student 5 chooses an ‘easier’ class to experiment with when introducing pair work and is praised for this decision: ‘people used to make mistakes in my opinion with carousels, starting with a weaker group; had they started with an able group they would have become more confident themselves and would have done it more successfully with a weaker group then’. Mentor C also gives insight into the development of her own judgement when describing a personal experiment with the use of databases; she points out the potential benefits for motivation but also emphasises that ‘the important thing is the oral work that this leads to’ and that if that aspect is not well prepared, the activity is a waste of time. She offers to demonstrate to Student 5 how to repeat the experiment, but warns that ‘the mistake we made was that it was too big and it dragged on too long . . . it can lead to a little disillusionment’. Student Teachers 4 and 5 are not exempt from the overriding concern with discipline, and Mentor C focuses on the encouragement of positive classroom management in order to avoid the reinforcement of bad behaviour. She offers 178

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Student 4 the loan of a book exploring the issue, with the invitation to ‘educate us all’. Her own views are made very clear: ‘I’m a firm believer in reinforcing everything that is positive in the classroom, and if there are negative things there is a case for saying something quickly but not dwelling on it too much’. She employs the analogy of watering a plant to make it grow, pointing out that bad behaviour can grow too if awarded attention. ‘I’ve been teaching a long time and tried various things. I myself have found this successful’. She is aware of the need to put this in perspective for the student teachers, however, and points out the limits of such an approach: ‘you mustn’t accept any kind of insolence from a child, you must deal with it firmly’. She is also aware of the tendency of young teachers to allow a high degree of familiarity, making it difficult for pupils to define the borderline, and raises this with the students: ‘there is a big difference between warmth in a relationship and over-familiarity’. There is clear evidence, therefore, that Mentor C is aware of the potential misunderstandings between an experienced and a novice teacher and consequently of the need to reveal her own policies accurately and in detail. Another issue about which Mentor C obviously has strong feelings is that of equality of opportunity. The student teachers themselves seem to have few ideas to input, but the mentor emphasises that this is a vital issue, not merely because the students have to write an assignment on it but because ‘it’s a question which comes up in every aspect of teaching; it’s a suitable topic for summarising what you’ve been learning during your teaching placement’. The issues which she feels are bound up in this topic and about which she expounds her own theories are: • the search for a methodology which makes languages accessible to all, not just the more able; • the choice of languages in the school curriculum, including the unjustified position of French, the difficulty of sustaining progress in one language over a period of years for certain pupils; and the relative merits of different languages; • the issue of differentiation, in particular the need to build up confidence in language use at all ability levels to reduce the barrier and the sense of failure; • the need for a variety of short, sharp activities to avoid reaching the boredom threshold in language work; • the role of grammar at different levels of achievement and the right for pupils of all abilities to learn grammar as a shortcut; • examinations, and the need to make choices regarding ‘tiers’; • the idea that learning a new language makes you a more tolerant person; • our assumptions concerning what children know about different lifestyles; • the issue of stereotyping in commercial and in-house materials; • the boy/girl achievement debate, and the advantages and disadvantages of single-sex environments; • the use of independent learning strategies to cater for different needs. 179

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From this we can surmise that Mentor C is well aware of the importance of underlying theories and of their impact upon practical work in the classroom, and also of the need to encourage student teachers to see such links for themselves and act upon them.

What Challenge is Provided to the Student Teachers to Develop Their Own Policies? As mentioned above, Students 4 and 5 are often given the opportunity to express their personal opinions about a topic before Mentor C is prepared to offer her own. Direct challenges are also issued, though in a supportive, inviting tone of voice. The student teachers are asked, for example, to consider ‘what is the purpose of a textbook? That’s an interesting question, isn’t it? The role of the textbook is a big issue’. This theme is taken up in connection with practical classroom work; Student 4 has used a listening passage from the available textbook, and this is gently challenged: ‘do you feel that they heard the words that you meant them to hear?’ Student 4 does not respond, so Student 5 is asked to comment, and explains the ways in which she prepares for listening. This is praised by the mentor, who offers further suggestions as to how to focus pupils on various phrases ‘because there is a danger that it becomes a rather unsatisfactory experience, they hear the text and don’t quite know what its relevance is’. There is an attempt to make Student 4 aware of the pupils’ perspective whilst still acknowledging her efforts: ‘I can see your reason for using it, but then you left it hanging in mid air’. Questions are also used to challenge Student 4’s insistence that she has tried providing prompts for pair work and that ‘it doesn’t work’; suggestions are given as to how to make it work, supplemented by asking Student 5 to clarify what she thinks is meant by a ‘prompt’. When Student 4 remains defensive she is asked ‘what were you trying to do as far as that pair work is concerned?’; ‘had they come across these expressions before?’; ‘would it not have been better to have . . . ?’ Classroom management is also highlighted as an area where one student in particular needs to be challenged: Student 4 is defensive about noise levels in a lesson which the mentor has observed and objects to the notion of telling pupils off. Mentor C advises her to think of positive strategies for making sure that the whole class is quiet at the beginning of a new activity. When the student persists, using the ‘ebullience’ of the class as an excuse (‘I have to put up with a certain amount of noise’), the mentor tries a different tactic: ‘what do you think about clear rules?’ and eventually identifies classroom management as ‘our number one target’. She emphasises the importance of ensuring that pupils are on task and not simply chatting, and persists with this challenge to the student on various occasions and using a variety of strategies. Other examples of Mentor C’s use of questioning to challenge the student teachers and try to develop their thinking are: 180

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• Do you encourage the pupils to use the glossary at the back? What do you feel its function is? • What do you feel you learned from that situation? • Do you feel that they are being stretched enough, or are there some pupils who need to be stretched further? The students are also told explicitly that ‘you need to have a very definite policy about target language’.

What Other Strategies Are Used? In addition to challenges to develop their thinking skills, the student teachers are also encouraged to evaluate their teaching with questions such as ‘do you feel that you achieved what you set out to do?’; ‘do you feel that you went on with the game too long?’. Questions are also used to encourage them to keep up with set tasks: ‘by the way, talking about written work, have you had their books in?’; ‘have you experienced any difficulties with applying the departmental marking system?’; ‘have you had any opportunity to read the policy statement on differentiation which is in the handbook?’. Students are provided with relevant information, for example on the purposes of the various school working parties and the ways in which this whole-school work is integrated with the work of departments; they are encouraged to join appropriate working parties in order to involve themselves in policy making. Recognition of the contributions which student teachers can make is also evident in a request for them to recommend ICT software for the department to purchase: ‘I would value your personal opinion’. Mentor C shows herself adept at encouraging the student teachers by emphasising that they are moving in the right direction: ‘I think that is wise’; ‘I can see your reason for . . .’; as well as giving praise for what has been achieved: ‘I myself have felt that you have made considerable progress in . . .’; ‘I noticed that you were trying to keep up . . .’; ‘that’s a lovely set of flashcards and I think you should try and get the most out of them’. She is very careful to give the students ownership of their work; she skilfully refers back to their earlier contributions to discussions to remind them that it is their own ideas, not hers, which they are trying to put into practice: ‘as you have often said in discussions . . .’; ‘I’m sure that you are aware of . . .’. She also puts their struggles into context, acknowledging for example that differentiation is an issue which the whole department finds difficult and is working on; in fact the student teachers are invited to contribute to the debate. She accepts that the students first need to establish themselves as teachers, ‘and you tend to concentrate on teacher-centred approaches’, but also gently insists upon expectations for a later expansion into more autonomous learning strategies such as experimentation with carousel work: ‘it needs a certain degree of confidence, it’s something that you get onto a bit later in your teaching practice’. Students are often encouraged to think ahead, as for 181

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example during a discussion of ICT work: although the school now has quite good ICT facilities at its disposal, there was a time when only one computer was available for departmental use; students may find such a scenario irrelevant at the moment but may well experience a similar situation in the future and should therefore be alert to and explore its possibilities.

How Do the Student Teachers React to the Mentor’s Approach? Both students said that they had felt very pressurised throughout the placement, ‘coming across problems all the time that had to be solved or discussed right away’. The kind of help which they said they wanted was ‘practical help, rather than theoretical, help with discipline problems, strategies, good advice on how to tackle problems, help with planning’. They felt that this kind of concrete help during the course of daily teaching came more from the class teachers than from the mentor, as the former were on hand when the student teachers were working with their classes and therefore much more aware of what was happening within those classes. The student teachers had quite different perspectives on their weekly discussions with the mentor, perhaps reflecting Mentor C’s concern about the difficulty of ‘sharing time equally’. Student 4 seemed to appreciate the meetings most; in the example given above the mentor had felt the need to prompt her to join the discussion in order to explore her thinking, and overall her needs tended to dominate the interactions. This student looked forward to the meetings as ‘a very welcome break, an opportunity to get away from talking about the everyday problems of the classroom’. It was an opportunity to focus on a particular aspect from a more general point of view, providing new ideas and sometimes a new perspective on the situation; this could help the students to gather their thoughts and focus on particular issues. The main benefit for her was, however, ‘I used to look forward to it because it was different from teaching’. She also appreciated the opportunity to discuss issues as a threesome, because if the particular problems under discussion had not been resolved, the students could continue to discuss them together – ‘that was another part of mentoring, you know’. She felt that the mentor was extremely supportive, not judgemental, always prepared to answer, and always there if help was required. This is an interesting perspective, as a close investigation of the meetings recorded reveals that the mentor spent rather a lot of time probing this student and pushing her into questioning her practice. Perhaps this was done too gently for the student teacher to feel challenged? Student 4 had not taken any notes from the meetings and therefore found it difficult to remember what had actually been discussed; she did not see the relevance of the process ‘for my next school’. Student 5 was less satisfied with the mentoring which she had received; she felt that she had needed more concrete advice and more criticism: ‘I’d rather that she had been really critical of my teaching and tell me how I could improve it’. 182

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She felt that, although they had talked about the necessary issues, the sessions hadn’t contained enough practical advice to help her teaching; in fact ‘it would have been better if we could have had our sessions on our own, because we both had such different problems and needed to concentrate on them’. She felt that her fellow student had dominated discussions, and that she could not ask for more of the teachers’ time for herself, as people were so busy. She emphasised the importance of being observed frequently: ‘if they don’t watch you teach, they won’t know, because you might not be able to describe what was going on well enough, so you have to cope on your own and work it out for yourself really’. She clearly felt that the focus of help within the school had been on her partner, who was regarded by both mentor and tutor as the weaker of the two and who did not seem to think twice about taking up everyone’s time with her own problems. Student 5 herself was very critical of her own practice and felt in need of significantly more input, but was too sensitive to the teachers’ other commitments and of the demands made upon them by Student 4 to ask for more of their time. She had very much appreciated what she saw as the all-too-infrequent visits of the HEI tutor, who was able on those visits to devote time to her alone and give ‘really detailed advice and criticism’ whilst still being supportive.

Summary The situation here is quite a complex one. The mentor is clearly a very thoughtful and reflective teacher, open to new ideas, honest and open about her own work and that of the department, and extremely supportive of the students. She has a specific agenda which follows on from week to week, partly arising out of the students’ work, partly based on the agreed programme which had been the subject of negotiation at a Partnership modern foreign languages mentor meeting. Issues are identified in advance so that all participants have the opportunity to reflect and thus to contribute. There is also, however, space for the student teachers themselves to raise immediate issues which concern them; if such an issue is deemed ‘too big’ for off-the-cuff discussion, such as the role of textbooks, it is acknowledged but postponed until the students have had time to reflect on it and more time is available to discuss it. There is a great deal of evidence of the mentor opening up her own practice, explaining her own rationale, inviting comment, exploring the student teachers’ feelings about their own performance and their policies in general, and some very skilful probing of a fairly defensive student teacher. Practical suggestions are also given during the meetings; though perhaps tend to be focused on the weaker student, leaving the stronger, more self-critical student teacher sitting politely on the edge. One of the major difficulties in this situation seems to be balancing the needs of the two student teachers. The one seems to have appreciated the wealth of practical advice but not seen its transferability to different yet similar situations; the other seems to have understood the principles and the wider relevance of her work but not to have received the practical 183

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advice and criticism which she felt she needed. In addition the weaker student seems to have been quite defensive about her ideas and prepared to argue and to reject advice, whereas the stronger student was much more self-critical and lacking in confidence but also too retiring and too understanding of the pressures on colleagues to impose her needs. As an interesting sequel, Student 5 wrote to her tutor during her first year of teaching to say that she had been awarded a prize in her new school for being ‘the best NQT the school has ever had’. A further issue raised by the scenario described in this chapter is that of achieving equilibrium between meeting the needs of the student teachers for a sense of security and developing their awareness of the ‘openness’ of teaching skills. Both students were really asking for the ‘quick fix’ on various occasions, and felt frustrated when it could not be given; on the other hand they were given a very good insight into the discursive and open nature of teaching, without really appreciating the full value of this. This aspect of student teacher awareness is something that perhaps we all need to work on, in order to push the students into developing as professionals as well as competent technicians. The question is, as with our school pupils, do we give them what they want, or what we know to be educationally valid? In the classroom we try to employ a skilful mix of the two, and the same strategy needs to be applied with student teachers.

Thinking About Your Own Practice If you recognise aspects of your own work with student teachers in the above, consider the following suggestions: • the benefits of a discussion group are clear; the mentor here makes very skilful use of the stronger student to break down the defences of the weaker, reducing the level of threat by inviting peer comment. However the stronger student also needs the opportunity to discuss her own perceived needs and to be challenged at her own level. Wherever possible, therefore, some time needs to be allocated to individuals; • even apparently capable student teachers do need intensive, detailed criticism of and practical advice on their own teaching as well as discussion of wider issues and contexts. This needs to be supported by a concentrated and consistent effort by all concerned, mentors, tutors and others, to emphasise the links between the two; • student teachers can be very context-bound and reluctant to accept the need to generalise from specific practice and specific contexts in order to think in terms of transferable principles. Mentor, tutor and other teachers need constantly to reemphasise the relevance of extracting general policies as a way of ‘framing’ possible future teaching situations: ‘the more sophisticated a student’s understanding of the assumptions they are making in their framing of practical situations, the more able they are to bring their teaching under their own control’ (Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 175);

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• if student teachers are to reap maximum benefit from discussions at mentor meetings and to regard those meetings as more than ‘time to chat’, they need to be encouraged to make notes and to use those notes subsequently in a constructive way. This could, of course, interlink with written assignments focusing on the compilation and development of teaching policies; • although it can be difficult in the case of a very forthright, defensive student teacher, students do need to feel that they are being challenged to rethink and reassess what they are doing with a view to improvement. This may be an uncomfortable process for them and pose a threat to the mentor/student relationship; however, if student teachers are to learn: ‘needed are learning environments (persons, experiences and curriculum) that are consistently organised to be just beyond the students’ preferred ways of solving problems’ (Reiman, 1999: 255. As mentioned above, see also Daloz, 1986; Martin, 1996, for a discussion of the significance of the balance between support and challenge).

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Chapter 3.4

Probing Theories in Practice

How Does the Mentor Perceive the Role? Mentor D has quite clear ideas about what the student teachers need, and about the ITE course overall. For example, he is prepared to work within the framework of government directives about standards for entry into teaching, but thinks that such standards are open to interpretation. He regards some of the expectations expressed in government documentation as unrealistic for the PGCE year, such as the demands in terms of assessment, recording and reporting, pastoral work, and the requirement to take on board the Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs. Mentor D sees the interpersonal relationship between mentor and student as allimportant, due to its influence on all outcomes. The student teachers need ‘not a subject expert or a brilliant teacher’ but someone who is active in listening and talking to them, who understands and respects their difficulties, who is sympathetic and prepared to offer a shoulder to cry on. Empathy is very important because ‘if the student is going to be really good and do things that are really worthwhile doing then they must plan for failure’. Student teachers cannot do this unless they feel valued. Although the ‘feel good factor’ is important, however, the mentor is clearly quite demanding of student teachers. He recognises that as graduate linguists they have probably been taught in certain ways which are not appropriate for their current pupils, and therefore need to think about ‘active learning’. He insists that student teachers must be reflective about what they are doing in the classroom; they ‘should be expected to say why they have done things or are doing things’. They must ‘develop those skills which enable them to verbalise what is going on for them’, as well as to ‘separate the personal from the professional’, i.e. learn not to interpret criticism of their teaching as criticism of themselves as persons. They must also be taught about team approaches and collegiality, so that they learn to talk about problems and share weaknesses. The mentor and department have clearly defined roles in this process; they are to encourage confidence in the student teachers and help them to recognise their 186

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entitlement to professional development. It is important for students to see the different strengths in the department, but also for the department to be openminded and to encourage experimentation, not to expect the students to ‘be like them’. As a focal point, the mentor needs to choose words carefully at the beginning of placements, using early meetings to flag up different thresholds which the students should be aiming for; these should be constantly under review with new levels being set as goals. Mentor D articulates the potential tension between being an assessor and being a shoulder to cry on, especially when working with a weak student. The mentor must make it clear to student teachers that it is his or her professional responsibility not to pass everybody simply on the basis of a personal liking. It is also vital to let the students know clearly ‘where I’m from and what I believe to be important about teaching’, to try to be ‘honest about what we are all doing . . . that’s something that needs to be shared so that we know what we are working towards and why we’re working towards it’. During the period of the recordings the mentor is working with two student teachers, and he highlights the need for differentiation, just as with pupils in the classroom: ‘you should as a mentor be aware of their needs and try and create opportunities for students to move forward’. This is reflected in his decision to hold separate meetings with the two students as it becomes obvious that they are progressing in different directions and at different speeds.

Examples of Tutorial Discussion Mentor: Student 6: Mentor: Student 7: Mentor:

Student 7: Mentor: Student 7:

Have you found it easy or difficult to learn the names of people? Not too bad, there are still a few faceless individuals, but I think perhaps that’s inevitable in my class. What about you? It’s difficult. It is difficult, but it’s beneficial though. Stereotypically and traditionally we tend to learn the names of the kids that annoy us fairly quickly, and we tend to learn the names of the kids who are very good and very able, but it’s the big lump of kids in the middle who are neither very good, nor noisy, nor participating, nor anything – in terms of an equal opportunities issue almost, all of those kids realistically deserve the same treatment, and the same amount of attention and the same amount of our time and energy as the others. And over a period of time, by the time that you get to the end of your time with us I would have thought that it would be quite sad if you hadn’t got to know the names of the kids, nearly all the names of the kids you teach. I’m not convinced I can do it. You’re not convinced that it’s a realistic possibility? No

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Student 6: Student 7: Mentor: Student 6:

Mentor:

Student 6:

Mentor:

Part 3: Mentors in Action It’s twelve weeks and you see them two or three times a week. There are ways of learning their names. I think I concentrate on other things, like classroom management. What do you mean by classroom management? Making sure they are all participating, and working and writing down and understanding. I’d rather spend time going round the class asking them if they understand rather than . . . Do you not think in some ways though that it can have a psychological benefit, the kids need to know, need to feel that you care about them, whether we do or not. It is part of classroom management, it does come into it. If you know their names you will have a better relationship with them, and be able to manage them better because you’ll be able to relate to them more personally. And thinking particularly for us in our subject area which is a very interactive subject situation . . . when we are doing oral work, when you’re asking people questions and things . . . either nobody will participate because they’re shy and all that sort of stuff, or some of them will participate all the time. And it’s very easy for a lot of kids just to hide away, and do nothing and just sit. I do think that you need a powerful arm in your repertoire. And if they know that you know who they are then that gives you a big advantage over them.

Figure 25 Example of Interaction between Mentor D and Students 6 and 7; classroom management

Mentor: Student 7:

Mentor: Student 7: Mentor:

Student: Mentor: Student 6: Mentor: Student 6:

So you start a topic but where do you start, which – you know – how do the ATs link together? How do they start? You start off with speaking really. Follow a standard question/answer. If you were introducing new things I would say you start them off with listening and speaking. Which? Listening comes first because they can’t produce it unless they’ve heard it first. Sorry, I’m being purposefully difficult, but it’s important to understand the principles behind it all. We spoke about these a little bit last week, you can’t have speaking without listening. You can’t do one in a vacuum. Not really . . . so we’ve started with listening, we’ve moved to speaking. What sort of speaking? Questioning. What sort of questions? With – er – either or?

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Mentor: Student 6: Mentor: Student 6: Mentor: Student 6: Mentor: Student 6:

Student 7: Mentor: Student 6: Student 7:

Student 6: Mentor:

Student 7: Student 6: Mentor: Student 7: Mentor: Student 7: Student 6: Mentor:

Student 7: Mentor: Student 7:

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What’s that? A choice question? Yes and then with open questions. Can they do the open questions? Is that OK? Yes How do you know when they can do that? When they can answer ‘Qu ’est-ce que c’est?’ Or whatever the equivalent is in German – when they can answer that, are you happy? Are you happy that you can now move on? It’s harder with the bigger groups – there’s 36 in that German group, and trying to teach them that is very difficult. It’s very difficult to gauge if they have all got it. With the smaller groups it’s easier to see, you can dwell on it a bit longer. But with that group there’s a tendency for about five or six to dominate and everyone else can sit back. The room is big and there’s a lot of people in there. It worries me in a way. Yes Sorry, can I just pick up the detail of what you’re saying? So do you wait until they’ve all got it before you’d want to move on? Ideally, yes, but that could take forever. And you can’t do that because the ones who are picking it up quickly are also likely to become bored very quickly and then start messing about in class. We’re not catering for them. So that’s called differentiation, OK? So have you developed any degree of ability to differentiate? Like when you’re asking questions, would you ask some to some kids and not to other kids? You can’t do that because they would get confused. It’s not as if there is a standard pattern. One of the strategies that people sometimes use is, you might be thinking OK, suppose you ask a question and nobody seems to know the answer? Give them the answer. Immediately? No, but . . . Tone the question down a little bit. If you’ve been asking an open question and nobody knows. Why don’t you ask a choice question? What I’m trying to get at is don’t you sort of naturally ask easier questions to the kids who you know are going to cope with one and you might save a more difficult question for somebody else, the kids that you know have really got it and can cope with the more difficult things. D’you ever find yourself doing that? I don’t think so. You can’t say to one child in English and another in French. Why not? That’s what we do isn’t it? I think it would confuse them.

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Student 6: Mentor:

Student 7: Mentor: Student 7: Student 6: Mentor:

Part 3: Mentors in Action

But it depends on ability and the kind of pattern that . . . Eventually you will have in your head a progression, but teachers want to involve everybody, they want every kid to have that feeling ‘I’ve got a question right’. Now in a class of mixed ability, and they’re all mixed ability, however they are set, there is still a mixture of ability – you do need to give the kids an opportunity to move themselves forward. And you balance it all. That’s not what we have been taught at university. Let’s hear it then. We need like [Student 6] said, a pattern. But there is a pattern and you establish that pattern but you adapt it to the class. Yeah, I’m not trying to undermine the pattern, I think the pattern is sound and solid. The pattern of yes/no, choice, open, that’s the way it’s done. There is nothing wrong with the methodology at all. I just want to raise your awareness a little bit about differentiation. We do it unconsciously. If you reflect on it, we do it without knowing it. we try to facilitate their learning. We try and help them. I bet that you have started to develop that unconsciously . . .

Figure 26 Example of interaction between Mentor D and Students 6 and 7; questioning patterns

What Personal Theories Does the Mentor Reveal? In the two examples in Figures 25 and 26, the mentor begins to reveal to the students some of his own theories about classroom management and differentiation, as well as acting upon his theories about mentoring, i.e. pushing student teachers to think about what they are doing and why and to develop their own principles to guide practice. Mentor D makes it clear to the students that ‘what we want are thinking teachers, people who are actually thinking about what they are doing’. The examples also illustrate the different modes of thinking between Student 6, who is capable of thinking flexibly and aware of the need to adapt patterns to pupils, and Student 7 who is much more entrenched and maintains an almost exclusive focus on classroom management. Giving his own rationales for advice is one of the greatest strengths of Mentor D. A recurrent topic throughout the recorded discussions is the use of target language; the push for target language use is regarded as a positive step in language classrooms: ‘there are a number of very good merits which the National Curriculum has brought, and one of those is the obligation for us to try and approximate more towards using the target language’. He talks about the need to develop a policy, and the difficulties of maintaining it when trying to build relationships with a class. 190

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One of the students points out that some teachers do not use target language; this is acknowledged as a truth, as is the fact that ‘they can be very effective teachers and the kids can get good results still’. Mentor D still insists, however, that ‘we want to see as much target language as the teachers can stand to deliver and as much as the kids can stand to take’. He is careful to explain why skilful use is so important; the choice of personal language to use with pupils is crucial because this helps to generate pupil language. He links this in with the basic question and answer structuring techniques introduced during work at the HEI (see Figure 26) and explains how such introductory techniques lead through the intermediate building blocks to open-ended questions as used in GCSE examinations. The native speaker points out that she is sometimes too tired to maintain use of the target language, and mentor D responds that the non-native speaker has to plan all the incidental language, the language of the classroom, and that she herself must plan this too: Even to the point of saying this is teacher language, these are the words that I’m going to restrict myself to saying, and this is kid language, this is what I want to elicit from the children. And they go hand in hand. The questions that you ask will either facilitate and make them able to respond in the way you want them to or obstruct them and mystify it all and they won’t be able to do it. Student 7 is asked to recognise that her own perception of what is easy and what is difficult for the pupils needs to be challenged. When discussing completion of Student 6’s modern language assessment chart at her half-term profile meeting, he takes the opportunity to be honest about his own perceptions of the difficulty of target language teaching: Developing a culture of spontaneity where the kids will speak German is much more difficult, and psychologically is the most challenging part of this target language debate I find, because psychologically there isn’t a reason to talk a foreign language. He refers to the need for suspension of disbelief and to the structure of the lesson as a kind of language game played by all participants. The reference to psychology, of course, underlines to the student teachers a particular view of teaching as far more than curriculum delivery. Linked with the target language debate, Mentor D also questions Student 7’s decision to begin a lesson with a test; pupils need ‘tuning’ into the language because it is several lessons, if not several days, since they last spoke it: ‘we shouldn’t underestimate the value of revision of past items’. He emphasises the importance of oral/aural work: ‘if the oral/aural stuff hasn’t had a big enough impact on their aural memory, then they will only ever be at the stage of guessing’. This leads to a discussion of correction strategies; constant subtle oral correction is suggested during introductory stages of work, carefully done so as not to crush the pupils’ confidence. Their need to hear correct forms over and over again needs to be born 191

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in mind when deciding on the sequencing of activities in lessons. Student 7 is challenged over marking policies, and after probing with questions such as ‘would there ever be a time when you would choose not to say anything?’, ‘what if it was a general mistake that everybody was getting wrong?’ and ‘do you correct every single mistake in their exercise book?’, Mentor D suggests a policy of selective correction, emphasizing the importance of this strategy to avoid demoralizing and demotivating the pupils. The theme of correction strategies is linked in with the need to give appropriate and encouraging feedback to pupils and the provision of opportunities for success in order to raise pupils’ self-image and behaviour. This is supported by practical cause/effect examples and the reasoning is explained: ‘it’s very hard for a kid to be negative to you when you’re telling him he’s doing well’, ‘you know that difficult children will become less difficult when you praise them’. Such knowledge not only forms part of the experienced teacher’s professional knowledge base, but is also supported by research evidence, ‘by lots of philosophical studies’. The interdependence of classroom management and methodology is a favourite topic of the mentor in response to student teachers’ concerns about discipline: ‘classroom management is absolutely linked towards the acquisition of knowledge, and the evaluation of it. All those issues are linked together’. Student 7 manifests an overriding concern with ‘control’; she is confused about the National Curriculum, assessment procedures and how to use the textbook, and is therefore undergoing continuing difficulties in planning. The mentor tries to redirect her focus from the collection of discipline strategies to consideration of planning for activities and strategies appropriate to the group, as ‘planning is the key to all the things that we do’. He does discuss classroom management issues in detail with the students as appropriate; Student 7 in particular is clearly trying to use her naturally strong voice to control pupils and is encouraged to moderate the volume, because ‘if that loud volume becomes the normal volume then it loses its effect because it just washes over you’. The student is encouraged to use the power in her voice selectively: ‘the most effective teachers from that point of view are the ones who are really quietly spoken, and then when they shout it comes as a real shock’. He goes on to talk about the difference between being strict and being provocatively hard: ‘there is a distinction to be made between being relaxed and calm and not rising to any aggression or provocation from kids, but then at the same time being very clear and very hard lined about unacceptable behaviour from individual pupils’. The student is encouraged to feel her way through, taking advice from people and asking not only about the official line but also about what individual teachers personally felt would be an appropriate response in specific situations. When the issue is raised again it is accompanied by the warning that ‘it’s quite easy to equate authority and being in charge with people who shout the loudest’. He advises both students to be fairly hard and fairly stern, but in a quiet sort of way; he invites them to discuss the different strategies which they are trying to use, in particular to control noise levels. He advises them that ‘it’s about their expectations, about 192

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them knowing your rituals and routines’, whilst acknowledging and accepting that as newcomers the student teachers are still finding out for themselves what their own tolerance levels are, and thus shifting the borderlines for pupils from lesson to lesson, which reduces their initial consistency. Understanding of pupil psychology is highlighted as an important tool for the teacher, and discussion is frequently directed to the pupils’ perception of events. For example, when Student 7 advocates whole class detention in order to activate peer pressure, the mentor raises the issue of parents who might justifiably complain, but also of the potential damage in the case of those pupils who are trying hard and might give up if they feel their efforts are not being acknowledged. He advocates instead the identification of destructive children and the impact of ‘isolating them from the niceness’. This approach to management is reinforced throughout, supported by an emphasis on ‘really praising the good behaviours as well . . . the mentality behind this is that when the other kids see them being praised, they will want to be praised as well. And it might encourage them to modify their behaviour . . . they get access to your smiling praise and your niceness’. The mentor is adamant in his belief that this is what all pupils really want, even though most of them would never admit it. Psychology is also drawn into discussions about missing homework; students are advised to think about the possible reasons for it, including: pupils have genuinely forgotten their book; or they haven’t done the work; or they don’t intend to do it; or even that they had no idea what to do and were not going to embarrass themselves in front of the class by admitting it. Student teachers have to ‘feel their way through’ with such pupils; they are encouraged to ask experienced teachers for advice in individual cases, as this is something which practised teachers take for granted but which is very difficult to explain or to ‘teach’. Students are also advised to make realistic demands on pupils. In the case of a difficult Year 7 group, for example, Mentor D suggests that some of the group may find it impossible to achieve the required standards of behaviour due to immaturity of intellectual development or even due to chronological age; some of the pupils would still be in junior school if they had been born a few days later. He refers to research undertaken by friends of his into the effect of chronological age on examination results, setting, reading ability and numeracy. Two important messages are given here: first that research is relevant to practice; second that research is an acceptable thing to do. In fact at the time the mentor himself was engaged in a research project of his own. Such seemingly casual references could help to break down the perception of many students (and others) of the uncrossable gap between practitioner and theoretician. The students are also asked to make links with ‘theory’ when thinking about the respective value of the four skills; Mentor D encourages them to think about comparisons between what they are trying to achieve in the foreign language classroom and first language acquisition: ‘is there any value in comparing it with how we acquire our own language?’ They do not seem ready to give any input on this, so he follows up by suggesting that we should employ the same sequence of skills 193

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but using an accelerated methodology. This raises questions about the role of writing, which will be discussed in more detail in a later section. The topic of equal opportunities is also highlighted as an issue which the mentor finds interesting to ‘reflect on’; he feels that teachers need to have their awareness raised about the relevant issues, but also about their own behaviours: for example about which children attract most of their attention and what happens to the ‘invisible’ children. Student 6 raises the question of pupils being absent from modern language lessons for reading work, and the mentor insists that this is purely incidental and not a case of MFL being targeted as something that children with special educational needs do not do: ‘in fact quite the opposite. The Head of Special Needs and I both have a strong feeling that languages is a subject that is especially suited to special needs kids because of its oral/aural nature. It gives them a second chance to succeed’.

What Challenge is Provided to the Student Teachers to Develop Their Own Policies? Mentor D frequently challenges both student teachers to explain and develop their own working principles, using questions such as ‘what do you understand by reading? What is reading?’ He forces them to explore the reasoning behind what they do and what they think they are supposed to do, softening what appears to be a very demanding attitude with comments such as ‘I’m sorry, I’m being purposefully difficult’ and acknowledgment that the issues under discussion are sometimes really awkward to articulate: ‘I have a job explaining this to non-languages people’. Investigating the purpose and sequencing of the four skills is a prime example where Mentor D challenges what the students seem to take for granted, such as the role of writing in language lessons. He questions them remorselessly about the use of exercise books, the whole purpose of writing and the authenticity of what pupils are asked to do. Student 6 responds well to this challenge, articulating her thoughts as they develop: ‘there are only certain elements of that written thing which are important, but if it’s the use of verbs that you are trying to teach them, then surely you’re looking at that kind of thing’. She is willing to engage in the discussion and ‘thrash out’ ideas, exploring for example the possibility of consolidation of learning by writing. The mentor always has a challenging response: ‘but then you’re going down the path that I was saying, that consolidation and proof have got to be written down’. Mentor D and Student 6 seem to enjoy this style of debate and thrive on it, but Student 7 appears to find such discussion too much of a challenge, responding with defensive comments such as ‘we can’t because we have to follow the text book’. She begins to join in with ‘but . . .’, however, she is not given the opportunity to explore her objections since the discussion moves on too fast. Later, alone, she is challenged about the authenticity of the writing task ‘write in French a list of clothes to take on holiday with you’. She defends it by persisting that ‘we have to test them to some extent’; the mentor responds: ‘test 194

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what?’, and explores her understanding of the link between pupils’ oral and written production and the differences between understanding words, being able to use words and being able to spell words. This challenging probing is clearly a common feature of the mentor’s style as when he semi-apologises (‘I’m being purposefully difficult’), the student replies: ‘yes I know’. This is an important technique in challenging; ensuring that the student teacher knows that you are aware of the difficulty of answering the challenge and of the fact that you are aiming to make them think, not make them feel inadequate. It is particularly important with students such as this one who has a ‘right/wrong’ attitude to learning to teach, and frequently makes comments like ‘eventually I’ll get it right’. The mentor is careful to persist in correcting this perspective: ‘no, it’s not a question of right or wrong, it’s a philosophical attitude’. The great question is how do we develop this ‘philosophical attitude’ in our student teachers if it does not already exist? Mentor D reiterates the theme time and time again for the student teachers: ‘I am not saying that there is a right or wrong answer but we should, you should, challenge anybody’s notions about the relative importance of listening, speaking, reading and writing. You should be asking yourself, why am I asking them to do this?’ As professionals, he believes that it is our duty to challenge: The major problem with what goes on in teaching and learning is that we are all too driven by the assessment procedures, because we are all accountable. And we are all being forced to teach things in a way that is different to the way we would like to teach them. We need to challenge from the inside those documents, those assessment procedures, as professional people. That’s the only way that change can occur. Grammar teaching is another important issue where the students are challenged to develop their own policies. Mentor D acknowledges the wide-ranging debate on the role of grammar in the teaching of modern languages and the huge differences of opinion on how to build grammatical awareness. The students are advised to observe a wide range of teachers with different approaches and to find out what fits their own style and emerging beliefs. Student 7 is challenged for her tendency to ‘tell’ rather than ‘teach’, in particular for the fairly common tendency in beginning teachers to explain a grammatical rule, ask pupils if they understand and assume that silence means ‘yes’. Her ideas are probed and challenged until she admits that ‘I took it for granted because when I was a child . . .’ – this opens up the opportunity for the mentor to point out the differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’. Student 6 is challenged in different ways; she is told that ‘this ought to be a time of experimentation for you’. When she attempts her first carousel activity, which he acknowledges as ‘a very ambitious experiment’ placing huge demands on the teacher, on the students themselves in terms of autonomy and participation, and on resources, he discusses the lesson with relish and summarises that ‘it was definitely worth doing’. The positive points of the lesson are highlighted, strategies 195

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are suggested to overcome the difficulties which it presented, and the student is advised to speak to another member of staff who is generally regarded as ‘the expert on group work and flexible learning’. Student 6 is encouraged to make use of the regular teacher, classroom helpers and the foreign language assistant to help manage such ambitious projects: ‘you mustn’t feel that because you’re on teaching practice you must do it all on your own. Take advantage of what you’ve got, and while you’ve got us, use us’. On the other hand, she is placed under obligation to experiment further, in fact to be ‘as outrageously experimental as you want’. The mentor suggests different groupings, more ambitious pair and group work, carousel activities, use of the TV and satellite, providing opportunities for pupils to dress up, even singing to them – ‘for your own stimulation and to enhance the quality of the kids’ learning’. The student is reassured that she has nothing to lose, but is clearly expected to progress beyond the pedestrian and to develop her style: ‘I could stick you in front of a class of kids now for the next 40 years of your teaching career and you would be able to teach them in that style . . . but you don’t know whether you can do some of the other things’; Mentor D clearly aims to find out.

What Other Strategies Are Used? Information is provided on a variety of issues such as procedures for excluding pupils from the classroom should it become necessary and school policy on allowing pupils to go to the toilet or the medical room during lessons. Explanations of policy are always accompanied by some kind of justification as to why the procedures have been put in place. More advanced information about marking schemes and assessment procedures is provided when Mentor D feels the students are ready: ‘more input from experienced staff perhaps would be useful to you at this stage now, now that you have more of an idea what’s going on. It would have been inappropriate to give you too much of the theoretical when you haven’t encountered any of the difficulties of marking’. Difficulties with the setting and collection of homework are also probed, resulting in recommendations for organizing systems of record keeping as well as an exhortation to keep to the homework timetable and to devise different kinds of homework rather than just learning tasks. Mentor D is careful to acknowledge the difficulties inherent in teaching languages. At one point he is trying to encourage Student 7 to clarify for herself exactly what language she wants the pupils to produce, in order to try to avoid mixing definite and indefinite articles. He explains that pupils will not automatically make the link between un and une and le and la, and cannot be expected to do so until they have been given sufficient support to help them to infer the pattern. This he identifies as ‘one of the most difficult transition points for language learners that there is’, and admits that ‘in all the years that I’ve been a languages teacher I have never found a totally successful way that guarantees that they will understand that’. He quite rightly raises this as a classic difficulty, in line with Standard A. 1. xi: ‘know, for their specialist subject(s), pupils’ most common misconceptions and mistakes’ 196

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(DfEE, 1998:3). Similar comments are made about the difficulties which pupils encounter, and which very often cause problems for new teachers, in changing the person of the verb, e.g. from je to il and elle or from ich to er or sie. There is also honesty about the challenge for the department in implementing higher levels of work at Key Stage 3, particularly in terms of writing: ‘I’m not sure that as it stands at the moment we’ve particularly got the resources or that we’re developing the knowledge, or indeed that our kids are capable yet to do the kind of writing that is prescribed by the National Curriculum. That’s a big challenge to us all, something we have to work towards’. Experienced teachers therefore do not have all the answers to give, but are constantly seeking more effective responses to new and old challenges. Student 6 responds well to the mentor’s probing to help her to identify her own problems and potential solutions for them. She is asked to distinguish which classes she finds most difficult to work with, and is guided towards identifying the reasons for this. With an older group she is helped to pinpoint the beginning of a new topic as the problem, as she feels that ‘you’re just like a vocabulary machine for the first couple of lessons, it’s not interesting to you as a teacher’. Mentor D prompts her to clarify that her relationship with the class has been improved by the adoption of alternative methodology, devising more pupil-centred and thus more engaging work for the class. Similarly, when a younger group is described as a ‘continuous nightmare’, her thinking is probed to ‘unpick that a bit’; ‘is there anything about the methodology or management strategies that we can use that can either help us or is just aggravating things?’ Mentor D thus emphasises the need for flexibility in the employment of a wide range of strategies in both teaching and management in order to cater for the nature of different groups, as well as for a realistic appraisal of the children involved: ‘one of the things we have to ask ourselves when we ask them to do things, is, is it can’t or won’t? So when we’re asking them to be grown up and more mature and they’re just stupid and childish, then we might be asking too much of them’. Use of the word ‘we’, combined with the constantly reinforced image of the teaching profession as a learning community, is a key aspect of Mentor D’s approach. In discussion of a lesson taught by Student 6 where there were clearly real management difficulties, he begins by highlighting the positive beginning: ‘there was lots of good humour, lots of smiling and enjoyment, and you were smiling and praising them, and they actually demonstrated that they were capable of cooperating with your classroom management style, your delivery style and your teaching methodology’. He emphasises that the student has therefore proved herself able to manipulate the pupils’ behaviour, and adds: ‘I’m just trying to isolate where the difficulties arise’. In other words, what seems to the student to be an unmitigated disaster is actually an interesting problem for the professional to solve. The problem is identified as changing activity, and is then skilfully presented as a shared problem: ‘I think our planning energies need to be channelled into making sure that when you swap to those sorts of activities, we try and eliminate 197

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the possibilities of misunderstanding, and looking for ways ahead and escape routes out’. This style of mentoring also strongly emphasises the message that there is no one way of working with a class, no ‘quick fix’: Mentor D is careful to point out that turning a class around is ‘not a two minute exercise, it is a long term project’; student teachers under pressure to ‘perform’ against the Standards need every reassurance in this. A similar approach is taken in discussion of the assessment demands of the Standards; Student 7 feels unable to evaluate progress because she hasn’t ‘seen’ any over the four weeks of her placement so far, and is reassured that ‘only towards the end of term will you be in an authoritative position’. Although Mentor D challenges the student teachers throughout their placement, the theme of encouragement is also a very strong one. He is always eager to point out that the students have not been teaching for long, that their skills are developing but that they cannot be expected to perform as fully-fledged, experienced teachers: ‘it’s early days for you as a professional’. He acknowledges that they are likely to ‘play safe’ at the beginning, but insists that as they become more secure they should be able to implement a much wider range of teaching strategies and techniques. Classroom management similarly takes time to learn; the students need to learn to ‘read pupils’ eyes’ to find out whether they are telling the truth or not, and this is difficult for a new teacher. As they are developing this skill they should rely on the normal class teacher for advice in particular situations. This raises an interesting issue: how do we learn to ‘read’ pupils? Is it possible to analyse the skill and break it down to make it accessible to student teachers or are they destined to ‘learn by doing’? Mentor D frequently refers to the gradual build up of information about pupils as a teacher gains experience: ‘you will develop and your sensitivity will become such that you will have a planned route through whatever it is you are trying to do, but you will start to deviate from what you said you were going to do’. Once again he acknowledges to them that as inexperienced teachers they do not have a ‘box of tricks’ to allow them such flexibility. He also frequently points out that he does not expect instant perfection; progress is acknowledged in the thinking processes which the students are undergoing as well as in their performance: ‘it’s developing. Your awareness has been raised. You are much more aware, I think, of what’s going on than you were two weeks ago’; ‘the fact that you are comparing and contrasting and thinking about what’s going on is very encouraging. I think you’re further down the road than you think you are’. He also makes it clear that it is important for the lessons which he observes to raise issues: ‘it’s no good for me or for you when either everything is a complete nightmare and nothing works, or . . . everything is exactly and wonderfully perfect’. In a similar vein, they are told not to do anything ‘special’ when the tutor comes to visit: ‘you should never feel that you have to put on a show . . . they come to observe what’s happening, and whatever is happening there is something to observe’. This is extremely good advice, and reassuring for the tutor in that there is no collusion between mentor and student to create a specific, and potentially distorted, image of the student’s capabilities; such a scenario would only confuse 198

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assessment issues and possibly lead to conflict, doing more harm than good to the student in the long term. Human relationships are seen as a vital component of classroom success, and Student 6 is praised profusely for her relationship with pupils: ‘they’re comfortable with you, and that doesn’t just occur, that doesn’t just happen’; the student is encouraged to see this as the result of her hard work, rather than as a ‘gift’, a stance which empowers new teachers to feel that success is within their grasp rather than a question of luck and personality. Mentor D highlights this aspect of teacher behaviour as one of the most difficult aspects of learning to teach; he identifies it as ‘appropriate human behaviour responses to people, and the way to talk to people, the things that annoy them and the things that don’t’. I would agree with him that under pressure to demonstrate technical performance, this is perhaps a sorely neglected aspect of teacher education: how do we ‘teach’ student teachers to interact with pupils, colleagues and parents? Certainly in my own experience, the most difficult student teachers to guide have been those who turn out to be lacking in these supposedly natural skills; I persist in believing that people who have highly developed interpersonal skills have ‘learnt’ them somehow. It would seem that Gardner’s ‘personal intelligences’ (Gardner, 1993: 238–278) are vital to the teaching profession, and that in order to maximise teacher effectiveness we should take time to concentrate on the development of a ‘sense of self’ in order to encourage the facility of openness to others. How can we find time and space to foster the development of these essential skills in the breathless rush of the PGCE year and the even more frantic dash of life as an NQT? But that is another research project, . . . and perhaps even another book?

How Do the Student Teachers React to the Mentor’s Approach? Both student teachers responded favourably to the mentor’s approach, and felt that he was extremely supportive, even when criticising. However, their interpretations of what actually happened during the process of mentoring differed. Student 6 claimed that she could approach her mentor at any time and receive help: ‘he was always there to offer advice; he was a guiding hand but he wasn’t overbearing’. She felt that a wide range of different aspects of teaching had been covered in mentor meetings, not in any great depth but ‘I could always go back to him if I wanted, and other staff’. She and her fellow student would come armed with questions about the agreed topic, and Mentor D ‘with a little talk about it, not one that he’d necessarily prepared but he used to sit and talk about different aspects of teaching with us, his experience of schools and that sort of thing, put it into a kind of context’. The mentor observed lessons and was always full of useful ideas about how to change, adapt, improve, ‘not just criticism, some positive things as well so you went away feeling that you’d achieved something, which was quite important really’. Other staff in the department whose lessons she taught seemed 199

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to have left her largely to her own devices, ‘and that was my choice’. She expressed a holistic view of teaching: ‘it’s the whole thing seen together that is important, not the elements’. She felt that although the same themes cropped up throughout the term, such as classroom management and teaching method, there was development within the themes, perhaps paralleling the findings of Guillaume and Rudney that ‘student teachers in this study did not so much think about different things as they grew; they thought about things differently’ (Guillaume & Rudney, 1993: 79). The mentor meetings provided Student 6 with ‘different ways to approach things, ways of widening my approach, other methods to undertake to get the kids to react in a different way’; most of the advice which she was given did work. For the second half of the term she was strongly encouraged to experiment: ‘it was meant to be a learning experience for me’. Her conclusion was that she had been very fortunate to work with a really good mentor who was very approachable, very knowledgeable, vastly experienced and always willing to make time. She had emerged from the experience with a confirmed love of teaching, and refused to look at teaching in terms of difficulty: ‘there might be problems to overcome with the kids not understanding something’, but this was an interesting challenge, not a wearing impenetrability. As the school concerned was actually one of the most ‘challenging’ in the Partnership, this is quite an achievement on the part of both mentor and student. Student 7 had a slightly different perspective; she felt that discussion in mentor meetings had mostly centred around classroom management, ‘how to deal with problems and evaluate them, not if they were right and wrong, but to see how effective they were, comparing experiences’. She conceded that a variety of topics were discussed, but described these as ‘the list of topics that came from the university’, i.e. not necessarily relevant to her own practice. This probably reflects her own preoccupation with classroom management: ‘you don’t teach at first, you are controlling them, and you can’t teach until you can control the children’. She was clearly having difficulty with one particular class and felt that everyone was giving her tips but that ‘nothing worked’; she felt that the class teacher could not help and that the mentor was very busy, ‘so I couldn’t see him as much as I wanted’. She felt that the other student had had more support because of the individuals with whom she had worked. This is an interesting comment, and is not borne out by analysis of the mentor meeting recordings. Student 7 seemed to feel constantly confused and in crisis: the expectations on students were too high, with so much emphasis on being imaginative and inventing new ideas; she herself felt insecure and vulnerable as a new teacher, and claimed that others felt similarly: ‘I think a lot of students felt very insecure in the classroom . . . and the problem with that is that you then find yourself just reproducing what other people are doing because they say it works, and you don’t think about it’. She herself found it difficult to understand the National Curriculum and departmental marking policies, and therefore to implement them, and she could not understand why the university course had not involved ‘anything to do with children’s psychology’ – a good question indeed. We have succumbed to 200

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time pressures, external expectations and pragmatics, as well as to popular denigration of ‘theory’. I hope that we have not gone as far as Edwards and Collison claim, that ‘pedagogy as theory is not so much split from practice but erased from the experience of students’ (Edwards & Collison, 1996: 54). Student 7 felt that her mentor had not understood the pressures which students were under, in particular why they found it difficult to organise themselves. Nevertheless, she appreciated the positive way in which he approached the situation: ‘if something went wrong he would laugh and say what have you learnt from it? This worksheet is pitched too high or the target language is too complicated’. She said that she had taken on board his advice, and had tried to note down problems as she encountered them so that she could raise them at the weekly meetings.

Summary Important lessons emerge from this particular case study. First, it is clear that the two student teachers perceive what is essentially a similar experience in rather different ways, and select what messages they take away from what is offered. Second, it is extremely difficult to break down a student teacher’s views of what is important, in this case Student 7’s determination to isolate and concentrate on classroom management, particularly when the student feels under pressure and stressed. It seems that Mentor D was wise to hold several of the meetings individually rather than jointly, so that Student 6 would not be held back. The mentor has a clear agenda for meetings, which has been agreed beforehand and which he reiterates at the beginning of each session; there is also, however, time and space for the students to raise immediate issues themselves. We are clearly dealing here with two very different students: Student 7 is always on the search for a ‘quick fix’ and seems unable to gain overall control of the processes, a fact which leaves her feeling confused and ‘lost’; Student 6 has quickly developed into the ‘thinking’ teacher who exemplifies the mentor’s ideal professional. Student 7 seems to need more time to explore her own understanding of issues before attempting to put it into practice, and does not really seem to ‘learn by doing’, mainly because of the quality of her own thinking processes. Such students actually need to spend more time ‘learning how to think’, yet these are often precisely the students who are primarily focused on the doing itself and want to be told ‘how to do’. If we give them what they appear to want, i.e. ‘quick fixes’, we are actually doing them a disservice; on this student’s own admission, she was given lots of tips and hints but ‘nothing seemed to work’. What we need to do is to spend considerable (and unavailable!) time in probing, in gentle challenge, so as to guide their thinking. This then needs to be followed up with small-scale tasks with considerable support in order to enable them to experience success as they put new ideas into practice. If the ideas initially fail, they are likely to abandon them and demand new ideas from us to replace them, rather than to persist in making things ‘work’. 201

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Student 7’s perception that her peer received more support needs to be put into perspective; Student 6 was actually a more independent learner, and made considerably fewer demands on the department as a whole. Although it is certainly tempting to spend more time with the student who provides the most rewarding response, my impression as tutor was that it was actually Student 7 who received most input, but was simply less able to make use of it. The contrast between these two students highlights an important issue in British teacher education. It would seem that although considerable advances have been made in moving from the alleged ‘sink or swim’ teaching practice culture of prepartnership days, there are insufficient time and resources to devote to developing the thinking skills of student teachers. There are persuasive arguments to suggest that in the prevailing tight timescale, only those who can already ‘think’ can be turned into the ‘thinking teachers’ which Mentor D and so many of my colleagues in teacher education see as the only kind of teacher capable of continuing development and therefore of responding intelligently to the increasing and everchanging demands heaped upon the profession. However, we are under ever mounting pressure to recruit as many new teachers as possible to make up for current and projected shortfall. This discussion needs to be taken up at policy level.

Thinking About Your Own Practice If you recognise aspects of your own work with student teachers in the above, consider the following suggestions: • individual student teachers can react very differently to a particular mentoring style; • with weaker students in particular, we may need to place a quite definite initial focus, often despite their adamant protests, on the development of their thinking skills – without adequate thinking patterns the hints and tips which we provide for them will be less effective in helping them to improve practice; • what student teachers want is not necessarily what will make them progress, and with students such as Student 7 it may be necessary to confront head-on their misconceptions about, for example, learning how to teach, or the interdependence of methodology and management, and to point out the manner in which these can actually obstruct their progress in the classroom; • student teachers with an understandable obsession about classroom management perhaps need to spend a considerable amount of time working collaboratively in the classroom so that they can focus on the development of teaching rather than management skills, in order to convince them that they can teach! • developing the student teacher’s independence needs to be a prime focus; Student 7 displays obvious dependence, regards the pupils as the wielders of power in the classroom, and is unable to fight her own way out of the confusion, whereas Student 6 202

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quickly emulates the role model provided by her mentor in becoming an identifier and solver of problems; • mentors need to be very thick-skinned; as illustrated both here and in Chapter 2.5 in Part 2, even the most practised and informed mentors cannot always achieve their goals. Students are as individual as pupils and we cannot learn for them; we can only do our best to identify and understand their needs and to provide an environment containing the levels of support and challenge which we think will best encourage them to learn what we know they need to learn.

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Chapter 3.5

A Tutor in Action

An Example of Tutorial Discussion Student:

Tutor: Student: Tutor: Student: Tutor: Student:

Tutor: Student:

Tutor:

Student: Tutor:

The teacher suggested that perhaps I should have done the tasting right at the beginning to introduce the things rather than doing it on the OHT, so perhaps – I don’t know. What do you think of that, then? What’s the reasoning behind that? Well, just doing it straight, copying down’s a bit bland, because we hadn’t done any oral work first. Why do you say that? Well, they don’t know what they are copying, so they don’t know what it sounds like, so if they make a mistake they’re not aware of it. If they make a mistake in what sense, in spelling or? In spelling or copying or if they miss a word out or part of a word off, like the other week some of them missed the ‘aire’ off of ‘anniversaire’, and they’re not going to be aware of it because they can’t read it in their heads. It’s just letters on a page and they can’t relate it to anything in their heads, they’ve got no sound to go with it. So do you think – are you saying that it’s easier for them to transfer sound to shape than it is to transfer shape to sound? I think the two go together, and if you’ve only got one without the other then you’re crippling half the kids in the class because some of them will learn one way and some of them learn the other. I learn through written but I’ve got a friend who learns only through spoken, because if she sees things written down she gets totally confused. But also bearing in mind what we were saying before that there are actually two different forms in French, I mean which one do you think should as a general rule come first? If they go to France then they’re going to use the spoken, if they’re going to do well in these exams they need the written. Well, actually, I think the balance ought to be equal because you’ve got officially twenty five percent on each skill.

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Student: Yes, yet for the listening, for the reading and the writing, you always respond writing, even if it’s only ticking. Tutor: Yes, but if for the listening you don’t recognise sound you’ve got no chance. Student: Yes, but it does help if you can write. Tutor: Yes, it does, but if you go back to the lesson, what kind of difficulties did they have with telling you the words when they were tasting? Student: Well, because they hadn’t practised it in a sense, they’d only written it down, they didn’t know the words in French and the kids who were calling it out and looking, they were having to look in their book for it. I’d only gone through some of the stuff once and some of it we hadn’t gone through at all. What I was going to do was to get them to do some repetition from the food and then I thought well some of them aren’t going to be able to see it, things like butter and that, and then that would spoil the game, I didn’t want them to know what they were getting. Perhaps I should have thought it through more, but I’ve never done it so I didn’t know what would work and what wouldn’t. So basically I knew that it was going to be a bit iffy. Tutor: So you knew that you were taking risks. OK, good, so what did you learn from that? And how would you adapt it if you were doing it again? Student: I would definitely do some repetition first, I would perhaps have the things there and hold them up and perhaps give everyone a taste, for them to call it out and they’ve got to say it properly before they can have a piece . . . so it’s like winning and that way they’ve all got an incentive to get on and say it and practise it.

Figure 27 An example of interaction between Tutor and Student Teacher 1 Student 1 was planned to do particularly as debrief as part

attempting to introduce the topic of breakfast in French and had this by organising blindfolded tasting; quite an ambitious lesson, she knew that the tutor was going to be observing and leading a of the ensuing tutorial discussion.

How is the Student Teacher’s Level of Thinking Skills Probed? In Figure 27, the tutor is at pains to probe the student’s thinking behind the choice and sequencing of activities. The student admits that she should have thought things through more clearly, and is encouraged to carry out that thinking process in the tutor’s presence. As a matter of principle the debrief is used not to provide practical tips and suggestions but to investigate the student’s understandings. Practical advice and constructive criticism are offered in written form as notes taken during the lesson itself; these are purposefully not used during the debrief, as it is hoped that the student can be prompted to identify for herself the main points which the tutor has made in writing. The written notes can then be offered, as they were after this session, with the comment: ‘those would have been my main 205

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comments so you don’t need my piece of paper because you’ve obviously learnt from analysing what you actually did’. The aim in this approach is to empower the student teacher and increase his or her self-confidence in reflection and constructive self-criticism. Such an approach is, however, time-consuming, and it can be difficult to lure the student teacher into taking the bait. The particular tutorial session from which the above was taken also included the following prompts to thinking: • If you plan something, then you must have reasons for doing what you did – what are they? And do you think that worked? • You say that the policy in this school is not to explain things like that – what do you think about that? • Do you think that pupils need to be able to do dictionary work now, rather than just in later years? • You obviously had reasons for doing it, so why do you now think it was a bad idea? • So what did you think of it, and how would you evaluate what happened? • So what’s your reasoning behind suggesting that, then? What are you trying to achieve by doing it that way rather than the way you actually did it? • How do you think you would cope with that on your own, or would you simply not take that kind of risk if you were on your own? • Think about it, what classes do you do it with and why? What would be the reasons for doing it with the others? • What strategies have you used for learning names? • What do you mean when you say the book’s not suitable? • What kind of things are they strong on that you could build on? • How do you do pair work?

What Challenge is Provided to the Student Teacher to Develop Her Own Policies? Some of the above might seem to form a challenge, but challenge is actually more confrontational and deliberately questions the student teacher’s actions and reasoning, pushing at the flaws in her thinking patterns or setting up expectations rather than simply asking her to explain. The following, for example, imply criticism of what the student has done and said: • But how can they do mon, ma, mes without knowing the masculine and feminine? • You say they have noticed the difference between le and la, but do you think they know why? • But you’re a linguist, you learnt differently – think about these kids that you’re teaching! • What is the point of using vocabulary the kids already know to introduce 206

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dictionary work? If they already know it then why would they need to look it up? Have you got an opportunity to try that with another group, or something similar, to give me a comparison of how it went? What about managing them when you were setting up the activity, because you were quite busy and preoccupied – can you think of things that you could do? But you said earlier it would be practically impossible to get the room ready beforehand because you were teaching elsewhere – so what else could you do? I think, you know, however busy you are, that’s one of the skills you need to develop, to keep looking and listening, making them aware of the fact that you are concerned and that you are actually in contact with them all; Do you think you should have intervened to stop them? What message does it give if you don’t? Do you need to find some ways of building up their ability to work with longer texts? If they know a lot of words but can’t put them together, is that because of the way we teach them? What do we need to change? What do you mean, your techniques for learning names aren’t working but never mind? Oh!, but we do mind – have you tried . . . ? Did they learn from that worksheet? How did they improve by using it? What did it contribute to their learning? Can you analyse the learning process that they went through? Your presentation needs to be of good quality because you were talking to the pupils today about their presentation of work and you can’t expect them to take that seriously unless you set a good role model for them; Show that you are able to think through the learning process and produce materials that will do what you want them to do; I’ll expect evidence of your three targets next time I see you.

What Other Strategies Are Used? As you read through the list above I could almost hear the cries of ‘what a cow’, ‘typical tutor’, ‘all that in one session! The poor student’. However, the high degree of challenge contained in the string of questions is interspersed by reassurance and softened by counselling techniques, and as noted earlier the aim is to prove to the student teacher by the end that she has the answers within her and is capable of directing her own progress if she learns what questions to ask herself and responds appropriately. Counselling techniques are more than just listening, they are evidence of attentive listening and the desire to understand; they consist of such strategies as checking, clarifying, summarising, reassuring and confirming. Illustrations of counselling techniques taken from the same tutorial session are: 207

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• I want to know the reasons why you did things, and they are perfectly valid reasons, but there are other kinds of reasons why you might do things differently and your job is to weigh up and try things out and think, ‘OK, that worked in a certain sense, but on balance perhaps I should have . . .’; • Are you saying that you think it’s easier for them to transfer sound to shape than it is to transfer shape to sound? • So what you’re actually telling me is that you think they have to say words a lot to remember them and that you need some ways of getting every child involved as much of the time as possible? • So what you’re actually saying is that you’ve got an excellent idea which motivated them and that what you need to do is to look at how you tidy it up to increase the learning that’s going on? • I was impressed that you were prepared to take risks; • Are you telling me that having tried something different you need to focus on the good points of ‘normal’ procedures and try to incorporate them? • You were looking at it from your own perspective as a learner, but you did achieve one of your main aims, which was actually to get them interested in the topic in the first place; • So with the bottom set you say you watch and listen because you’re concerned about behaviour, and with the top set you’re concerned about them underachieving? • So what you’re saying is that they’ve been pushed through a lot of content but they haven’t learnt anything well? • So you’re saying that the purpose of this was actually to teach them the rubrics for the test? Much of the above is an attempt to reflect back what the student teacher is thinking and saying in the professional language of teachers. It is a multi-purpose strategy: it emphasises to the student that her own ideas are being heard in full and taken seriously; it confirms that she is thinking as a teacher; and it also provides her with the language which she will need to articulate her own thinking more precisely.

How Does the Student Teacher React to the Approach? Although we might expect the poor student teacher to be exhausted by the interrogation implicit in this approach, she does seem to appreciate the benefits of the discussion, which she says ‘helped me to think about things’. She claims that the tutor ‘actually drew out what I was trying to think, I couldn’t think it myself, and drew out the questions, what I was trying to ask myself but couldn’t quite get there . . . I have already got these things buzzing around and I find it very difficult to put thoughts into logical order’. In other words, the student teacher is 208

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working her way towards a reflective approach to her own work, towards the development of her own policies allowing her to choose appropriate techniques and strategies, and towards a constant process of self-questioning; however, she needs help to grasp and articulate this. Beware, though, that the student teacher did not see this as a form of mentoring – in her view this was something different; mentoring was for her the practical help provided by a teacher with whom she worked in close practical collaboration (see Chapter 3.1 of this section).

Summary The type of tutor input described above provides examples of the kind of questions which can be asked to probe student teachers’ thought processes and challenge their reasoning. I see this as an essential part not only of the tutoring, but of the mentoring process; one which can be neglected due to time pressures or a lack of understanding about the complex process of learning from experience (see Vonk, 1996). It is, however, only a part of mentoring, and needs to be balanced by the provision of ‘practice options’ to supplement the students’ narrow range of practical know-how and experience. In the tutor’s approach, the latter aspect of advice-giving is catered for in the written notes which are handed over after the debrief; the rationale behind this is that suggestions and hints can be digested from the written format and clearly understood, whereas the exploration of principles and thinking processes demands interaction. Both as mentors and as tutors we all too often feel pressured by time limits, external performance expectations and student panic to spend precious discussion time on the provision of hints, strategies, and criticisms of action. Yet as Chapter 3.4 demonstrated, without the appropriate thinking skills to apply them, the world’s biggest box of teaching tricks will be of no use whatsoever even to the most desperate student teacher. We need to approach teacher education, be it as tutors or as mentors, with a clear idea about what student teachers need as well as what they want, and the determination to provide them with as good an education as is possible within the given constraints. A hard lesson for some mentors – and indeed tutors – is that as adults our student teachers may actually be even more difficult to convince than pupils, as adults ‘are more likely to have fairly clear ideas about what they want to learn’ (Williams & Burden, 1997: 71) and may have an agenda which is ‘very resistant to change’ (Hayward, 1997: 15).

Thinking About Your Own Practice Although tutor and mentor work within different contexts and therefore inevitably with different perspectives and emphases, their overall aim of supporting student teacher learning is the same. Earlier chapters have underlined the importance of talk and of thinking skills in the development of that learning and certain issues arise from the example given above that both mentor and tutor need to consider: 209

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Do you feel confident enough in your own understanding of student teacher development to be able to identify what learners need rather than respond to what they want? Do you feel that the roles of tutor and mentor overlap sufficiently for you to implement some of the ideas represented here, or is your role quite different? What do you think are the respective purposes of (a) written feedback; (b) oral debrief? How do you use them yourself? Do you feel that there is sufficient balance in the example given between challenge and support? If not, how could the tutor’s approach be improved? How do you think you personally would feel if you were the student teacher in this illustration? What prompts do you use to explore a student teacher’s thinking about lesson planning and classroom events? How can a less forthcoming student teacher be prompted to enter into a dialogue about such thinking skills? What counselling techniques do you use in your interactions with student teachers? Do you feel that you achieve an appropriate balance between challenge and support in your own work with student teachers? If not, what do you think you might need to change, what support would you need to do this, and where might that support come from?

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Part 4

Towards a Better Future?

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Chapter 4.1

Towards a Better Future?

Thinkers or Deliverers? One of the problems with the Curriculum – and this is not a reflection just on SEN children – is that it looks very dry. The National Curriculum, with a big N and a big C, looks like it’s about facts. Knowledge and skills are very important, but I have no doubt that education in its broadest sense, what I think you’re calling the ‘little c’, is about personal fulfilment and development, the growth of the individual and of people’s minds. That brings me to thinking skills – I am absolutely convinced that education is about developing all the facilities of our mind and abilities. The National Curriculum should be a vehicle for teaching thinking skills, self-confidence and esteem, which children will use in other aspects of their lives. (Morris, 1997: 16–17) These comments by Estelle Morris, Minister for Schools, in an interview with Andrew Sutton in Special Children in 1997 are surely relevant to the education of teachers, not just of children. Teachers need advanced and sophisticated thinking skills if they are to prompt and support the development of thinking skills in their pupils. It seems that pressure for the production of measurable evidence throughout the education system, particularly in the UK, has tended to distract teachers and teacher educators from this fundamental principle. In ITE, Tomlinson points to the ‘pitfall of focusing on surface behaviours’ (Tomlinson, 1995: 148). What student teachers actually do in the classroom is far easier to access and to describe than the thought processes and rationales which underlie those actions, yet it is only fundamental changes in thinking which can bring lasting change: ‘teachers’ deeprooted beliefs about how languages are learned will pervade their classroom actions more than a particular methodology they are told to adopt or course book they follow’ (Williams & Burden: 1997: 57). Pring insists that teacher education should aim to produce ‘educational thinkers, not simply trained craftsmen’ (Pring, 1996: 10); he supplements this by saying that ‘the formation of thinking teachers would require systematic thinking about teaching’. We can see for ourselves the parallels with language learning and the need to integrate learning about language into the learning of language (see Part 1, Chapter 2.1). 213

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Trained Trainers or Educated Educators? The Tutor and the Mentor Only a skilled and thoughtful teacher educator can reach beneath the surface and identify the patterns of understandings and personal theories which influence the student teacher’s behaviour in order to work at redirecting and developing those theories in more productive ways. Brooks and Sikes warn us that ‘it may not be meeting a student’s needs (or those of the children they will come to teach) if they are placed with someone who is themself ‘surviving’ or who takes a complacent view of their practice’ (Brooks & Sikes, 1997: 69). Murray’s comparison of the natural with the professional teacher, referred to earlier (Murray, 1999), could equally be applied to the teacher educator; for example his comments on error and poor performance (63): the student teacher’s reasoning may look illogical to a naïve teacher educator; it may be difficult for the naïve or spontaneous mentor or tutor to accept any error and poor performance as a marker of progress. Just as student teachers need to understand their subject well and to develop ways of building bridges between their expert and often intuitive knowledge and that of their naïve pupils, teacher educators need to understand both the practice and theory of teaching and develop their own ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ – not just of language, but of teaching itself. Everything that we have said about language teachers equally applies to language teacher educators; teacher educators, like teachers themselves, ‘must learn to assess their own actions based on sound theory and research’; ‘they must develop the skills of a reflective practitioner, evaluate themselves from an objective understanding of why they are choosing to use the knowledge and strategies they have selected, and they must be able to handle the successes and consequences of their actions’ (Gold, 1999: 168). Teacher educators need, just like their student teachers, to learn ‘a way of being rather than simply acquiring facts and skills’ (Smith, 1996: 209). Vonk tells us that ‘the novice teacher, for example, lacks an extended professional knowledge base and has to refer to theory for insights into a particular situation’ (Vonk, 1996: 127), and adds that the novice’s capacity for reflection is limited and always connected with practical experiences. Wallace, speaking of student teachers, points out that ‘without some kind of coherent intellectual framework, practical tips and bright ideas will not necessarily lead to any effective result’ (Wallace, 1991: 3). All of these comments could equally be applied to the teacher educator, both mentor and tutor. This is, in fact, a current theme in much of the literature on mentoring, for example in Tomlinson’s suggestions that ‘teacher-mentors can by the same argument profit from systematic assistance and support from others to develop the capabilities of their new role’ (Tomlinson, 1995: 21–26). As mentioned previously, such comments apply equally to tutors as to mentors, especially perhaps to the new ‘breed’ of tutor frequently appointed straight from a career in school teaching to counter allegations of irrelevance and a lack of understanding of the realities of the classroom directed at teacher education institutions. 214

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Wilson discusses this at length, concluding that ‘it is curious that training for the teacher educator role is not seen as an intrinsic part of the appointment process at any level’ and that ‘the “buck stops”, in short, not so much with the teacher educators, many of whom are struggling to come to terms with the complexities of a short term appointment, as with those who have appointed them and who have the responsibility to create the conditions for effectively doing the job’ (Wilson, 1994: 125). As a classroom practitioner swept into teacher education in 1993, I know from my own personal experience that although the language teacher has many skills which are transferable to language teacher education, there is much to learn. ‘It might be thought self-evident that educating and training teachers is a different job from teaching school age students’ (Wilson, 1994: 125), yet those making the transition are rarely allowed the time and the space to study the differences and to plan for their new role before being thrown in at the deep end. Some higher education tutors like myself have the benefit of a contract which requires them to carry out research as part of their paid duties; this can encourage them to undertake work such as that represented here, though the contractual expectation to publish and to expose oneself to the criticism of experts is not without its own pressures. Our mentor colleagues who take on the role of teacher educator in addition to their prime role as teachers of children are in a much more difficult situation; they have minimal time to study the processes of teacher education, to look for patterns revealing the common misconceptions and difficulties of student teachers or to think through and articulate their own theories and to discuss them with colleagues. Whereas since my appointment I have been able to work intensively with around 180 student language teachers and equivalent numbers of teacher mentors, the language mentors get to know only a few students per year, and it is more difficult for them to generalise from experience. Mentors should still have the right, however, to develop a clear understanding of their goals which can give a sense of purpose to their work and underscore their self-confidence. Although we need to avoid the arrogance of thinking that we know all the answers, or that our own personal theories are simply ‘common sense’ (Smith & Alred, 1994: 107), any practitioner needs a certain degree of self-belief and conviction in order to operate effectively. Such ‘cautious conviction’ is probably even more essential when we are trying to convince adults with deep-seated beliefs of their own that they need to question their own ideas and consider alternatives: Research on overcoming epistemological misconceptions suggests that changing misconceptions is a difficult process. Humans tend to hold tenaciously to their beliefs and, when confronted with challenges, interpret new information in ways that confirm their prior beliefs. Powerful interventions are needed to enable prospective teachers to overcome their naïve optimism and absolutist views of knowledge that lead them to underestimate the difficulties of teaching. (Ashton, 1999: 214) 215

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Powerful interventions, often in the face of severe resistance, need the support of clarity of vision based on informed personal theory. Ashton also reminds us that ‘learning tends to be limited to the context in which it occurs. To transfer learning to other contexts requires the learner to see similarities in different settings’ (1999: 214). Given that many teachers spend the majority of their career either in the same or in basically similar schools, this is another area where support may be needed to enable the mentor to provide an educational experience for the student teacher which transcends the limitations of the specific context. School-based teacher mentors, on whom the quality of future generations of teachers depends (see Furlong & Maynard, 1995: 195), are often volunteered for the job by senior management teams, expected to fulfil the requirements in addition to their already onerous duties, offered perfunctory training, and expected to pursue any further study or training in their own time and even sometimes at their own cost. Schools’ first priority is the teaching of their pupils, and one might easily assume that the moment at which teacher education seems likely to interfere with this schools will start to withdraw their commitment. Those individuals who do take their role seriously enough to want to develop it by further study and dialogue, such as those featured in this volume, deserve our heartfelt gratitude and respect. If we are serious about wanting to raise standards of teaching in our schools, and determined to make partnership work as a way of integrating the theory and practice of teaching and learning how to teach, we need to create the conditions necessary for it to succeed: ‘if teacher education of the highest quality is to be provided it must be properly resourced and it must be delivered by professional staff who understand and enthusiastically accept their particular role’ (Menter & Whitehead, 1995: 47). This would entail an entitlement for every teacher mentor to time and to learning opportunities, linked with an obligation to learn about and implement not only the latest ideas in language teaching but also in language teacher education. In an ideal world, the mentor’s entitlement would be to the time, space and qualified support to enable them to: • consider and articulate their own existing personal theories about language teaching and about language teacher education; • access and discuss research into language teaching and language teacher education in order to develop those personal theories; • carry out the above before being ‘thrown in at the deep end’ with student teachers; • parallel the education of their student language teachers with a supported practicum in mentoring during their early experiences; • receive acknowledgement and reward for their commitment to such work. In an ideal world, where would this qualified support come from? During the early years of partnership Frost wrote: ‘I believe that it is essential for mentors to be engaged in accredited action research at Masters’ level. This is essential partly because of the need to counter the natural subjectivity and narrowness of perspective 216

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arising from the specific institutional context and also because of the complexity of the professional task facing mentors’ (Frost, 1994: 142). Such study would allow mentors to ‘revisit for themselves the fundamental questions about the nature of the learning process, the nature of knowledge and the nature of learners both young and old’. Fish also points out that ‘it is already possible to argue that what is required to prepare mentors for their work is education rather than training’ (Fish, 1995b: 30). A clear vision of aims and processes would help the mentor resist the persistent but often inappropriate demands of student teachers; Tomlinson points out that the best basis for resisting is firm understanding (Tomlinson, 1995: 74). In both developing and mature partnerships, the relationships between schools and higher education institutions are becoming closer and mutual trust is growing; the existence of several postgraduate courses in mentoring attests to the number of university-based teacher educators interested in pursuing such work. However, such courses seem to struggle for existence, and are often in competition with ostensibly more practical, ‘quick-fix’ courses run by other agencies claiming to equip mentors with the skills and activities necessary to perform their role. A mentor dependent on such a ‘survival kit’ is in a similar position to the learner teacher with access only to ‘trial and error’ learning, and in danger of developing an inflexible repertoire (see Vonk, 1996: 127). In addition the lack of sufficient time for mentoring can also lead to a superficial approach: ‘in the regular weekly sessions, especially if these are done after or before school, the amount of time allocated may well allow only for immediate and pressing considerations to be addressed’ (Dann, 1995: 68). Mentors, and their protégés, deserve better than this.

Who Carries the Responsibility for the Education of Teacher Educators? We might conclude, then, that the onus of responsibility lies after all with the HEIs. Whiting et al. called for teacher education policy to ‘foster both sides of the partnership’ (1996: 72), but it is doubtful if this balance has been achieved. University-based tutors are expected to train and support mentors, are called in to trouble-shoot when problems arise, have to take responsibility for ‘poor’ students and ‘poor’ mentors, and are held responsible for the overall quality of mentoring. Yet these aspects of the job are not funded. Tutors, like mentors, fulfil their responsibilities to the individuals concerned on the basis of goodwill. As increasing proportions of funding for ITE are devolved to schools, university tutors are placed under mounting pressure to ‘earn their living’ by giving fuller attention to other aspects of their contractual duties. It is difficult for school-based mentors and student teachers to recognise and remember that for example in pre-1992 universities the normal academic staff contract requires the incumbent to engage in research and administration as well as teaching and tutorial support; that the tutor’s contract therefore requires 40% of their time to be spent on research and that the products of that time are subjected to quantitative and qualitative examination; 217

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that in many institutions, both pre- and post-1992, initial teacher education work is often only a proportion of the tutor’s actual teaching load. It is easy to forget that time spent on additional, unscheduled visits to schools, on dealing with distraught and/or failing students and mentors, and often on mentor training, is unpaid overtime which the tutor gives willingly, yet mostly without recognition. The complexity of the university tutor’s work is equally as underestimated and under-resourced as that of the mentor’s. In addition, the limited take-up by mentors of opportunities to pursue developmental work leading to accreditation means that funding available for such courses is negligible if at all existent; tutors involved in such courses face the dilemma of asking participants or their schools to pay, in which case there will be even fewer students, or negotiating an offer of free places for partner schools, in which case it is difficult to argue for the courses to be taken into account when discussing workload. In these days of financial constraints, any course which does not carry external funding is likely to be regarded by managers with suspicion and ultimately as a waste of the professional’s paid or personal time.

I Have a Dream . . . So what is the way forward? Many of the mentors from various subjects who follow our postgraduate course in mentoring, say that every mentor should be required to do so. It is certainly an ideal solution, not simply to improve the quality and consistency of mentoring for our student teachers, but also to empower the mentors themselves. In an ideal world, all prospective mentors should be required to undertake study of the mentor role as well as to engage in subject-specific work to give them the confidence to reveal to student teachers the rationales behind their own choices in action and to discuss their personal theories openly with other professionals, be they in other schools or in HEIs. The courses offered should involve the same cyclical integration of practice and theory as recommended for ITE. Those who were not interested in pursuing such investigations or who failed to learn from them would not receive the necessary qualifications to allow them to act as mentors. Of course, in order for this to happen, schools would have to be required to take their involvement in teacher education and the appointment of mentors seriously; mentoring would become a recognised new profession with promotion implications; and well-qualified mentors would attract extra funding for the school to allow it to carry out its teacher education role properly. Not least, mentors would be given the time to carry out their role professionally without being distracted by other pressures. Equally, the role of higher education tutors in working with mentors would be properly recognised and funded, with appropriately qualified professionals given responsibility for supporting this role as well as for providing high quality education rather than training for mentors themselves.

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. . . But We Must Live with Reality It is sad to think that these conditions will never exist. The current situation is widely acknowledged as being far from achieving this ideal. Student teachers, often supported by their teacher mentors and other school staff, frequently resist ‘theory’; mentors have too little time, are undervalued, and are often provided with only the bare minimum of support; tutors are often dismissed by practitioners as irrelevant, and due to the financial situation in HEIs as well as government directives are under mounting pressure to leave mentors to ‘get on with it’. It is an unfair world. It is also a dangerous world for teacher education; Dann warns that ‘if primary school teachers seek to take on the mentoring task without appropriate support and allocated time then the initiative, instead of enriching and enhancing the profession, may be hindering it’ (Dann, 95: 71). Her caution is echoed in much of the writing concerning secondary teacher education.

Taking Our Own Advice and Celebrating Achievement Given the difficult constraints under which we work, amplified by frequent lashes of the whip from central government and popular complaints from an often illinformed public, is it not amazing that between us we are managing to achieve the quality of language teacher education that we do? Should we not congratulate ourselves, tutors, mentors and student teachers alike, for continuing to fight for what we think is right, for the personal sacrifices which we all make in order to aim for real quality of real learning? Just imagine what we could achieve with proper recognition and funding. There is a way of improving language teaching in our schools today: by supporting the goodwill that currently still exists; by acknowledging the magnificent work being carried out by so many at great cost to themselves and against mounting pressures on them to abandon their professionalism. Without a doubt it is time that good educational principles were applied not just to pupil learners but to teachers and teacher educators: it is time we began to praise what is good; encourage and motivate participants; give public recognition for the high quality of work being done despite the complexity and difficulty of teaching and of teacher education. We will never know all the answers or be able to solve all the problems and we must never become complacent, but by encouraging in ourselves the attitude of life-long learner which we expect of our pupils we can continue to contribute to the improvement of their world and ours.

On to the Next Challenge Writing this book has been a breathless and concentrated effort to say everything that I have always wanted to say about language teacher education and to acknowledge everything that I have learnt and everyone who has taught me. I have failed miserably. There is so much more to be said, so much more to be read, 219

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so much more evidence to be analyzed. But I have run out of words, and the editor and publisher and you, the reader, have probably run out of patience; so I would like to end with the words of Della Fish: ‘There is always more to do and more to learn. Quality in education is not achieved by decree but by the endless pursuit of greater understanding and better practice’. (Fish, 1995b: 200)

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Index 172, 177, 180, 184-5, 189, 190, 194, 195, 201-2, 209, 213, 215-6 Benefits for staff from working with student teachers 77, 79, 81, 95, 97, 100, 116, 120, 142, 152, 157, 173, 175 Berrill, M. 31 Blake, D. 17, 28, 29 Bleach, K. 1 Brooks, V. 16, 20, 22, 24, 30, 36, 53, 55, 58, 63, 64, 214 Brown, K. 29, 32, 33, 56, 57 Brown, S. 15, 30, 80 Burden, R. 13, 32, 33, 44, 45, 48, 58, 64-5, 163, 209, 213 Burn, K. 100

Abbott, I. 97 Accessing mentor/teacher knowledge (see also Theories, articulation of) 43, 45, 46, 49, 51, 52, 53, 58-9, 63, 77, 80, 81, 110, 112, 114, 117, 123, 136, 144, 164-5, 173, 183, 187, 190-1, 193-4, 198 Adams, A., 42 Alred, G. 215 Ambrose, P. 11, Anning, A. et al. 81 Apprenticeship model of learning to teach 17, 41, 80, 198, 200, 201, 202, 213 Arthur, J. 1, 57 Ashton, P. 13, 44, 215-216 Assessment — of pupils’ work 27, 28, 61, 92, 101, 103, 107, 111, 118, 125, 134, 135, 168, 186, 189, 194, 195, 196, 198, 200 — of student teachers 17, 28, 56, 61, 63, 73, 81-2, 90-2, 97, 99, 101, 102, 104, 107, 126-7, 199 Australia 12, 53 Autonomy, see also Individuality 17, 26, 52, 63, 64, 80, 122, 127-8, 135-6, 143, 150-1, 158, 161, 169, 181, 187, 195 Balancing support and challenge 47, 75-6, 78, 80, 82, 88, 112, 138-152, 157 161, 201, 203 Barber, M. 11 Bassey, M. 16, 59, 155 Beliefs, see also Personal theories — influence of 13, 15, 16, 32, 38, 45, 48, 42, 213 — need for strong self-belief 32, 33, 44, 97, 146, 150-1, 199, 215 — need to find out about student teachers’ beliefs 52-3, 57, 61, 64, 80, 88, 124, 195, 203, 214-5 — resistance of belief systems 43, 53, 60, 73, 76, 99, 139, 144, 149, 150, 152, 159, 167,

Calderhead, J. 1, 11, 12, 16, 17, 29, 30, 41, 56, 57, 63, 75, 125 Calvert, M. 1, 22 Capel, S. 41 Carney, S. 118 Cause and effect 87, 104, 114, 126, 142, 172, 178, 186, 192, 193, 197, 214 Challenge, see also Balancing support and challenge and Personal Theories 51-3, 55-6, 59-60, 63-5, 72, 75-6, 89, 151, 192, 197, 209 — challenge for pupils 132, 133, 135, 144, 159, 160, 177, 181 — difficulty of challenging the able student 81, 93, 114 — resistance to challenge, see also Belief systems 22, 76 — students’ need for increasing challenge, see also Moving students on 51, 56, 57, 64, 72, 75-6, 78, 89, 92, 95, 96, 107, 110, 113-115, 163, 171, 182, 184, 185 — teachers feeling uncomfortable with challenging students 80, 82, 106, 107, 109, 112, 115 Classroom management

229

Index

230 — focus on 74, 82, 84, 86, 88-9, 91, 123, 126, 129, 160, 162, 193, 207 — link with methodology 74, 132-3, 135, 144, 150, 159, 162, 171, 175, 192, 197 — preoccupation with 64, 76 127, 128, 138-152, 162, 163, 171-3, 178, 182, 188-90, 192, 200-2 — rigid concepts of 76, 124, 180 Clemson, D. 5, 13, 15 Coffin, D. 12 Cognitive apprenticeship model 31 Collaborative work — between mentors and student teachers 56, 72, 73, 77, 98, 102, 122-137, 202 — between mentors and tutors 20, 48, 151 Collison, J. 201 Common European Framework 28 Common sense 52, 56-7, 62, 63, 144, 215 Communicative language teaching 28, 29, 33, 38, 48, 73, 159 Comparisons between language learning and learning to teach 36, 42, 46-8, 49, 53, 55, 57, 60-3, 213 Competences/Competencies 17, 28, 29, 73, 74, 75, 77, 99 Consistency, need for, see also Department 23, 97-121 Constable, H. 14 Constructivist views of learning and teaching 32, 58 Context — context-bound nature of teaching/learning/mentoring 3, 16, 22, 25, 30, 36, 47, 59, 61, 63, 64, 84, 95, 122, 168, 184, 216 — for the research and project work 16-25 Contrast with previous modes of learning to teach 104, 117 Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE) 17, 19 Council of Europe 28 Counselling 36, 56-7, 63, 97, 100, 152, 207 Coyle, D. 28 Culture of schools 21, 42, 45, 47, 62-3, 202 Daloz, L. 75, 151, 185 Dann, R. 57, 217, 219 Darling-Hammond, L. 12, 13-14, 31, 50, 58 Day, C. 77

Index Department — consistency within 96, 97-121, 169 — members, roles and approaches 6, 64, 71, 72, 94, 97-121, 136-8, 142-146, 157, 163, 164, 170, 172, 182, 186, 196, 197, 199, 200 — training needs 105, 112, 115-8, 120, 136, 197 Department for Education (DfE) 17 Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) 19, 21, 27, 28, 29, 30, 48, 124, 131, 197 Department of Education and Science (DES) 34 Dialogue, see also Talk 24, 43, 44, 45, 50, 53, 57, 64, 65 Differentiation 104, 107, 110, 111, 115, 116, 118, 123, 124, 128, 129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 143, 159, 160, 174, 175, 176, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 187, 189, 190, 197, 202, 203, 204 Distancing from personal practice, see also Subjectivity 122, 126, 129, 135, 136, 137, 165, 216 Dobson, A. 29 Ducharme, 5, 46 Education as a political instrument 11-12 Education or training, see Training or education Edwards, A. 201 Effective teaching 26, 27, 29, 30-4, 39, 44, 64-5, 76, 80, 98, 123, 126, 130-7, 191, 192 Elliot, R. 76 Employment-based routes into teaching 14, 18, 28 European teacher education 11, 12, 28, 42 Evans, T. 23, 44, 79 Expectations placed on new teachers 34-6 External input, the need for 14, 15, 23-4, 44, 46, 50, 52, 53, 58, 60, 63, 76, 77, 105, 117, 122, 132, 162-6, 171, 173, 182, 193-4, 209, 214-5 Failing teacher 36-8, 60, 82, 89, 99, 138-152, 218 Feedback 23, 56, 73, 74, 77, 79-96, 97-121, 126 — verbal 82, 107, 144, 195

Index — written 81-2, 82-8, 100, 102, 104, 106-113, 170, 205-6, 209 Field, K. 32 Fish, D. 1, 5, 14-15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 28, 29, 31, 39, 41, 42, 45, 58, 59, 80-1, 82, 95, 99, 100, 104, 123-4, 125, 156, 217, 220 Fletcher, S. 1, 18, 22 Freeman, D. 1 Frost, D. 216-7 Fry, H. et al. 41 Furlong, J. 1, 5, 15, 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, 30, 41, 45, 46, 50, 58, 63, 72-7, 98-9, 131, 164, 184, 216 Galton, M. 11, 14 Gardner, H. 199 Glover, D. 17, 21, 79 Golby, M. 156 Gold, Y. 214 Goodlad, J. 11, 14 Gore, J. 133 Gough, G. 79 Government intervention into teaching and teacher education in England 17-20 Grammar 29, 35, 46, 47, 48, 51, 52, 55, 59, 75, 107, 112, 130, 132, 134, 143, 148, 166, 167, 179, 195, 196, 197, 206 Grauberg, W. 30 Green, S. 12, 13 Greenfield, S. 41 Grenfell, M. 1, 13, 17, 29, 32, 33, 38, 41, 44, 47, 48, 52 Grimmett, P. 12-13 Guidelines for staff working with student teachers 101-3, 118 Guillaume, A. 41, 53, 75, 200 Hagger, H. 1, 31, 100, 114, 117, 118 Harris, A. 27, 30, 32, 33, 34, 47, 57 Hayward, G. 209 Husbands, C. 17, 19-20, 21, 49-51, 55-6 Hustler, D. 28 Hood, P. 19 Individuality/idiosyncrasy, see also Autonomy, Context and Uniqueness of schools 6, 23, 24, 27, 30, 31, 32, 41, 44, 57, 58, 61, 72, 79, 96, 143, 151, 169, 183, 184, 192, 201, 203

231 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) 19, 35, 37, 77, 109, 112, 178, 181, 182 Intellectual dimension of becoming a teacher, see also Thinking skills 51, 14, 24, 28, 31, 38, 41, 56 Interpersonal aspects of mentoring 36, 56, 60, 64, 76, 80-1, 82, 124, 135, 136, 140, 151, 175, 186 Interpersonal aspects of teaching 29-30, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 85, 86, 87, 111, 116, 129, 159, 162, 169, 179, 188, 190, 197, 199 Intuition and intuitive knowledge, see also Common sense 14, 28, 31, 34, 36, 44, 55, 59, 123, 214 Jennings, S. 18, 31 Kelly, M. 80, 100, 116 Kirkham, D. 42, 53, 58 Lambert, D. 24 Language learning, comparison with teacher education, see Comparison Language, professional use of 5, 18, 186 Languages other than French 21, 179 Learning environment 22, 23, 24, 33, 72-3, 80, 125, 134, 165, 175, 184, 185, 200 Limitations of mentoring 95, 138-152, 175 Lodge, A. 33 Mardle, G. 17, 21, 55 Marr, A. 4, 156 Martin, S. 47, 76, 151, 185 Mawer, M. 17 Maynard, T. 1, 17, 29, 30, 41, 46, 50, 58, 63, 72-7, 98-9, 131, 164, 184, 216 McBride, R. 20 McIntyre, D. 17, 28, 31, 80, 81, 100, 114, 117, 118 McNamara, D. 11, 122 Mendeval Project 1, 5, 28 Menter, I. 11, 17, 24, 216 Mentor as teacher educator 55-6, 118 Mentor/student meetings 4, 51, 56, 71-8, 82, 88-93, 125, 136, 155-203 Mentoring strategies 161-2, 170, 181-2, 194, 195, 196-9, 207-8

232 Mentor style, analysis of 163-4, 172-3, 183-4, 202 Mentor tasks 56, 64, 217 Mentoring programme 56, 61-2, 73, 97, 101, 104, 105, 183, 200, 201 Mercer, D. 97 Miles, S. 74-7 Mitchell, R. 18, 29, 32 Moon, B. 11, 14 Morris, E. 213 Moving students on, see also Challenge 76, 99, 107, 109, 187, 196, 198 Murdoch, E. 20 Murray, F. 14, 58, 214 Naïve/natural teacher/teacher educator 31, 43, 58, 62, 163, 165, 172, 199, 214, 215 National Curriculum 18, 19, 28, 29, 30, 48, 101, 103, 124, 131, 168, 190, 192, 197, 213 Netherlands 12, 27 Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) 19, 34-6, 74, 78, 138, 139, 184, 199 Northern Ireland 5 Norton, J. 14 Nunan, D. 1, 41 Observation 56, 71, 72, 74, 76, 82-8, 89, 97-121, 123, 124, 126-8, 132-3, 142, 143, 149, 165, 198 — focused observation 73, 77, 84-8, 97, 98, 100, 106, 107, 168, 180, 200 — observation cycle 74-5, 93, 102 — observation notes 82, 115, 136, 205-6, — observation sheets 118, 119, 126, 127, 128, 132-3, 136 — students needing more observation 95, 170, 183 Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) 2, 7, 15, 18, 20, 34, 37, 74 Pachler, N. 32 Partner schools 2, 21, 24, 49, 52, 71, 218 Partnership 2, 5, 6, 7, 17-18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 34, 43, 50, 56, 71, 79, 101-4, 120, 131, 150, 166, 183, 200, 202, 216, 217 Partnership supervision 77, 97 Pedagogy, see also Professional knowledge base 29, 32, 33, 38, 49, 56-8, 64, 81, 129, 155, 164, 201, 214

Index Performer, the student teacher as 6, 38, 47, 48, 49, 63, 80, 125, 170, 173, 196, 198, 199, 213 Personal practice 122, 126, 165, 216 Personal theories 2, 29, 32, 33, 38, 43, 44-5, 51, 53, 55, 59, 64, 74, 75, 79-81, 85, 88, 124, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133-5, 139-52, 155, 157-60, 163, 166, 166-9, 172, 177-80, 191, 193, 190-4, 214-6, 218 — encouragement for student teachers’ development of 51, 160-1, 163, 169-70, 180-1, 194-6, 184, 206, 209 — of mentoring 56, 186-90, 157-60, 166, 175-6 Pimm, D. 5, 17, 18 Plateau 72, 75, 92, 93, 98, 99, 107, 170, 171-3 Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) 2, 5, 7, 17, 23, 49, 93, 94, 151, 155, 186, 199 Postgraduate Certificate in Mentoring (PCM) 2, 3, 6, 57, 69, 79, 80, 122, 217, 218 Power struggles between schools and higher education institutions 15, 17, 22, 43, 50 Practical wisdom 30, 39, 42, 57 Practice, student teachers’ need for 45-6, 209 Practitioner’s fallacy 44, 45, 59, 63, 117, 164, 165, 201 Pring, R. 20, 28, 31, 213 Professional artistry model of teaching 41 Professional judgement 31, 32, 36, 39, 42, 46-7, 57, 81, 104, 159, 175, 178, 184 Professional knowledge base, see also Pedagogy 33, 44, 50, 53, 55, 56-7, 107, 112, 117, 160-2, 164, 192, 214 Professional language of teachers and teaching 62, 208 Professional status of teaching 14-15 Professionalism 4, 5, 15, 22, 24, 28, 31, 34, 41, 42, 45, 50, 63, 74, 75, 76, 77, 116, 138-52, 162, 169, 184, 186, 187, 195, 197, 198, 201, 202, 214, 219 Pupil learning 38, 52, 76, 78, 98, 99, 116, 122-37, 138, 142, 163, 168, 173, 177, 186, 191, 192, 196, 206-7 Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) 29, 30, 48, 124, 131

Index Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales (ACCAC) 29 Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) 19, 53 Quality control 21, 28, 151, 217, 218 Questioning techniques 49, 57, 61, 62, 73, 74-5, 76, 107, 114, 119, 120, 127, 132, 135, 160, 164, 173, 180, 181, 188-90, 191, 192, 194, 204-5, 206, 207, 209 Record-keeping 88-9, 92, 147, 149, 150, 151 Reflection and reflective practice 3, 15, 31, 56, 59, 77, 81, 97, 98, 99, 104, 107, 109, 115, 120, 126, 127, 136, 144, 160, 164, 169, 170, 171, 175, 177, 183, 186, 194, 206, 209, 214 Regression 14, 139, 147, 167, 171, 173 Rehearsal or preparation? 174. Reiman, A. 185 Research — as a contribution to learning to teach and to mentoring 44, 50, 52, 77, 95, 133, 192, 193, 214, 215, 216, — into effective teaching 30-4, 44, 195 — into language acquisition 59, 193 — into learning to teach 41-2, 74-5 Responsibilities, see also Roles — of the mentee 69-70, 77, 81, 127, 138-52 — of the mentor 16, 24, 47, 53, 56, 76, 80, 114, 117, 118, 122, 138-52, 155, 186-7 — of departmental staff 97-121 — of the Partner School 21, 22, 103, 155 — of the tutor 23, 24, 122, 217 Richards, J. 1, 41 Roberts, J. 1, 32, 41, 57 Roles and role models, see also Responsibilities 4, 15, 20, 22, 23-4, 48, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 62-3, 64, 80, 125, 139, 142, 150, 151, 187, 203, 207 Roth, A. 1, 5, 12, 18, 31, 44 Rudney, G. 41, 53, 75, 200 Schön, D. 41 School-based teacher education 2, 5, 12, 13-16, 18, 19, 53, 56, 116-7, 216 School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) 13, 18, 21, 55, 150 Scotland 5, 15, 19, 30 Selection of schools as partners 21

233 Selinger, M. 5, 17.18 Shared understandings, see also Professional knowledge base 20, 24, 44, 51, 62, 64, 187, 197 Shaw, R. 97, 98, 117 Shenton, P. 20 Shorrock, S. 1, 11, 12, 16, 17, 29, 30, 41, 56, 57, 63 Shulman, L. 41 Sidgwick, S. 11, 34 Sikes, P. 16, 20, 22, 24, 30, 36, 53, 55, 58, 63, 64, 214 Smith, R. 1, 5, 15, 17, 19, 214, 215 Soares, A. 4, 155, 156 Stages of student teacher development 41, 51, 55, 57, 61-2, 63, 72-8, 98-9, 106, 112, 114, 117, 118, 127, 136, 155, 193, 210 Standards — Government attempts to improve standards in English schools 17-20 — Standards for the Award of Qualified Teacher Status 12, 19, 27, 28, 34, 37, 71, 73, 75, 104, 120, 186, 196, 198 Stephens, P. 1 Stephenson, J. 22 Stern, J. 38, 63 Stone, V. 13, 20, 23, 24 Stress 81, 143, 144, 146, 152, 171, 201 Student teachers’ responses to mentoring experiences 93-6, 100, 113-5, 155, 162-3, 170-2, 182-3, 191, 199-201, 208-9 Subjectivity 84, 122, 124, 125, 126, 135, 216 Support, see Balance with challenge Support for mentors 2, 21, 22, 21, 48, 55, 78, 150, 151, 164, 173, 214, 216, 217, 219 Sykes, G. 43 Tait, E. 164 Taking skills or understanding for granted, see also Common sense 34, 56, 80, 144, 164, 165, 190, 193, 194, 195 Talk, importance of for learning , see also Dialogue 32, 33, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57-8, 59, 71, 80, 81, 104-5, 107, 115, 116, 136, 155, 160, 163, 171, 172, 175, 182, 186, 192, 194, 208 Tannehill, D. 12 Target language 29, 35, 39, 73, 74, 82, 83, 85, 87, 101, 102-3, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110,

234 111, 112, 113, 127, 129, 132, 157-8, 159, 162, 168, 176, 190 Target-setting 56, 60, 71, 88, 89, 92, 98, 100, 101, 102, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 115, 117, 127, 128, 129, 135, 141, 163, 175, 180, 187, 207 Taylor, M. 22 Teacher education system in England 17 Teacher Training Agency (TTA) 18-19, 20, 74 Terminology of teacher education 4-6 Theory — articulation of, see also Accessing mentor knowledge and Personal theories 43, 46, 59, 77, 81, 104, 112, 117, 155, 164, 173, 183, 186, 187, 189, 190, 194, 208, 215, 216, 218 — negative attitudes towards 33, 42, 43, 50, 51, 59, 200, 201, 219 — relationship between theory and practice 13, 15, 16, 18, 23, 37, 38, 42-6, 50, 51-3, 59, 104, 163, 164, 177, 178, 192, 193, 216, 218 — staff wanting more theory about mentoring 116, 118 Thinking skills — encouragement for the development of 30, 52, 58, 60, 99, 135, 171, 173, 180-1, 183, 194, 195, 197, 206, 207, 208, 209 — importance of 33, 34, 38, 39, 42, 44, 52, 58, 60, 63, 164, 165, 184, 194, 201, 202, 205-6, 213 — quality of 31, 34, 36, 177, 201 Thorogood, J. 1, 13, 20 Tinning, R. 12 Tomlinson, P. 1, 28, 30, 31, 41, 42, 43, 56, 58, 59, 80, 81, 123, 136, 213, 217 Totterdell, M. 24

Index Towell, R. 16, 21 Training or education 5, 7, 17, 217, 218 Tulasiewicz, W. 42 Tutor, university 2, 6, 15, 22, 23, 27-8, 36, 37, 48, 49, 89, 90, 91, 92, 104, 151, 156, 170, 183, 198, 202, 204-210, 214, 217, 218, 219 Uniqueness of schools and classroom situations, see also Individuality and Context 20, 36, 46, 122, 168 University of Birmingham 2, 4, 20, 27, 30, 34, 41, 71, 155 University of Birmingham PGCE Partnership 6, 7, 23, 24, 69, 72 USA 12, 13-14, 18, 23-24, 27, 28 Video recordings 77, 81, 82, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128-32, 135, 136 Vision, need for 38, 45, 75, 142, 149, 164, 165, 216, 217 Vonk, J. 53, 164, 209, 214, 217 Wales 5, 28, 29, 37, 42 Wallace, M. 1, 15, 214 Watson, A. 57 Welsh Assembly 19, 29 Whitehead, J. 11, 17, 24, 216 Whiting, C. 20, 21, 24, 217 Whitty, G. 20 Wideen, M. 12 Wilkin, M. 17, 22, 50, 74, 75, 76, 77 Williams, A. 4, 17, 155, 156 Williams, M. 13, 32, 33, 44, 45, 48, 58, 64-5, 163, 209, 213 Wilson, J. 215 Woolnough, B. 42, 58