The Language Teacher
01 - 2000

Enhancing Teacher Development:
What Administrators Can Do

Tim Murphey

Nanzan University

Kazuyoshi Sato

The University of Queensland

In this article, we presuppose that administrators, teachers, and learners have several things in common: they are all learners, they don't ever completely know how to go about their jobs, and they can learn from each other. While they are similar in these respects, we also find it useful to realize the extent of their responsibility and the power they have to create learning opportunities for each other. While it is generally agreed that learners (at all levels) have to do most of the work when learning, there are certain structures (top-down) and certain ways of organizing education that will help or hold back these endeavors. That is the bet of education. Unfortunately, we sometimes lose this bet, and people find they learn and grow more easily outside of school than in.

Teacher development (td) is greatly influenced by the organizational decisions administrators routinely make, which in turn determines how much students will learn. Recent research suggests that the administrator's part in td is crucial, as it helps to construct the social, political, emotional, and intellec-tual working environment for teachers. What teachers do within these contexts, however, largely depends upon their iniffatives to take action and use the opportunities offered to them. While neither party alone can completely make or break the efforts of the other, they can make great strides when they work together.

(In a sense, of course, all teachers are administrators to some degree. In our own small ways, whether it be directing a school, a teacher education program, a small group of teachers, our own classes or simply contributing our voice in a faculty meeting, we administer.)

We learn continually to administer and manage from role models around us. Moreover, we too,are role models for others, and what we do may impact generations. Thus td is administrator development as well. Or put another way, we can't do one without the other: like a car pool, one person may be driving at a particular time, but all have to communicate to reach their respective goals.

With reference to the new kinds of leaming that are informing the field, Lieberman (1995) summarizes the limitations of traditional approaches to teacher development which shape administrative decisions.

She lists the following concerns:

These concems highlight a need for a paradigm shift in education. We do not anticipate agreement on all these points; however, discussion alone will go a long way toward clarifying goals and encouraging flexibility and, hopefully, collaboration. We believe administrators can have an especially beneficial impact upon teacher development when they (a) update theories and metaphors of learning, (b) clarify and verbalize mission, vision and beliefs, (c) act coherently with flexibility and respect, (d) encourage a community of learners, and (5) create structures that allow excellence to emerge and highlight the excellence.

Update theories/metaphors of learning: switching from transmission to construction

Recently, Freeman and Johnson (1998) argue for a reconstruction of the knowledge base of teacher education, accounting for the teacher as learner, for the social context, and for the activities of both teaching and learning. This is in stark contrast to the old transmission metaphor in which university theorists do research, create theory, and then tell teachers how learning happens and how teaching should be done (and in which teachers simply Utell" information to students and test their learning). Instead, those at the forefront of educational change advocate a constructivist paradigm (Barfield, 1995) in which teachers are seen as constructing their own knowledge of teaching through their own "apprenticeship of observation" (Lortie,1975). Their apprenticeship consists of their past experiences as students observing their teachers and their own experiences teaching.

In this new metaphor, speakers do not simply transmit information from their brains to ours; rather we perceive the information in our own way and construct our own understanding of it using our past experiences. In fact, the more ways that we can experience this information the better we are able to construct a robust representation of it in our own minds, using our past knowledge (cf. schema theory, multiple intelligences, modalities of learning).

So for example, in drivers' education students may read materials and listen to lectures, but they also might see videos, drive in simulators, and then drive in safe zones before venturing out on the highway with a teacher. Learning gradually and through many different modalities obviously enriches and speeds up the learning much more than uni-dimensional "telling about" could ever hope to. Most school learning can afford to be inefficient because failing to learn there is not immediately life-threatening (as in driving), it is merely life-stagnating.

The most robust representation that teachers have of teaching is usually what happens in their own classes and in their own contexts, mainly because they are the ones who are acting multi-modally (speaking, writing, moving, acting, planning, etc.). Theory and methods that do not take teachers own experiences of teaching into consideration have little chance of changing what they are doing.

When administrators realize that teachers don't learn to implement new information simply by being told (transmission), the need for a period of exploration and experimentation in the teachers' own classrooms becomes apparent. In discussing innovations and curriculum changes, administrators may also become aware of constraints and capacities in the specific contexts that allow or inhibit change (Sato, 1996).

Switching metaphors for education entrains several other ideas which when adopted together can lead to a more coherent shift in educational culture:

Teachers are life-long learners. Teaching is not simply learned and then done. We can, and need to continually, adapt to new classes and students, new times, and our own personal and professional developmental time-lines. This continual fine-tuning nudges us to strive for better and to keep our teaching exciting.

It is OK not to know it all. Nobody does. We aren't perfect. We never will be. Accept it. Get into the habit of adjusting and cultivating flexibility and collaborating with others.

Involve students in a search for better ways to learn and enhance their learning and our learning at the same time. Allowing students to collaborate in the effort to better educate them provides teachers and administrators with valuable information and learning which can greatly enrich the learning-lives of all. It develops student autonomy and collaborative desire. Education too often follows the "one size fits all" myth. Like some irresponsible doctors who don't examine clients, some educators simply prescribe the same treatment for everybody without a concern for past history, present beliefs and practices, and follow-up reports. Developing a community-of-learners perspective (see below) places learning at the center of the social interaction for everyone.

Clarify mission, vision, and belies

When administrators verbalize a mission of on-going "exploratory teaching" (Allwright, 1991) and action research in order to adapt to changing situations, teachers feel supported and dare to experiment and find improved ways to add to their repertoires. Stanovich and Jordon (1998) found that of all the variables they looked at, a school principal's expressed beliefs in certain classroom procedures was the greatest determinate of teachers' classroom behaviors. Teachers might espouse certain currently popular beliefs, such as communicative language teaching, but their performance more often than not followed the expressed beliefs of their principal.-Sato and Murphey (1998) also found that teachers espoused beliefs were not only in conflict with institutional beliefs, but that teacher behavior more often than not followed the latter.

While we strongly believe in bottom-up initiated teacher change, we also realize that without top-down changes in coherently expressed missions, visions, and beliefs, many teachers are unlikely to seriously embrace change on their own.

Act coherently with flexibility and respect.

Clarke et. al. (1998) showed how three teachers with very different methodologies could still create excellent learning environments in which students made extraordinary progress. What these three teachers had in common was typified as "coherence." They were consistent, organized and showed respect for their students. Their respect and belief in their students was transparent. Because they established certain consistent rules and routines in their classes, students and teachers felt freer to experiment and be flexible when it served their purpose.

Kleinsasser and Savignon (1992) describe two distinct types of cultures of teachers in their research. One was "routine/uncertain cultures," where teachers were uncertain about their instructional practice and thus engaged rigidly in routines. They had few conversations about instruction, and relied on traditional approaches. The other was "non-routine/certain cultures," where teachers were confident about their instruction, and their daily practices were not predictable. Teachers collaborated across departments and incorporated more communicative activities. In short, these two groups revealed the strong relationship between school contexts and teachers' practices.

Both these strands of research emphasize the importance of secure environments for exploration, in which learners and teachers are not simply implementing a method or routine, but rather using their security to dare to explore with flexibility, to establish extraordinary learning cultures.

Idealistically, whatever administrators can do to help construct a coherent, consistent framework which teachers can count on for support, without overly constraining them, will help teachers feel secure enough to experiment and use the flexibility necessary for the improvement of teaching. Perhaps one of the most important contributing elements is the development of rapport and respect between people engaged in communities of learners.

Encourage the construction of communities of learners

Rogoff (1994) clearly outlines the problems with models of purely adult-run or children-run learning situations and proposes a middle road in which all can collaborate in a community of learners. Using Lave and Wenger's (1991) concept of legitimate peripheral participation, in which new participants gradually move into widening fields of participation, Rogoff describes several contexts in which

Learning involves the whole program in a continual process of renewal and change within continuity, as new generations come to play the roles of newcomers and old-timers in the community. . . one is never 'done' learning." (p. 220).

Far from being either authoritarian dictators or permissive teachers lacking structure, teachers within communities of learners provide structure and flexibility and allow themselves the space to learn. Rogoff's key points could very well be applied to administrators and teachers as well as adults and children:

Kleinsasser and Savignon's (1992) research showed hat there were indeed communities of teachers who were able to work together securely with flexibility. Rogoff's work contributes more to a fuller description of the characteristics of such communities and provides points of departure for administrators as they replace a desire to control results with a desire to collaborate with teachers and learners and improve education together.

Create structures that allow excellence to emerge and then highlight the excellence

Within classrooms, Murphey and Woo (1998) found that when they provided ways for students to contribute more to the program, the students invested more of themselves in learning. Like employees who have stock in their employing company, students invest more in doing a good job because they understand that their actions do have an impact on the direction of the whole group. When teachers also feel they can contribute to administrative decision making, they also feel more part of a community and want to contribute even more.

Finding ways to highlight the different voices also seems crucial to developing the feeling that one is not "subject to" the administrative discourse but rather "subject of" and a shaper of this discourse (Peirce, 1995). Small-group discussions, reports, newsletters, and open email discussion lists are just a few of the ways that this can be done. With more voices and ideas available, our choices expand, and we have more flexibility in the directions we take. It is obviously crucial to acknowledge the source of these ideas and to let participants know that they are influencing administrative directions and their peers. Access forums for the elaboration and celebration of new ideas might also take the form of school mini-conferences and larger publications that publish teachers action research reports and shorter work (Murphey & Sasaki, 1998; Murphey, in press).

Were administrators to consult such a list regularly when forming policy, td might stand a better chance of integrating itself into the routine running of schools.

Conclusion

Obviously we still don't know everything about how we can facilitate the forming of communities of learners, and much research remains to be done. However, we do know such communities exist in a variety of forms and that they are possible. We have indications of some of their ingredients: mutual respect, structures for open communication, permission to explore and fail, security that voices will be taken seriously, the encouragement of experimentation and improvement. The endemic isolation of educators is probably a major cause of burnout not only for many teachers, but for administrators as well. Forming mutually supportive collaborative relationships in the workplace can go a long way to alleviating these problems and exciting professional and personal development. Administrators are well positioned to help create, contribute to and participate in communities of learners when they choose to inform themselves and to enlist collaboration from teachers and students.

Editor's note: Due to budget constraints, this artid e did not appear in its intended venue, the November 1998 special issue on TeacherDevelopment, TLT23, (11). We wish to thank Tim Murphey forgraciously agreeing to the artide's appearing in a later issue.

References

Allwright, R. (1991). Exploratory language teaching a mini-course for Xl ENPULI, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Also available as CRILE Working Paper 9. from Linguistics Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, Englang

Barfield, A. (1995). Educational metaphors of change. Tsukuba: Tsukuba University Publications.

Darling-Hammond, L. & McLaughlin, M. (1995). Policies that support professional development in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan 76, 597-604.

Freeman, D., &Johnson, K. E. (Eds.). (1998). Special-topic issue: Research and practice in English language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 32 (3), 397-622.

Kleinsasser, R., & Savignon, S. (1992). Linguistics, language pedagogy, and teachers' technical cultures. In J. E. Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown University round table on languages and linguistics: Linguists and language pedagogy: The state of the art (pp. 289-301). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning Legitimate peripheral learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lieberman, A. (1995). Practices that support teacher development: Transforming conceptions of professional learning. Phi Delta Kappan 76, 591-596.

Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Murphey, T. (in press) Becoming Contributing Professionals: NNS Teachers in an EFL Environment. In Karen Johnson (Ed.) TESOL case histories: Teacher education, Alexandria,Va.: TESOL.

Murphey, T. & Sasaki, T. (Eds.) (1997). The medium is the message: Japanese teachers of English using English in the classroom. Nagoya: South Mountain Press.

Murphey, T. & Woo, L. (1998). Using student feedback for emerging lesson plans. English Teachers Association of Switzerland newsletter 15 (3), 27-29.

Peirce, B. N. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning TESOL Quarterly 29 (1), 9-32.

Sato, K. (1996). Foreign language teacher education: Teachers' perceptions about communicative language teaching and their practices. Unpublished MA thesis. Centre for Language Teaching and Research, the University of Queensland.

Sato, K. & Murphey K. (1998). Teacher Beliefs and Teacher Development. A presentation at JALT1998, Omiya, Japan.

Rogoff, B. (1994). Developing understanding of the idea of community of learners. Mind, Culture, and Activity, I (4) 209-229.


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