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TEACHING CULTURE AS BEHAVIOUR
I was preparing for a lecture on cross-cultural communication in the old Russian city of Kursk. A couple of minutes before the bell (beginning and end of classes are marked with a bell ringing all over a place be it a school or a University) a student came up to me and said, "Are you going to give us another talk on how exotic British culture is and how stupid we are to make cultural blunders when abroad?"
Luckily, entertaining students with travellers' tales was not my purpose. I was going to deal with culture as a semi-closed system of behaviour that is shared by community and used for self-identification with others as well as for telling one's kin from aliens. Culture was referred to as a "semi-closed" system because while community members are not immune to absorb foreign ways, community as a whole shows a remarkable ability to resist cultural intrusion. The attempt proved to work well with the audience during the lecture. Below are just a few points made.
Culture as behaviour can be viewed from at least five angles: verbal, non-verbal, affective, implicit-explicit and cognitive.
Verbal behaviour or discourse opens up a lot of opportunities for cultural studies. The first discovery one can make is that standard English discourse does not exist at all, being nobody's culture. In order to mark discourse as a cultural possession, a community has to twist it in their own way. Even Shakespeare, being with the people, followed popular grammar rather than academic prescriptions. Interestingly, modern Global English varieties are all geographically marked and serve for cultural self-identification by speakers from Nigeria, Japan, France, Russia etc. A well-known distinction between interactive discourse ("oiling the wheels of communication') and transactive discourse ("having business done") is culturally attributed too, with interactive discourse playing paradoxically a role for business talk in Asian or Mediterranean culture, and transactive discourse ruling over friendly relations in the USA (this is not to say that Americans are incapable of making friends but business first). Incidentally, some research shows that globalisation of English does not mean disappearance of cultural differences in the regions.
Non-verbal behaviour has a lot of trap-holes to start talking about exotic foreigners from all over who either stand too close to each other, or shrug away from business partners to a safe distance of 25 inches, prefer smell of garlic to fresh breath, gesticulate in a strange way and nod "no" to say "yes". However, non-verbal behaviour is very consistent with a semi-closed cultural system owned by a community. Americans make a lot of eye-contact while in Asia avoiding eye contact is a sign of respect and does not have anything to do with lack of integrity. At one end integrity is a value of conversation, while at the other, rules of politeness matter more in a social dialogue. The same rules of politeness make loud voice unwelcome in China as it is associated with expression of anger. Culturally unaware Chinese may not understand why Americans are raising their voice when closing up a telephone talk. At the same time, Americans associate the heightened volume of voice with an emotional message, and do not understand the reason Italians are talking loudly and adding gestures for saying ordinary things. In the former case, emotions are misinterpreted. In the latter, Anglo-Saxon reservation comes to a cultural clash with a Mediterranean sincerity of expression. Unlike intonation and loudness of voice, body language seldom causes a clash and is on the whole more outspoken. E.g. unfriendly body language is in most cultures universal or may be I need to be better informed. This is not to say that certain body language can not be inappropriate in some cultures.
Implicit-explicit behaviour is hard to define because it exists deeply rooted in the community. E.g. one can hear Americans say, "Don't just stand there! Do something!" This is not simply a phrase but an indication of implicit behaviour with a strong emphasis on action. Years ago I myself was working as a translator with American field engineers who were supervising automatic road-paving machines being assembled for operation in Russia. The first attempts showed that the machines would not work with the local cement and the surface of a newly paved road was all in cracks. While Russian engineers hurried to telephone to Moscow for consultations, the Americans welded on two more vibrators and that was it. Implicit-explicit behaviour comprises rules of politeness (a well known American smile is simply being polite), the art of complimenting people (compliments seem to be improper in Asia), the right to be proud of one's own achievement (in Russia it is commendable to attribute one's success to the colleagues saying "I would have never achieved this without my colleagues" although colleagues have indeed little or nothing to do with your job), etiquette of gender behaviour etc. Chivalry towards women is a value in Russia while it can be viewed obsolete in some Western communities. Women in the West take pity on Asian women because they are allegedly dominated by men and do not even have rights to choose a husband. Women in the East hold a view that it is humiliation to chase a man trying to win his attention, love and eventually get married. For a woman in the East it is humiliation to carry heavy bags together with men on a shopping day.
Affective behaviour is also culturally regulated with stoicism and reservation being values in Anglo-Saxon culture, while open and emphasised expression of one's grief is culturally encouraged in other parts of the world. Cognitive behaviour differs as to how people perceive and map the world around them in terms of time, space, ethos and many more concepts.
Making use of a pun, our own culture is what we miss when it is around and what we miss when it is not. Teaching culture is developing strategies that would enable learners to be aware of what is around both at home and abroad, and to get engaged in a productive cross-cultural dialogue without "a miss". There seems to be three options: to admire and absorb a foreign culture and to lose one's own identity, to recognise and participate in a foreign culture and to be flexible with native and foreign ways, to know and resist a foreign culture and to continue along one's native cultural lines. Whatever the course agenda, acculturation in real setting seems to follow its own route. My former student came to live in the UK some years ago and decided to be entirely British eating exclusively porridge for breakfast and feeling lonely in a strange environment. He ended up with eating boiled jacket potatoes Russian style, staying oneself and doing well (ELTeCS May 2002).
AUTHENTICITY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING: A HALLMARK OF REALISM
During one of my workshops for the English language teachers with the
Russian background, I raised the issue of authenticity. Most of the teachers
suggested that authenticity in language teaching was a hallmark of reality.
My view that authenticity was a hallmark of realism first met with
resistance.
The concept of "authentic English" is hard to define as "language reality".
Authentic English is no longer limited to the British Isles and not even to
other English speaking countries. One can unmistakably recognise English
spoken by a French person, a Chinese or an African. English used in the UK
schools and Universities no longer excludes local accents or regional
dialects. Even BBC English allows varieties. Standard English has become a
purely educational notion and exists rather in the course-books created by
the authors for the purpose of teaching. In order to achieve this purpose,
the authors have to model the language use in the real world by creating a
target "gestalt" in the learners' minds They are approaching real language
use, perhaps, never achieving it. This is the realism of the language
material in teaching.
Another area of authenticity is the communicative teaching procedure. A
classical technique of information/opinion gap, which is regarded as truly
communicative, in most cases of reality simply does not exist. It is hard to
imagine one person asking the other about the train schedule for the odd
days and giving the schedule for the even days instead. Yet, the realism of
teaching strongly supports the idea of information gap as well as of other
techniques, though they can seldom or never occur in real life. Some of them
can be even non-communicative at all but necessary as required by the
realism of teaching and learning.
Yet another field of authenticity is the learner language. A language
learner producing error-free, long and well-memorised texts does not sound
very authentic, although the memorised texts can be speeches from the
British Parliament. Authentic learner language with inaccuracies and lack of
idioms is what many teachers perhaps do not like but have to put up with for
the same reason of realism. It's the hallmark of realism that makes learner
language during a demonstration lesson sometimes different to a lesson
behind the closed doors.
All the above considerations made me suggest that authenticity in language
teaching is a hallmark of realism, rather than that of reality. Language
teaching is a reality in reality. Perhaps, it has its own hallmark of
authenticity, as the whole pedagogy is the art of achieving what is
realistic.
Dr. Radislav Millrood
Head of ELT Department at Tambov State University
(first published in ELTeCS-L Digest 21 January, 2001)
CAN UNSUCCESSFUL LEARNERS EVER BECOME ACHIEVERS?
Unsuccessful learners are those who fail to progress in English language studies. Unsuccessful learners make up to 70% in Russia's mainstream schools and 30% in language learning selective schools (this data can be challanged of course).
One of the suggested remedies is to study the strategies of successful learners and to recommend them to those who fail. This reminds me of trying to offer a person clothes in the wrong size.
Teachers usually describe unsuccessful learners as unwilling to study though capable, able to cope with the task but lazy and destroying classroom environment. The unsuccessful learners describe themselves as willing to study but unable to cope with the tasks, losing confidence and struggling to adapt to classroom environment though without a result.
Research shows at least three reasons for underachievement in language learners, including lack of congruence between teacher and learner styles, learning disabilities and unfavourable learning environment.
In three cases out of four lack of congruence between teacher and learner is the reason for academic failure. These learners have high or normal memory as well as high or normal ability to logical reasoning. Only in one case out of four will the learners have poor memory and poor analytic skills, thus demonstrating low learning aptitude. The following areas of congruence in teacher and learner style seem particularly sensitive: field-dependence VS: field independence, serial learning VS: holistic learning and field-sensitivity VS: field-insensitivity.
Learning disability as a cause of failure is a disorder in one or more of the basic cognitive processes with general intelligence staying within the norm. Learning disability can be found in impaired communication, language acquisition and thought processes. It creates a gap between learners true capacity and actual achievement. This disorder is subject to improvement through pedagogical intervention.
Communication disability can be caused by introversion or even autism in learners. Language acquisition disability can be conditioned by dyslexia, which is especially evident in English due to difficult and diverse spelling rules. Thought processes can be infringed by the attention deficit disorder.
Learning environment as a factor of success or failure can include learner self-esteem, learner-teacher attitudes, learner motivation, presence or absence of supportive strategies.
Techniques for supportive environment can include scaffolding the learner, learner accommodation (pairing with successful partners), task analysis (step-by-step instruction), explicit instruction (clear goals and simple ways towards the goals), learning strategies (choosing one' own individual strategies of success), active learning (following one' interests and choices).
The model of pedagogical intervention in the unsuccessful learners starts with the projected learner image. This involved diagnosis into learning style, disability and environment. Unsuccessful learners become potential achievers through congruence of teacher-learner styles, laddering the learner by using scaffolding techniques and creating supportive environment in the classroom.
Why not study the strategies that unsuccessful learners use themselves in order to survive in the classroom environment? Perhaps these will give us the cues to understanding the ways of successful instruction? May be these strategies are the missing and neglected cornerstone in building success and enhancing achievement?
The following poem, written after one of the visited lessons, expresses the feelings of an unsuccessful learner in the English language classroom:
I am sitting in the classroom
With that boring feeling inside
How I'd love to be with them
Easy going with the tide!
The teacher thinks I am lazy
Perhaps I really am?
May be I am different from them
Because I can't and they can?
Why all this useless trying?
I'd rather be myself!
Let this book of English
Gather dust on the shelf.
Let them enjoy it
If they really want
I will have fun instead.
I won't study! I WONT'T !!!
It is professional challenge for teachers to address learners' needs and to re-write this poem with a happier ending, turning unsuccessful failing students into potential achievers.
Dr. Radislav Millrood
Head of ELT at the University of Tambov (abstract of the report made in Krasnoyarsk - Siberia in February 2001 at the conference of regional association of English language teachers).
WHIY FOREIGN TRAINING IS FAILING RUSSIA'S TEACHERS
First published in The Guardian Weekly
Friday January 21, 2000
A British university recently completed a joint teacher-training project in my home city of Tambov in central Russia. British colleagues and local professionals ran training workshops, organised study trips to Britain, wrote and published teachersР В Р’В Р РЋРЎС™ training packs, produced videos and set up a website.
With so much accomplished it should be possible to say that the project achieved its goals. Yet the principal aim of projects like these - to develop human resources and to make the process of change sustainable - are all too often missed. The question so often left unanswered is what happens when foreign trainers depart and local teachers go back to their towns and villages? My answer is, not much.
What holds back change is the power of the local teaching culture. Every teacher knows how to teach when the classroom door is closed and there are no inspectors. In Russia teacher-centred lessons are firmly rooted in the minds of teachers, children and their parents. One can often hear parents advising the teacher: "You should be much stricter with him, it will do him good." Learning is also teacher-dependent. Lessons are closely linked to assessment of homework, and the emphasis is put on input from the teacher rather than on output from learners.
So is a teacher-centred lesson a good or a bad thing? Can we say for sure that a learner-centred communicative class is what the children really need? In 20 years from now research might prove the opposite to be true. After all, hasn't there been a return to phonics in Britain after decades of communicative reading?
The conflict between imported methodology and conservative local teaching culture is the achilles heal of most joint training projects. Yet in Russia at least barriers to exploiting and developing local expertise remain firmly in place.
The first barrier is "affective" and is a matter of trust. No matter how well educated or talented they are, local professionals always play the role of students when experts arrive from abroad. Though they may share their local knowledge with their foreign guests they are there to learn.
Another barrier is "ethical" or doing what is proper. There is still a view, held since the time of Peter the Great, that the proper way to boost teachers' professional development is to invite experts from abroad. Today that foreign assistance is even more fiercely fought for because of the logistical support and funding that comes with it.
The third barrier is "conservative", or the belief in the "good" of the precedent. We have always relied on experts from Britain or the United States, and we believe they have helped us to achieve positive results. But as one American teacher trainer said after working here, "Russians applaud, demonstrate, but do not remember".
These barriers can be surmounted, however, and two models for teacher development come to mind. One is the fairly common unfreeze-change-refreeze model. This says that teacher trainers should motivate trainees to change (unfreeze), to develop new professional behaviour based on innovative methodology (change) and to stabilise these changes (refreeze). I call this model pessimistic because it institutionalises that period when the process of change comes to an end and teachers stop developing any further.
My own ideal is an optimistic model of teacher development that is designed to carry on working. The first stage of this model is "Letting the jinnee out of the bottle", or triggering critical thinking in teachers. The second stage is "Fulfiling the four wishes". Every teacher wants to be Successful, Achieving, Great and Effective. Until these wishes are satisfied no real or long-lasting change will take place in teaching. The third stage is "Obtaining a magic wand", or giving teachers research skills.
Critical thinking, professional expertise and research skills are the foundations for teacher-training programmes that are based on local skills and knowledge. Both pre-service students and in-service teachers want to be firm on both their feet, and for this they need a solid grounding in local expertise.
What needs to change is the whole approach to pre-service training and in-service development so that teachers can be armed with the weapons of critical thinking, professional expertise and research skills. Questioning instead of asserting, noticing and taking up instead of "accepting what is passed down" are just some of the strategies we need if teachers are to continue to develop beyond the life of their training project.
Dr Radislav Millrood is head of ELT at Tambov State University,
TENN COMMANDMENTS
Please do not look for an orthographic mistake in the word TENN because it stands for Teaching English by Non-Natives.
There has been said a lot in defence of non-native teachers of English with the general consensus on the strong points that these professionals possess. All these points come down to just one word i.e. awareness. Non-native teachers have a greater language, culture and learning awareness i.e. they not only use but analyse and explain, not just behave but contrast and compare, not just teach but hold and empathise with the learners. Teachers' own lingual background, cultural identity and learning experience help to set off the essentials of second/foreign language learning.
The above is not to say that native-speaking teachers are unable to explain grammar rules, address cultural issues or identify with the learners. It's that native-speaking teachers of English CAN and non-native teachers CAN'T do without it. This is, perhaps, where the borderline lies between the two categories of professionals, the non-natives can't do without being aware.
With the onset of Global English era, non-native teachers do not need defence of their professional status. On the contrary, they (we) are now in the language majority and this has brought significant changes to their/our language behaviour.
Previously, native speakers were said to create their language, and the non-natives were assigned the role of picking up the samples. Today global community is creating English of the world, in which native vernaculars make scattered fractions.
Previously, English culture had a geographical address and was associated most commonly with the UK or US (at least in Europe). Today the culture associated with the English language is that of the global community. Language learners no longer identify themselves with BBC presenters. Instead, they view English as a passport to the world, a condition of getting an education and a job, and an asset for self-assertion in business and society. This brings in the issue of retaining one's cultural identity while entering the English speaking world.
Previously, non-natives were teaching in a remote mode, both in terms of borders and curtains, politics and ideologies, perspectives and prospects of language use. The language was taught here and existed as part of the real world there. Today, English is gradually becoming part of everyday language environment and communication, because of popular art, mass media and information technology. It is increasingly used as a medium of instruction and learning at colleges and Universities outside native speaking countries. It is becoming a communication tool with many young people. Contracts abroad, grants and projects, joint ventures and mixed marriages also add to the creation of English language environment in what previously has been a non-English zone.
Global developments bring changes to the commandments for the non-native English language teachers to consider and follow. One of these commandments is Be aware of changes. Can anyone come up with more TENN commandments?
Dr. Radislav MILLROOD is Head of ELT at the University of Tambov Russia (this publication is an abridged version of the presentation for Engliah language teachers of Tambov at the annual meeting in August 2001)
INTERNET-ASSISTED TEACHER DEVELOPMENT: Advent of a New Genre
Rationale
Internet-born teacher development materials can be referred to as a new “genre” because they have a set of highly predictable features. These features are the expected user audience (pre-service and in-service teachers, teacher-trainers, trainer-trainers, project managers etc), institutionalized context (self-access to the Internet resources, courses on line by distance, “sandwich” using the Internet in the sessions by attendance), particular functions (inform, involve, entertain, network, link to sites, coach, publish), means of expression (multimedia, hypertext, animation, presentation, tags), and user facilities (information storage and retrieval, schedule management, customizing the facilities, delegating functions).
Design
In order to facilitate the use of the Internet by the teachers, a homepage “ELT Projects Support” has been launched and put on line from the server of Tambov University (Russia). The address is http://elt.freehomepage.com The homepage includes downloadable materials, teleconference and chat facilities, access to mailing list and other teacher-development project sites.
Implementation
Baseline studies showed that Russian social context was not initially favorable for introducing the Internet as a teacher development facility. Out of the 67 teachers from a number of Russian territories only 10 percent had a permanent access to the Internet. Some 5 percent were familiar with the teacher-related Internet sites. Teachers were generally unfamiliar with the search engines. 75 percent of them were using the computer merely for word processing purposes. Words such as “hypertext”, “hot-word”, “multimedia” etc. had a clearly vague meaning for the audience. Alongside with these disappointing data, Internet looked very attractive to the teachers, there was a strong motivation to use it as a resource and the teacher-trainees demonstrated a fairly fast rate of acquiring the skills to use the Internet facilities.
Teachers using the Internet-born materials developed critical reflection on the views expressed. Another development was the noticeable growth of the trainees’ professional expertise and fast-emerging familiarity with a number of the key professional issues. Finally, the “English Language Teacher Development” homepage proved useful in promoting research techniques in teachers. Importantly, the teachers were given a chance to publish their own research papers in the electronic journal. This increased the teachers’ motivation to develop through their classroom research work.
Legend with a meaning
There was a fierce and much dreaded dragon high in the rocky and cloud-enveloped mountains. Nobody had ever seen him but had heard much of him. His name was INTER-BRUTTO, because the rumors pictured him as very brutal. Once the dragon decided to go down the mountains and to proclaim his power among people. He came down and expected everybodyРІР‚в„ўs fear and submission but nobody took any notice. The dragon wanted to spit fire a couple of times but was only able to produce giggles. The dragon had only one head and no tail. He could not fly and had no claws. He was short with a round face and big open eyes with no eyelashes. Just like an innocent child! When the people knew that he was INTER-BRUTTO, they called him INTER-NETTO, meaning that he was not brutal at all. TO BE A DRAGON ONE HAS TO LOOK A DRAGON, TO BEHAVE A DRAGON AND TO BE RECOGNIZED AS A DRAGON.
Dr. Radislav Millrood.
(Presented at AITEFL conference in Dublin, 2000)
INTRODUCING CLASSROOM RESEARCH TO TEACHERS
The report is based on the experience within RussiaРІР‚в„ўs teacher development projects sponsored by the British Council in Moscow.
Exploratory teaching integrating research and pedagogy is an effective way towards turning a teacher into a reflective practitioner. Yet, teaching is all but seldom accompanied by research efforts leading to a better classroom insight. Typical obstacles are the “Why?” (Why should I do the research as I see no benefit in it?), the “How?” (How should a research be done to avoid unnecessary time and effort investment?) and the “What?” (What to choose as an object of research?).
These obstacles were to be turned into opportunities by developing in teachers critical thinking, introducing to them techniques of classroom research and enhancing their professional expertise through structured reflection.
Critical thinking was interpreted by the teachers as an intended careful consideration of any belief, opinion, knowledge, stereotype, principle or script in the light of concrete evidence, supporting or refuting it. An indication of critical thinking was teachersРІР‚в„ў ability to address their classroom situation with narrowly focused questions.
TeachersРІР‚в„ў puzzles could arise from lack of approach, lack of materials and lack of insight. Lack of approach prompted the teachers to engage in theoretical reasoning. Lack of materials required material writing and piloting. Lack of insight called for classroom data generation and interpretation.
Classroom enquiry comprised both qualitative (non-numerical) and quantitative (numerical) research. Interestingly, teachers preferred quantitative research to qualitative data collection. One of the reasons was that quantitative data was easier and faster to get in order to produce a general picture under research. The alternative way was to focus teachersРІР‚в„ў attention not only on the general, but also on the particular and to give them training in conducting qualitative research.
An important research method was teachersРІР‚в„ў action research, i.e. an active attempt to improve oneРІР‚в„ўs classroom situation and to reflect upon the findings in a structured and systematic way. The teachers were introduced to the following steps of action research: goal setting, hypotheses formulation (if-then, either-or, not-but), literature review, selecting and administering treatment, data elicitation and analysis, impact evaluation, conclusion and recommendations.
As a result of training the teachers focused more attention on puzzles arising from using techniques and activities in the classroom as well as on producing their own materials. The ratio between theory, teaching material and classroom insight became more balanced (originally teachers’ projects were dominated by material description). At first, classroom puzzles of the “short-circuit” type were prevailing, i.e. “puzzle-remedy-experience”. After the training, classroom puzzles of “acme type” emerged such as “puzzle-experience-insight”.
TeachersРІР‚в„ў research training experience was summarised in the poem produced on reflection at a training session:
“Nobody forced me to undertake this journey.
All the way I found it challenging and trying,
Until I reached the top of the mountain
And looked down.
And saw farther…
Broader…
Deeper…”
Dr. Radislav Millrood,
(Presented at AITEFL Conference in Brighton. 2001)
REGIONAL TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS: Meeting the Needs or Needing the Meetings?
"If you were to launch a teachers professional association, what would you start with?" - I asked a colleague of mine in my hometown of Tambov, a relatively small place. "I would begin with a legal regulation for this", came the answer. "What would you do after your organization had been set up?", I went on? "Then, we will host conferences, apply for grants, hold opinion polls, form pressure groups, offer paid services, distribute cheaper course-books and provide teachers with consultancy".
This approach appears to be of little variety to what I was able to gather from a number of mission statements and objectives set by major ELT professional societies. IATEFL holds annual conferences, publishes newsletters of SIGs, offers reduced rates for journals, assists in setting up regional organisations, promotes sharing ideas and making contacts. TESOL's mission is to develop the expertise of its members and others involved in teaching English to speakers of other languages. Replicating this experience, Association of English Teachers in Uzbekistan (UzTEA)sets out to hold and assist seminars, publish newsletters and involve teachers in teacher training activities.
One can assume that a professional association is alive if it holds conferences, publishes journals and networks members. Having said this, one can begin wondering whether regional professional associations of English language teachers can or should have "a face of its own".
A regional professional association is a community with values that her members share, keep up and develop. It is always a domain of some kind of shared professional culture. Otherwise, there is nothing to associate around. In conceiving such culture, a need to associate either descending "top-down" or ascending "bottom-up", comes prior to bureaucracy. What gives an association a starting boost is a necessity to unite around an issue that seems worth it. Such issue can be a teacher developing project.
A project usually starts as a problem driven, product oriented and change bringing activity, meeting the needs of participants. During a project life emerging values begin cementing the participants together. This is precisely what is needed for an association to be born and project results to sustain through a new organisation. Isn't the absence of such values the reason that some regional associations have a merely formal start following suit with a higher order bureaucracy?
The road from a project to an association lies through disseminating project results and winning supporters. There is a good example to this in Russian Siberia, where an effectively working association in Krasnoyarsk (KELTA) was born in the context of in-service teacher-training project (KINSET) sponsored by the British Council. The objective was to support KINSET alumni. Today KELTA is bringing together professionals from a number of geographic regions in Siberia and beyond.
An association has to "associate" because this is the meaning of the word. A word often means what we put in it. Should regional associations meet their local needs or should they take after "big brothers?" Quoting Humpty-Dumpty in "Alice Through the Looking Glass", an insightful question here is, "Which is to be master?"
(ELTeCS, November 2001)
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