The impact of a discourse-based teacher-counselling model in training language teachers for outcomes-based education
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Date
2001-11
Authors
De Villiers, Eleftheria
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
As outcomes-based education (OBE) is an approach to learning that fosters usable knowledge
and skills in learners, with attitudes and values that are aligned with the ideals of the South
African Constitution, it was a cause for concern when evidence presented by the Curriculum
2005 Review Committee suggested that the new approach to education was not being
implemented successfully. The Committee stated that a lack of appropriate teacher-training and
in-service support was one of the primary causes. It was thus decided to attempt to address this
issue in a South African context in this research study.
The study recruited teacher-trainees using semi-random sampling methods and subjected a final
sample of eleven teacher-trainees to a two-year study in which they received counselling on the
most effective ways of adapting their teaching styles to an OBE mode. Baseline data was
gathered from pre-intervention recordings of their teaching styles in real classroom situations,
after which these recordings were viewed and assessed by the trainees themselves, and by peer
and counsellor assessment, using standardised assessment forms. Areas in which teaching styles
might undergo improvement were identified by the clients themselves, while the counsellor
shared theoretical perspectives with the trainees concerning the value of developing their own
and the learners' autonomy, establishing low-anxiety classrooms in which learners could feel
free to express themselves and could practise uninterrupted speech in a second language, the
value of designing their own materials, the strengths of including group work in lessons and
ways of enhancing the effectiveness of group work. The relationship between the counsellor and her trainees was of a consistently supportive and
empathic nature. Collaboration between the trainees was emphasised, as they were expected to
support one another in becoming more effective facilitators. Any judgment on possible
improvements had to be phrased in considerate and empathic terms, yet retaining objectivity. It
was felt that trainees would be able to replicate the modes they had been taught in their own
classrooms, so it was essential that their own development was modelled on critical crossfield
and specific outcomes derived from OBE terminology.
After much reflection, asd a number of interventions that followed the guidelines posited by
Bowers (1987) in his teacher-counselling model within the research framework of an action
research spiral (Middiewood, Coleman and Lumby 1999), final video recording were made of
trainee-teachers in order to determine if they had indeed succeeded in effecting positive changes
to their teaching styles. After each of these recordings had been analysed by the counsellor and
the trainees themselves, it was found that major improvements had indeed been effected in the
majority of cases. Learners in trainee lessons had been encouraged to speak for much greater
periods of time, showing greater initiative. Group work was included in their improved lessons.
After discourse had been studied and categorised according to Van Lier's (1996) discourse
analysis model, it was found that the quality of classroom Initiation-Response-Feedback had
developed from lower-order to higher-order IRF along the Van Lier IRF sub-continuum (1996),
indicating that teachers were dominating the structure of classroom discourse to a far lesser
extent in their second lessons, opening the classroom interactions to a conversational mode in
which the course of the lessons could be determined by learners and thus be more unpredictable.
This learner-centeredness was a positive outcome in the study and was further proof that
teachers were beginning to apply themselves in an OBE mode.
After a year of reflection trainees provided data in a focus interview which showed evidence that
they were much more comfortable with OBE and were eager to use the outcomes-orientation in
their lessons, as they now understood it as a more effective way to educate learners.
Description
Keywords
Language teachers -- Training of, Competency-based education, Thesis (Ph.D. (English and Classical Culture))--University of the Free State, 2001