coming of this view, as Freeman points out, is 'the fragmented view it ..... London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Freeman,. D. 1982. 'Observing teachers: three.
Modelling and ‘cognitive apprenticeship’ in teacher education Nicky
Hockly
This article describes the implementation of a ‘cyclic’, practical modelbased syllabus on a short pre-service teacher training course. The case for an overt model-based approach to initial teacher training is made, with reference to recent developments in cognitive psychology. Research carried out into trainees’ perception of a model-based approach is presented, suggesting that such an approach may help trainees to become more effectively reflective teachers at earlier stages in courses of this nature.
Introduction
Cognitive apprenticeship
The notion of ‘apprenticeship’ in teacher training is currently out of favour, associated as it is with reactionary models of training that foreground the acquisition of techniques at the expense of reflection and discovery (e.g. Zeichner 1981). Moreover, it is often considered to be part of a conservative backlash in mainstream education, in which progressive, child-centred views of education are coming under attack from more traditional quarters (e.g. Darling 1994). Despite its bad press, however, apprenticeship-as-training is gaining recognition in the light of recent developments in cognitive psychology. In the context of pre-service training, one could substitute the word ‘apprenticeship’ with that of ‘modelling’: the teacher trainer ‘models’ expert behaviour - in this case, that of EFL teaching - and trainees are exposed to these models. This approach is consistent with traditional notions of apprenticeship, as well as with the notion of ‘cognitive apprenticeship’ outlined by Atkinson: Cognitive apprenticeship is based on the notion that all significant human activity is highly situated in real-world context - and that complex cognitive skills are therefore ultimately learned in highcontext, inherently motivating situations in which the skills themselves are organically bound up with the activity being learned and its community of expert users (1997: 87). It should be emphasized that in the case of EFL teaching there is no one ‘correct’ model shown by the trainer, but rather a range of model lessons, or ‘blueprints’, or ‘lesson images’ (Thornbury 1999: 4), which are realized by means of a range of classroom techniques. Trainees are then given the opportunity to try out these basic models and techniques in small teaching practice groups.
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The issue of trainees being exposed to lesson models on pre-service courses has been extensively debated in recent literature (e.g. IATEFL Issues 143-6). It is not my intention to reiterate the arguments for and against here, but to state my belief, in Thornbury’s words, that ‘the issue is not whether models per se are good or bad, but which models to choose from’ (1999: 5). In fact, most pre-service training courses include a certain amount of modelling of teaching by tutors. I would like to make the case in this article, however, for an almost exclusive focus on modelling in the early stages of pre-service training courses. Background
Hunt’s cyclic syllabus
How exactly is modelling introduced to trainees on a pre-service training course? On many short pre-service courses, such as the UCLES CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) or the Trinity College London Certificate, the benefit for trainees of watching already qualified and experienced teachers teaching ‘real’ EFL classes is well attested. Trainees typically observe between six and eight hours of ‘expert’ teaching behaviour, and this is usually a formal requirement of the course’. Unfortunately, due to pressures of time, trainees are very often unable to discuss in any depth what they may have learnt through these observations of ‘expert’ teaching, and ‘the knowledge accumulated in this component tends not to be integrated into the course in any kind of formal way’ (Gray 1999: 9). Experimentation by Hunt (1996) provided the blueprint implementation of extensive modelling on two pre-service courses of which I was course tutor.
for the training
As Hunt points out, a fair amount of time on pre-service training courses is spent on ‘input’, which is tutor-led, and often includes examining some of the basic principles behind classroom practice. Witness input sessions entitled ‘Classroom Management’, or ‘Listening’, or ‘Teaching Beginners’ , for example. Input of this type can be characterized as comprising a ‘linear’ syllabus, in which aspects of classroom practice (both technique and content) are dealt with as discrete items which trainees then ‘accumulate’ until a certain level of proficiency in teaching is reached. The linear syllabus is ‘based on an assumption that through mastery of discrete aspects of skills and knowledge, teachers will improve their effectiveness in the classroom’ (Freeman, 1989: 39). The major shortcoming of this view, as Freeman points out, is ‘the fragmented view it takes of teaching’ (ibid.). Hunt makes the case for using what he calls a ‘cyclic, holistic’ syllabus (1996: 35) on pre-service training courses. This involves ‘starting with a holistic, whole lesson approach and working down to a more atomistic, discrete item approach later in the course’ (ibid.). Trainees are exposed to models of teaching, as learners, from the very beginning of the course. In other words, the tutor teaches the trainees as if they were EFL students. What exactly are trainees taught? Hunt continues:
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My approach is cyclic in as much as on day 1, I might give a listening-speaking lesson, on day 2 a reading-writing lesson, on day 3 a lesson using material designed to help with learner autonomy, and so on. I repeat this timetable (but not the individual lessons) in weeks 2 and 3. (ibid.: 36) Analysing
models
Exposure
to lesson models is followed by analysis:
Following the ‘lesson’ I ask trainees to analyse what we did and why we did it. This is followed by a tutor-led discussion (to ensure trainee perceptions are reasonably accurate) and note-making. I encourage the trainees to compare notes with each other, then amend or add to their own as they see appropriate. (ibid.) Thus trainees are exposed to models of an overall lesson (e.g. a listening lesson) and important basic classroom techniques, such as how the board can be used, how instructions can be given, how meaning can be clarified, or checked, etc. Importantly, the classroom techniques are in the context of a lesson. Trainees are exposed to many of these techniques and overall lesson structures many times, because they watch many lessons. Hunt calls this type of input syllabus ‘cyclic’, because of the way in which trainees are repeatedly exposed to all of the elements that make up ‘good’ teaching. Hunt points to some of the advantages approach:
of this cyclic, model-based
1 Learning is not a step-by-step building block activity-it is organic, a process that requires time for recycling and assimilation. 2 A holistic, cyclic approach in [input] mirrors the reality of the ELT classroom. 3 Trainees do not become fixated in ‘drilling’ or whatever. They learn to see lessons as units in a series within which a particular technique may, or may not, be appropriate. 4 Regardless of what the trainee is doing next in TP [teaching practice] he/she gains something of relevance from each input session . . . (ibid.). The COurses
The input model of a cyclic, model-based approach was the one adopted on two consecutive pre-service training courses, which I evaluate below. Each course was a short, four-week intensive course, on which trainees received two and a half hours of input every morning, followed by two hours of tutor-observed teaching practice every afternoon, five days a week. The first course consisted of ten trainees, divided into two groups of five trainees for teaching practice, while the second course consisted of twelve trainees, divided into three groups of four trainees for teaching practice. On both courses, trainees were exposed to models from the first day. Typically, a 45-60 minute model lesson was followed by analysis which took different forms (for example, trainees noted down the things that had struck them and then compared notes, or they were instructed to
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take notes under certain headings supplied by the trainer, or given a set of questions to answer about the lesson, etc.). Retrospective timetabling
No timetable was given for the first week of the course, the underlying rationale being that trainees would be freer to notice a greater variety of teaching principles and/or techniques if their preconceptions were not bound by labels such as ‘A listening lesson’ or ‘A vocabulary lesson’. For inexperienced trainees, the first week is often that with the greatest learning curve. A homework task for the end of the first week of each course consisted of trainees filling in a blank timetable with two things they felt they had learned on each day of the previous week, an activity which Hunt calls ‘a retrospective timetable’ (1996: 37). Predictably, trainees identified a wide range of elements which they felt that they had learned via the modelled lessons in the first week. For example, by participating in a vocabulary lesson modelled by the trainer on the second day of the course, things learnt included: - use a picture to generate lots of vocab; - importance of mime; - to reinforce meaning, expose students to a word many times in many ways; - limiting new vocabulary in a lesson is vital; - a good teacher does all the hard work at home - be well-organized and prepared; - structure of a lesson; - how to utilize knowledge of the student instead of ‘teaching’ it; - how to involve students What we see here is that trainees are able to focus on elements of the modelled lessons which go beyond the level of technique; most of the comments above show an awareness of lesson principles or design at a very early stage in the course.
Late acquired techniques and skills
The use of modelling in input on the course lasted for approximately the first two weeks of the four week course. As teaching practice was running concurrently with input (with input in the mornings, and teaching practice in the afternoons), it was relatively easy to respond to the difficulties and needs of trainees as reflected in teaching practice in subsequent input sessions. Thus, for example, it became apparent after about ten days of teaching practice on both courses that trainees needed techniques for checking the meaning of new language items, and that this was a generally observable trend in all the teaching practice groups. It was then relatively easy to devise a model lesson in which several techniques were modelled, and where trainees were invited to reflect on these. The benefits for trainees of relating observed techniques to a prior need is obvious. This is not what tends to happen on linear syllabus courses, where there might be an input session called ‘Checking Meaning’ early on, which comes long before trainees are ‘ready’ to experiment with such techniques. Modelling and ‘cognitiveapprenticeship’ in teacher education articles
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Even more revealing is that over the course certain skills and techniques (such as checking ‘late acquired’. Correction techniques were a was the ability to reflect on their own lessons technique. This latter point is made by Kennedy training:
it became apparent that meaning) were generally case in point, as indeed beyond the use of mere in a study of pre-service
It may be that in the early stages of learning to teach, trainees need to concentrate on acquiring a confident grasp of classroom routines and that critical analysis develops at a much later stage. (1993: 162) It is not my intention to review the debate on whether developing reflection is indeed possible on pre-service training courses (see, for example, Kerr, 1994). My own view is that reflection can and should be developed in pre-service training, and that using an approach to input which is congruent with the idea of cognitive apprenticeship can help this. I explore this idea more fully in the next section. Modelling, coaching, and fading
After approximately two weeks, as trainees gained experience and confidence in their own teaching practice, it became increasingly apparent that they needed less modelling. They had by this stage a battery of ‘classroom routines’ (Kennedy 1993: 162) and were more equipped to see lessons in terms of overall shape and structure. It is at this point in the course that Hunt recommends a more discrete approach, the fine tuning, as it were, in which skills and techniques for which a general need has been created through trainees’ experience of teaching practice, are addressed. The perceived need for progressively less trainer support is reflected in instructional models based on cognitive apprenticeship. Atkinson (1997: 88), referring to Collins et al. (1989) refers to the three main steps involved in cognitive apprenticeship as modelling, coaching, and fading. He glosses each of these as follows: Modelling is the early and repetitive demonstration of complex, holistic, and goal-centred activities, as situated in their actual contexts of use rather than decontextualised and broken down for ease of teaching and learning. Coaching involves the active mentoring by teachers or more experienced peers of individuals or small groups of students in their own repetitive attempts to perform these activities in real contexts . . . The final step, fading, concerns the gradual discontinuation of expert guidance as the student-apprentice internalizes the skills and norms of knowledgeable performance. Although Atkinson is not referring to teacher training, the relevance of this three-stage framework to teacher training is apparent in the modelbased approach argued for in this article. Modelling in Atkinson’s sense can be taken to refer to model-based input by trainers, and coaching refers to trainees’ experiences of teaching practice, where ‘active mentoring’ is provided by the trainer in the form of feedback on teaching practice. Fading reflects the process whereby overt modelling is
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replaced by analysis of the perceived needs of increasingly independent trainees in their teaching practice. Course evaluation: trainees’ perceptions
At the end of the courses, as a means of informally evaluating the use of a model-based approach, trainees were invited to discuss a series of questions related to the course in small groups, without the presence of the tutor, and to record their impressions via a tape recorder. The questionnaire used for this is in the Appendix. Prior to seeing the questionnaire, trainees were asked to note down three things they felt they had learnt from the models (referred to as ‘demos’ - demonstration lessons) during the first two weeks of the course (see Question 1 in the Appendix). Trainee’s comments
Below I have selected from a wealth of data just eight comments, both positive and negative, in answer to question 3 in the Appendix. These comments seem representative of the main concerns that were expressed by the trainees, and they provide useful insights into how a model-based approach may be perceived. Trainee comments included statements such as: [Modelling was] especially useful in the first week . . . because you come in cold and if you haven’t taught before, and you’ve just got no concept of how you actually open a class . . . you know . . . what it should feel like . . . (1) I mean I wouldn’t have had a clue really, because I’d not taught before . . . (2) The input was repeated
for us. (3)
I liked that we were not told, but shown how to do it. (4) . . . it was good that there was repetition of a basic method, like the blackboard was used often and not just one input session on boardwork, like ‘OK, now everyone should have that perfect’ . . . (5) The above comments inexperienced trainees of the course, and that approach (comments underlying awareness learning (comments 3,
could be grouped into those that show how keenly feel the need for support at the beginning this support can be given through a model-based 1 and 2), and those comments that show an of how a model-based approach helps holistic 4, and 5).
There were also a few negative comments: When you see it done perfectly [sic], the gap between what you see and your own abilities can be a bit too wide, and that can be very demotivating for some people because they can never see they can bridge that gap . . . (6) I had some feelings in the first week of being in the dark and like wondering ‘Where are we going?’ (7) Modelling and ‘cognitive apprenticeship’ in teacher education
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The concerns reflected in comments 6 and 7 might be attributable to the tutor not having explained soon enough the methodology to be employed (i.e. that of a model-based approach). This can be easily remedied. As the trainee in comment 7 continued, ‘we are adults and we have the right to know.’ Conclusion
Freeman has described teacher training and teacher development ‘not as opposites but as part of a continuum’ (1982: 28), in which pre-service teachers’ needs are initially for ‘training’, and only afterwards, once certain basic techniques and skills have been mastered, can ‘development’ be focused on. Freeman claims that teachers who are learning to teach have a ‘hierarchy of needs’, through which they pass ‘on the road from training to development’. Novice teachers must first address the question ‘What do I teach?‘. Once this is under their control, they will ask ‘How do I teach what I teach?‘, and only further along the road in their development will they be able to ask ‘Why do I teach what I teach? Why do I teach the way I do?’ (ibid.: 27). The notion of pre-service trainees finding it initially problematic to focus on elements in teaching beyond the level of content appears regularly in the literature (e.g. Britten 1988; Kennedy 1993). Nevertheless, short preservice courses often require trainees to be able to ‘reflect’ on their teaching, a skill which is more likely to develop with experience, and is thus towards the developmental end of Freeman’s continuum. I would suggest that a model-based approach to pre-service training input will be better able to develop trainees’ abilities to reflect than a more linear syllabus. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, critical skills are being developed while trainees participate in, and then analyse, a model lesson. Trainees are being encouraged to ‘be’ a student, but at the same time to stay ‘outside’ of the teaching event, observing from afar, as it were, in order to be able to comment on the lesson afterwards. Trainees’ attention needs to be focused on various things at once, a useful skill for when they themselves are teaching, and one which is difficult to cultivate at low levels of expertise. Secondly, while observing the model lesson from ‘outside’, trainees are each noticing different things in the teaching event. Thus trainees are learning things which are relevant and useful to their present level of development. Trainees are also continuously exposed to various elements that make up ‘good’ teaching, thereby having repeated opportunities to acquire them. In addition, post-exposure reflection is stimulated and enhanced by peer interaction.
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Watching trainees in teaching practice, it was often evident that they were using techniques (usually adapted in some way) which they had encountered in the morning input sessions. At the level of overall lesson structure, it also seemed that many trainees were grasping lessons in a more holistic way earlier than usual.
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This type of anecdotal evidence could be more rigorously examined by comparing trainee dialogue journals with their lesson plans, and by comparing these with the modelled input sessions. Parallels could be drawn, and trainees interviewed in depth about these, in order to evaluate how effectively modelling is being transferred into the individual trainee’s teaching practice. I would suggest that this study shows, at the very least, that we need to re-examine the notion of apprenticeship models as ‘politically incorrect’, and to investigate in more depth the influence of modelling in teacher education. Received September 1999 Bibliography
Atkinson, D. 1997. ‘A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL’. TESOL Quarterly 31/1: 71-89. Britten, D. 1988. ‘Three stages in teacher training’. ELT Journal 42/1: 3-8. Collins, A., J. S. Brown, and S. E. Newman. 1989. ‘Cognitive apprenticeship: teaching the crafts of reading, writing, and mathematics’ in L. Reswick (ed.). Knowing, Learning and Instruction: Essays in Honor of Robert Glaser. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Darling, J. 1994. Child-Centred Education and its Critics. London: Paul Chapman Publishing. Freeman, D. 1982. ‘Observing teachers: three approaches to in-service training and development’. TESOL Quarterly 16/1: 21-8. Freeman, D. 1989. ‘Teacher training, development and decision making: a model of teaching and related strategies for language teacher education’. TESOL Quarterly 23/1: 27-45. Gray, J. 1999. ‘Learning about teaching on preservice courses’. IATEFL Issues 146: 8-10. Hunt, R. 1996. ‘Going round in circles: a cyclic, holistic approach to CTEFLA timetabling’. Priorities in Initial Teacher Training, Certificate Conference Report, UCLES. Kennedy, J. 1993. ‘Meeting the needs of teacher trainees on teaching practice’. ELT Journal 47/2: 157-65. Kerr, P. 1994. ‘Initial reflections’. Teacher Trainer 8/3: 21. Tbornbury, S. 1999. ‘Lesson art and design’. ELT Journal 53/1: 4-11. Zeichner, K. M. 1981. ‘Alternative paradigms of teacher education’. Journal of Teacher Education 34/3: 3-9.
Note
1 Trainees on the UCLES CELTA course are required to observe eight hours of classes by experienced teachers, while trainees on the Trinity College London Certificate are required to watch six hours of classes. Appendix
For the purposes of my research, could you please discuss the following questions in your groups: Compare the three things you learnt from demos, which you noted down earlier. Did you all learn the same things? What conclusions do you draw from this? Do you remember ‘hanging on to’ any of the input techniques/ideas/materials which were demo-ed, i.e. consciously choosing to ‘imitate’ in some way what you’d seen John or Nicky do in input? If so, what and why? In general, how helpful did you find the principle of input demos for TP purposes? Did observing and experiencing demos help you ‘learn’ to teach? If yes, how and why? If not, why not? The author
Nicky Hockly is a teacher and teacher trainer based in Barcelona. She has taught and trained teachers in Spain, Brazil, and South Africa. She is currently working as Academic Counsellor on a distance MA in TEFL programme offered through six Spanish universities and co-ordinated by the Australian Institute. Her current interests include teacher training and distance education. Email:
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