Training Teachers In Practice (Modern Languages in Practice, 9)

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Training Teachers in Practice Modern Languages in Practice ; 9 Grenfell, Michael. Multilingual Matters 1853594008 9781853594007 9780585147062 English Language teachers--Training of. 1998 P53.85.G74 1998eb 418/.007 Language teachers--Training of.

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Training Teachers in Practice Michael Grenfell Modern Languages in Practice 9 Series Editor: Michael Grenfell MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD Clevedon Philadelphia Toronto Sydney Johannesburg

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Grenfell, Michael Training Teachers in Practice/Michael Grenfell Modern Languages in Practice: 9 1. Language teachersTraining of. I. Title. II. Series. P53.85.074 1998 418'.007-dc21 97-33502 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 1-85359-400-8 (hbk) ISBN 1-85359-399-0 (pbk) Multilingual Matters Ltd UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH. USA: 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007, USA. Canada: OISE, 712 Gordon Baker Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2H 3R7. Australia: P.O. Box 586, Artamon, NSW, Australia. South Africa: PO Box 1080, Northcliffe 2115, Johannesburg, South Africa. Copyright © 1998 Michael Grenfell 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 Archetype IT Ltd (http://archetype-it.com). Printed and bound in Great Britain by WBC Book Manufacturers Ltd.

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Page iii CONTENTS Acknowledgements

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1. Introduction

1

Part I Theory 2. Training Teachers: In Theory - In Practice

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3. Teacher Education: Conflicting Metaphors

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Part II Practice 4. Case Stories

51 52

Beginnings 56 First Steps 68 School Experience 106 Outcomes 111 Conclusions 114 Epilogue Part III Policy and Process 5. Place, Time, People

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6. Developing Professional Competence

152

7. Managing Disruption

168

Bibliography

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Index

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the editorial insight, advice and guidance given to me by Simon Green and Christopher Brumfit, for which I am very grateful. This book is dedicated to Cheryl Hardy for her support and help throughout its production.

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Chapter 1 Introduction Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis. Times change and we change with them. Over the past century we have experienced enormous changes in the way we think and act in education. In modern languages teaching and learning, classical humanistic perspectives have given way to behavioural-based audio-visual methods, which have in turn ceded to more communicative approaches. The status of grammar and translation in language teaching has changed radically. Indeed, what we understand grammar to be has undergone tremendous redefinitions. Accuracy has given way to fluency, and back again. Cultural authenticity has been given a status hitherto unknown. The very way we conceive language to be has changed out of all recognition from earlier attempts to capture its meaning. Language teaching methodology itself has drastically altered. No longer is it seen to be sufficient for teachers to impart the mechanics of language to pupils. Rather he or she is expected to engage personally with them; to get conversations going and to facilitate the learners along the way in their progress towards communicative competence. Little wonder, therefore, if the methods we use to train teachers have themselves shifted between poles in response to whatever is current thinking about creating pedagogic professionals. Early common-sense notions of teaching by doing have been replaced with more descriptive techniques of 'how to teach' in line with present methodological trends. When neither the techniques for teaching, nor the methods advocated for acquiring them, deliver the expected results, broader, more personally reflective, approaches have been adopted, which in their turn have also been attacked for their lack of certitude and vigour. This book is about what it is to become a modern language teacher. What experiences do individuals have whilst in training and what do they think about them? What do they make of the methodologies given to them: what happens consequently in the classroom? This book responds to these

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questions. It considers what we know about initial teacher education and its processes. A good deal has been written on teacher education; much of it quite abstract and theoretical. This literature has covered issues such as the sites of training, the content of training programmes and the relationship between theory and practice. I discuss these themes in the context of modern language teacher training. However, the core of the book is centred around one particular group of trainees during their course of initial professional development. They are presented as individual personalities rather than as fragmented selves grouped together to form an ethnographic text. An account of their initial impressions in training is given; what they thought about the ideas presented to them and what they saw in schools. Their early attempts at teaching are tracked, as well as their full school experience. What went well for them? What did not? What became of them and what, finally, did they think about teaching modern languages? It is the story of individual transformation, of the development of early pedagogic skills and the birth of teaching professionals. Much of this story will be told in the trainees' own words, based on interviews and conversations with them. They completed questionnaires at key points in their training, as well as keeping diaries. This reflective writing provides insight into their world. It is the actuality of training and a vivid picture will be created by their words of the stresses and strains, the highs and lows, and the successes and failures of early teaching. In the latter part of this book, these features will be used to examine the general processes of training in some detail. The nature of forces acting on the trainees will become clear along with the structure and content of their professional activity. Training involves people, places and materials, each of which are spread out over time. What is important in one time and place may be totally insignificant elsewhere and vice versa. An account will be given of the effect of moving between the places of training and of those involved with it; what the consequences of these are for its pedagogic outcome. Important policy issues are at stake. The book concludes with a consideration of these. This volume is not intended as an assessment of one particular country's policy of teacher training, still less a snapshot at a system undergoing change. The context of which I write is important, but I do not intend the book to be an evaluation of an individual nation's methods of training modern language teachers. Rather, I am interested in the generic processes expressed through individuals' experiences and training events. These are examined by focusing on how the 'parts' of initial teacher training affect one another and the product of their interactions. By taking this approach,

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it will be possible to elucidate issues concerning the training of modern language teachers in a range of different contexts. Most of all, it is intended to offer a picture of the reality of training away from academic ideals, political discussion and particular national preoccupations. The book is aimed at all thoseteachers, mentors, trainees, trainers and researchersinvolved (or thinking of becoming involved) with initial teacher education. The tone is often personal but this should not make it any less rigorous. Much is often claimed on the basis of a 'common-sense' view of training; whether in the media and the 'practice-is-best' movement, or pragmatic tips for trainees offered by experienced classroom teachers. The truth of the matter is that there is a range of participants involved in teacher training and each of these will necessarily have different perspectives. One major objective of this book is to examine the strength of these perspectives in the light of actual experience and unpick the reality behind common views of teacher training. The book also covers more theoretical issues, again in the light of actual experience. A second major objective is therefore to link theory and practice; both retrospectively in terms of the case stories offered and prospectively for policy reform and academic thinking about the processes of initial teacher education. Both practitioners and academics will find much of relevance to them in this book. Each do, however, have different perspectives and preoccupations. In order to guide a range of readers, therefore, the book is divided into three distinct parts. Part I provides a discussion of issues relating to the processes and policy of teacher training in the light of available literature. Chapter 2 focuses on past and recent models of teacher training and the role and status of theory and practice in each of these. Chapter 3 is more concerned with the outcomes of training, and how others have developed approaches to account for these. Part II forms the core of the book, and is the story of five individuals in training. This part of the book is also divided into sections to locate their thoughts and experiences at different times and places. Part III compares and contrasts their individual experiences and the final outcome of training for them. Chapter 5 considers the trainees in terms of their backgound, where they were located during their course and the apparent conflicts involved for them. Chapter 6 discusses the nature of pedagogic competence. Chapter 7 looks at the disruptive nature of training and discusses it in terms of how teacher training is organised. Different readers may want to approach the book in different ways. Those interested in finding out about the actuality of modern language

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teachers in training might choose to start with Part II. Those looking for an account of the processes of training and consideration of policy issues may well start with Part III. Those seeking a more theoretical account of models and the outcomes of training will read from Part I and see Part II as an illustrative example. There are, then, at least three distinct ways of reading this book. Finally, the book represents an example of reflective practice itself, in that it arises from my own personal involvement as a teacher trainer of modern language teachers and my readings of the related literature. It is therefore an example of the kind of professional development and practitioner enquiry that is so advocated these days by educationalists and policy makers. I would like to acknowledge the help and advice given to me by my closest colleagues and family in conducting the research reported in this book and my write-up of it. Mostly, I must thank my students, especially those reported here, whose names, for reasons of anonymity, have been changed. They readily agreed to become involved with my project and always approached the conversations I had with them in an open and honest manner. For their co-operation and commitment, I am most grateful.

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PART I THEORY

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PART I THEORY

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Chapter 2 Training Teachers: In TheoryIn Practice This chapter is about changes. It is about ways of training. The key players are theory and practice, and the discussion deals with the place of training and who should be involved. The context within which this book was written is the one of England in the mid-1990s. Nonetheless, the issues I raise have an international generality. Many countries are now implementing reform of their teacher training systems. France, in recent years, has created the IUFMs (Institut Universitaire de Formation des Mâitres) as a way of bridging the gap between training colleges and university studies and research. Finland, Italy and Spain have all increased the amount of time trainees spend in school teaching practice. And we have seen the birth of a new training professional: the school mentor. In my own national case, education has come under increasing scrutiny concerning the extent to which social and economic ills can be attributed to its underperformance. Teachers and teaching have often been claimed to be below a satisfactory level, methodological fads criticised and urgent reform advocated. Little surprise then that such critics have turned their attention from teachers to the way they are trained. Increasingly, teachers' education itself has been criticised, both for the methods it imparts and the methodologies used to impart them. The issues underlying such claims will be discussed from a historical perspective. My intention here is to explain where we are coming from and what is at stake. Models of Training: Between Theory and PracticeCraft or Science? Michael Wallace, in his book Training Foreign Language Teachers (1991), begins by listing the salient models of teacher education. The first, which he calls the 'craft model', is akin to 'sitting with Nellie'. In other words, training is seen as best accomplished by sitting in on the job, watching others and absorbing what they do, and so slowly being inducted into the

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skills of the craft. This 'apprenticeship' model seems to have predominated up until the Second World War. After the war, a more 'applied science' approach was adopted. Here, findings from research are used to develop theories of learning which are then applied directly to practice. In this model, there is little doubt that educational practice is driven by theory developed from 'scientific discoveries' about how things happen. Training in practice therefore amounts to being given the necessary techniques commensurate with such theories. The relationship might be explained thus:

A real-life example of this approach to teaching occurs in the audio-visual/ audio-lingual approaches to foreign language learning that became so prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s. This essentially behaviourist understanding of learning amounted to a 'habit' approach to language. Competence was gained through practice, errors were eliminated by intensive drilling. Teacher training, in this case, meant giving individuals prescribed exercises and technical know-how to enable learners to practise. Even in the 1960s many viewed this application of scientific theoryoften derived from psychological testingto educational practice with suspicion. The British philosopher, Paul Hirst, was amongst the most influential. Hirst argued that it was simply not appropriate to regard educational theory in the same way as scientific theory. Scientific theory may tell you how to mend your car, or what to do if you have appendicitis, but it cannot tell you how to teach a perfect lesson. This is simply because the human world is not like the physical world: it does not behave in a tightly predictable way. Hirst accepted that science could give us insights into the way pupils learn, but claimed that we could not simply extrapolate findings directly to practice. He posited that we should think of 'educational theory' as an intermediary between scientific theory and practice. Moreover, rather than look to the pure sciencesfor example, empirical psychologyfor answers, we needed to adopt the human sciences, as it is these, in their applied form, which provide teachers with principles of practice. It could be argued that just as physics uses mathematics but results in distinctive, validated scientific statements, so educational theory uses philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc. and issues in distinctive, validated educational practice. (Hirst, 1966: 49) Hirst's approach might be expressed as:

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In other words, it was an amalgamation of the applied academic subjects of sociology, psychology, philosophy and history that formed and developed educational theory from which individuals made practical choices about what and how to teach. For instance, this meant giving trainees a thorough grounding in the foundational subjects as a way of developing their teaching skills. We might call it the 'foundational approach' to teacher training. Such a perspective is tantamount to arguing that teachers must also be sociologists, psychologists, historians and philosophers of education. It is this view which predominated in the design of teachers' training courses in England and Wales during the 1960s, 1970s and into the 1980s. In the early part of this period, at least, such an approach was aimed at quality teaching in grammar schools, where a classical-humanist approach to education reigned. As such it was perfectly appropriate. For the rest, teacher training did not become obligatory until the 1970s. Those graduates who trained therefore met theory, those who did not did not. When training did become a necessary entry requirement into teaching, it became questionable whether the same foundational approach was applicable in school contexts. Moreover, a divide formed between educational studies, as represented by the foundation subjects, and subject knowledgefor our purposes, modern languages teaching and learning. So much was this the case, that while students followed courses in sociology, psychology and philosophy of education little direct connection was made between these and their subject application, which, in the 1960s and 1970s at least remained at an applied scientific levelin other words, behavioural and audio-lingual. But, there are other reasons for questioning the 'educational theory' view of teacher education. Hirst's scheme remains essentially one of applied science; that is, empirical data worked on through the human sciences is claimed to provide the basic rationale for what to do with pupils in the classroom. What both the 'craft model' and that of 'applied science' have in common (in Hirst's view) is that, in their claims to general applicability, they necessarily ignore many of the practical, context-dependent particularities of classroom teaching itself. Site So far, the models of training I have referred to seem to exist independently of any situational context. In the craft model, teaching site is the significant factor in gaining pedagogic competence. Any training

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institution would have only a peripheral role under such a scheme. This is not the case in the 'applied science' or 'educational theory' model. Here, there is a focus of expertise deriving from specialist research which is passed on to trainees to help them guide their practice, as if this can be developed in general, free from reference to the particularities of people and place. However, we know from available research and experience that the site of training has a crucial effect on the way trainees think and act. Lacey (1977), coming from a 'professionalisation as socialisation' direction shows how a number of adjustments have to be made by trainees when they enter a school; and presumably a teaching training institution. In other words, the theory and practice they meet does not exist in a vacuum but is, in fact, characteristic of the school in which they find themselves. Strategies are developed as a way of managing the situational adjustment necessary to operate in a particular school. A 'successful' trainee is consequently one who socialises well into a particular establishment. This may be a welcome and necessary feature of learning to operate effectively in the new professional environment. And yet there are dangers in this process. For example, under a craft model of teacher education, a trainee may merely adopt an individual's or particular school's approach to teaching; one with very little relevance to another context, or lacking in broader insight which will allow for effective teaching elsewhere. Similarly, in the 'applied science' model, the scientific theory presented may sound very plausible in an academic context when backed with research evidence, but practical experience with methods derived from such theory may be disappointing or run counter to the theory itself. Equally, as is often the case, there may be both a theoretical and practical mismatch between school and the training institution. In this case, a socialisation metaphor explains why students' apparent progressivism during training is abandoned once they are placed in schools and they revert to traditional behaviours and beliefs about teaching irrespective of the methods they have been trained to use (cf. Hanson & Herrington, 1976). Theory and method are institutionally embedded, not contextually neutral. Theory and Practice Related to this issue of site context is the question of theory and practice, and the association of each with a particular location. There is some evidence to suggest that teachers regard their own 'craft knowledge' as of principal importance in the theory/practice divide. This is unsurprising. Teaching is an intense and personally enveloping activity. Talk about it, especially in abstract terms, can never capture the totality of the experience. Elliott (1991) argues that theory undermines the authenticity of teachers'

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craft knowledge. Teachers are necessarily context-bound and have to confront the everyday realities of school and schooling. Theory seems too unreal, and so teachers resist it. In these terms, trainees have often also criticised their training courses for being 'too theoretical'. Such views were expressed in reports of the Department of Education and Science (DES, 1982, 1988) when the 'foundational model' of teacher education was at its height, and it is perhaps easy to see how courses in the academic fields of sociology, psychology and philosophy were unlikely to appeal to trainees preoccupied with how to survive and appear effective with large groups of children in often less than ideal conditions. However, even with more practical forms of methodology, it is perhaps not uncommon to hear students state that 'it is all very well in theory'. Theoretical models of teaching can then be seen as too detached from the real world by both teachers and trainees alike. Practice is all. But practice can remain static without ideals to work towards. It is unsurprising, therefore, if artificial divisions arise and a common belief that, in the words of Waller (quoted in Lieberman & Miller, 1992: 109) 'practice is naturally conservative, theory naturally progressive'. Clearly, 'theory' is a highly ambiguous term with more than one meaning; and real knowledge of a user's relationship to the word is necessary before any resolution to this ambiguity can be made. However, 'theoretical', in terms of a sort of misrecognised polysemy, is often used in an everyday sense to mean 'distanced from practical occurrences'. Personnel So far I have argued that both the craft and the applied science models of initial teacher education do not give a sufficient account of the contexts for training. Similarly, there are important relations to theory and practice implicated in such models that remain problematic. A foundational approach to teacher training does set out to bridge the gap between theory and practice, research and educators, but we have seen how the final result is no less divisive. Such models are simply models: no more. If they are seen as context-neutral, the same could be said for those involved in training. Individuals enter training complete with their own personal histories. Teachers were pupils once. We know that teachers' attitudes to teaching are heavily shaped by how they were taught (Koster, 1993). Such experiences provide the basis for ways of acting and thinking in the teaching contexts (Calderhead & Robson, 1990). This disposition towards one way or another must come not only from trainees' experiences as pupils but also as students. In the case of modern languages trainees, they have learnt a second language by various direct and indirect means. Their own

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success, and to what they attribute it, must shape their view on how languages should be taught and learnt. Moreover, trainees are not simply subject specialists, but approach teaching with their own personal and professional biographies (cf. Goodson, 1992). Again, these experiences will condition views of teachers, teaching, pupils and schools. Dispositions, prejudices, motives: all of these will impact on trainees' attempts in gaining professional pedagogic competence. This centrality of individual biography is no less true for trainers. They too once learnt a second language; trained in a methodology; worked as teachers. They come with their own dispositions, prejudices, motives, and, of course, intentions in training others to teach. It is easy to see how biographical differences may be a help or a hindrance in training. What if the 'expert practitioner' to which a trainee is assigned is coming from a different personal context? What if more than one expert is used but they differ in what they advocate? What if the preoccupations of an institution-based trainer are different from the practising teacher? What if they are simply too involved in the applied science from which their methodology is derived? What if such methods are out of step with those in schools? Early research conducted in America by Fuller and Bown (1975) shows up this dichotomy. In this case, trainers were accused of not coming from the same direction as trainees, and thus having different agendas. Trainees seek rapid fail-safe survival techniques; trainers wish to set a foundation for long-term development as a teacher. Even so, McWilliams (1992) reports on trainers' professional expertise leading to a progressivism which borders on idealism for students, who remain cautious and conservative about what is and is not possible in the classroom. It seems that the differences in trainees' and trainers' biographies results in their viewing the world through what Fox (1983) calls different 'metaphoric images'. Whatever the extent to which this may or may not be true in particular cases, it seems clear that behind the models of training offered, there are real relations which can facilitate, or not, the processes of teachers' initial professionalisation. For example, where trainees spend little time in schools as part of their training, it is probably more significant that trainers themselves are effective teachers than it is for systems of training where trainees spend extended periods of time working alongside teachers engaged in practical tasks in schools. Stages The final factor which must be taken into account when considering the above models of initial teacher education is the stage at which trainees enter their course. In other words, training programmes are created with an

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implicit route of progress built into them. It is common for researchers to refer to 'career cycles' (Huberman, 1993) of teachers, or to the phases in their professional learning (Elliott, 1993). These stages are marked by increasing autonomy in what goes on in the classroom and a more automatic, intuitive grasp of what needs to be done in order for teaching to occur. This is clearly the case with the novice or beginner teachers. Early on, they do not have a feel for how to move classes along and are dependent on their lesson plans. Later, given a certain amount of confidence with early successes, they relax somewhat, and are able to let pupils work on their own. Learning becomes more continuous and less viewed as a series of assignments. Finally, 'new' teachers act with a greater sense of achievement and see the classroom more as an integrated whole. It is necessary to ask how long each of these developments takes in a typical trainee's case; is it realistic to expect them to move much beyond the early stages? Trainees' early preoccupations are with social order or classroom control and managing academic work (cf. Kagan, 1992; Fuller & Bown, 1975; Carter & Doyle, 1987). The first acquires a more nebulous ability to get on with pupils and command their respect; the second, a clear notion of teaching objectives and the means to achieve them. The question is, so far, to what extent can these skills be picked up on the job or be conveyed through instruction. The point in their development that a trainee has reached will alter their agenda and set their immediate preoccupations. What a trainee thinks or feels at one stage will change at another. It may be, for example, that at one time working alongside another teacher simply does not match their need to gain greater individual autonomy. Similarly, focusing on prescribed teaching methodology or educational principles may not easily connect with trainees' practical and managerial concerns. Trainees' traditional criticism of theory and the training institutions which present it have to be read with some sensitivity. For example, Hanson and Herrington (1976) note that three-quarters of their sample of trainees, who were most critical of their training course were themselves subsequently rated low by their headteachers. Bennett et al. (1993) actually see trainees' satisfaction with their courses fall when viewed retrospectively after teaching practice. They conclude that trainee dissatisfaction may be more a reflection of trainee stresses and strains and perceived lack of success than an evaluation of their teacher training course itself. This brief discussion makes it clear that the models of teacher education presented so far pay insufficient attention to the context of training, to those involved in it, to procedural aspects of gaining pedagogic competence and the in situ relationship between the practice of teaching and writing and talking about it. Moreover, there is an uneasy relationship between

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particular method skills, in our case of teaching modern languages, and everything else it takes to be an effective teacher in the classroom. Tensions which began to become apparent during the 1970s have not yet been resolved. By the 1980s, it was clear that the applied science and foundational subject approach to teacher training did not do enough to capture the relational, practical induction into training. New models have sprung into prominence in response to perceived tensions and inadequacies of previous approaches; for example, the reflective practitioner. The Reflective Practitioner The notion of reflection and the metaphor of the reflective practitioner have had great influence in thinking about teacher education in the 1980s and 1990s. A topographical survey of initial training institutions in England and Wales conducted in 1992 reported that: 'Almost three-quarters of respondents described their course as being based on a ''reflective practitioner" model' (Barrett et al., 1992: 25). Reflection as embedded in and constituting professional practice contrasts markedly with the scientific applied theory approach to teacher education. The term the 'reflective practitioner' has been given popular currency by Donald Schön (1983,1987) in his books with the same title. In place of the 'applied science' approach, Schön offers a new 'epistemology of practice' which is predicated on a holistic, creative view of the relationship between professionals and their practical contexts. In other words, professionals, teachers, do not act or solve problems in a linear manner, as in the way a plumber might fix a leaking pipe. Rather, they operate according to general schemes of practice, which are developed over time, and which can be adapted for particular contexts. What this means in reality is that 'problematic' situations are 'framed', whilst both the aims and possible means are held together relationally. Much of this goes on tacitly or unconsciously as 'knowledge in action', that is, knowledge of how to act that is only activated in practice. New situations are made sense of from the interplay between old and new experiences. Unfamiliar aspects of these new situations are made sense of through the identification of familiar, general characteristics in them. Schön insists that such a process is far from unproblematic; indeed, initial moves to deal with situations give rise to new phenomena which themselves are problematic and have to be responded to. Essentially, however, professional knowledge is experientially grounded as attempts are made to understand and respond to the demands of situations. Schön also distinguishes different sorts of reflection. Reflection-in-action is embedded in automatic, tacit knowledge because of time constraints. Reflection-on-action takes place when time allows and professionals such as teachers stand back to

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examine what they do and what others write about them, and to re-formulate and re-problematise their working knowledge of classrooms. Reflection and the reflective practitioner are powerful metaphors; certainly ones which ring true to many involved in professional training. But do they exist in reality? Is reflection anything more than a romantic notion? We all reflect in a manner. We do not walk down the street without setting in place a whole set of explicit and implicit know-how and knowledge bases. We learn from experience, we anticipate, we act with intent and adjust accordingly as we go along. In other words, human beings are by nature reflective creatures. Is the 'reflective practitioner' therefore anything more than a truism, the product of previously simplistic models to link instruction and practice? Does it have sufficient weight to base an entire system of teacher training on it, as appears to be the case in England? We could note that the same issues I raised in the context of the 'craft model' and 'applied science' model of teachers' education might equally be applied to the reflective practitioner. In other words, reflection is context and person bound. On what and how trainees reflect in schools must be different from reflection in a training institution. Moreover, even these two sites are multifarious. For example, training courses are made up of differing components: subject methodology courses, or more general professional aspects. There are many things besides pupils and teaching to reflect upon in schools. It is not certain whether a reflective practitioner model makes the theory/practice balance any clearer. What are trainees to reflect on: concrete ideas or experiential practice? And in what proportions? Writers such as Liston and Zeichner (1991) want such reflection to be on socio-historic conditions, but it is not evident to what extent initial trainees are capable of making such connections, still less willing to do this when faced with the immediate demands of teaching and controlling classes. Yet, reflection on a practical issue such as methodology may not be formative at all, but simply lead to a rejection or unquestioning acceptance of current pedagogic approaches. Furthermore, it is clear that reflection is dependent on the individuals. Some trainees may not be reflective at all in any explicit sense, or so reflective that they become overly self-critical and unable to act. Reflection may also happen as a personal, private activity or in pairs or larger groups in a more formal and overt way. Such interactive reflections involve the dispositions, prejudices and motives I wrote about earlier; of style, technique and approach. Reflection in itself is unlikely to resolve differences or develop thinking positively where there is matching agreement; for example, where there is methodological consensus or disagreement. Finally, reflection and the scope for it must change over time. What there

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is to reflect upon grows in line with experience as this too grows. A highly competent and experienced professional will have much to draw upon after several years teaching. There will be many similarities between present and past events, unusual circumstances will be rare. This is not so for the initial trainee. Most will be new, each situation will be different. Moreover, the object of reflection will change in the light of present preoccupations. For example, a first visit to a school will involve impressions of environment, noise, material surroundings, etc. Once familiarity has been gained with these, and they become less noticeable, there is more mental space to notice other thingsorganisational structures, resources, curricular issuesand make comparisons. This top-down reflection of material surroundings is met by a bottom-up reflection on actual class teaching. Something is gained by watching others, but do trainees' criticisms here feed directly into improved personal practice? It is easy to criticise, less easy to do oneself. Objective lesson-planning becomes an aspect of conscious control of teaching situations. The gap between actualisation and intent too is an object of reflection. However, such reflections are themselves time dependent: some are immediate and implicit, others are retrospective, explicit and judgemental. Still others come about only after some considerable time-lag and involve a great deal of introspection. It must be said that many of these possibilities are absent in Schön's model of the reflective practitioner, or only implied. His version is much more instrumental, where professional competence is developed against a background of four constraints: the media or language of reflection; individuals' appreciative systems; theories available; and the roles taken and the institutional frameworks around which tasks are set. However, the development of professional knowledge is seen as a fairly linear process, unproblematic and impersonal. Adler (1991) found this approach too 'utilitarian' as it is based on a narrowly defined notion of the competent professional: one who performs a task. Day (1993) criticises Schön for failing to deal with the dialogic, discursive dimension of reflection, and for Cornbleth (1987) the reflective practitioner is simply a 'myth'. Why then is it so popular? Faced with dichotomies of theory and practice, and schools and training institutions, it is appealing to adopt a system which apparently avoids setting up hierarchical and static relations in training. Moreover, it suggests that professional competence is gained as part of an autonomous process; in other words, one in which an individual has some personal control. It is therefore a democratic version of the professional. Yet, apart from the fact that experience and learning necessarily involve some degree of reflection, is there enough in this model to base a system of training on? Besides the points I raise above, there are questions about how

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and when reflection should take place, and whether there is genuinely a personal choice in what to do on the basis of conclusions drawn from reflection. Most training takes place in real time, which is always limited. In other words, there may simply not be sufficient time for quality reflection to take place. Moreover, is it feasible for initial trainees to be actively reflective in a cause/effect manner? Trainees' early attempts at teaching clearly involve them gaining control over their professional livesboth inside and outside the classroom. Reflection can be disruptive to this search for security and stability, and is 'effortful' (cf. McIntyre, 1991). It is therefore possible for reflection to be a useful tool for a professional with well-established routines wishing to make changes. However, the trainees' first task is to develop patterns of action which could lead to pedagogical routines. Reflection may be of a different character for them and perform a different purpose. The reflective practitioner metaphor does begin to open up issues about what constitutes professional knowledge, and the processes involved in its development from a personal point of view. It also begins to address the complexities involved in the relationship between knowledge and action. Some knowledge is conscious and explicit; other knowledge is embedded, implicit and unconscious. Much thinking about action, both prospectively and retrospectively, may indeed be tacit. It is to these ways of knowing, the relationship between them and the places they occur, that I now want to turn. Ways of Knowing/Places to Know Them Earlier in this chapter I raised the issue of the relationship between theory and practice in an educational context. The applied science model's approach of the 1950s and 1960s stressed the need to provide scientific evidence in order to develop theories about how pupils learn. It told teachers what to do. Teacher training then entailed the importing of this explicit knowledge; acquiring the necessary skills and techniques. The rise of educational theory and the foundational approach in the 1960s blurred this relationship. Some aspects of learning to teach, especially subject specialism, remained instrumental and instructional. However, pedagogic competence was deemed to be mainly acquired through the study of the foundational subjects; for example, sociology, philosophy, psychology and history. Educational theory, then, was in some ways made up of a number of social scientific theories, of which trainees were assumed to make their own synthesis in order to guide their practice. Traditional attitudes to both scientific and educational theory resisted this hierarchy, which put practice in the subordinate position and attributed status to research and theory concerning how to teach and learn. Such a view would reverse the Hirst hierarchy given earlier thus:

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Here, methodology is derived from practice, which lays claim to authenticity with respect to teaching and learning over and knowledge derived from the human sciences. The popularity of the 'reflective practitioner' metaphor and its adoption in so many training courses can partly be explained as an attempt to escape from this toing and froing between the elements of theory and practice. Here, professional knowledge is developed through personal, context-bound practice, and reflection on a range of issues and practical items. Such reflection is holistic, synthetic and of varying degrees of explicitness. What is clear is that some of this reflection is, in some respects, no less theoretical than more objective, scientific theory. But this personal theory is more fundamental, individual and implicitly expressed in practice. No one, teacher or otherwise, plans or carries out activity without some rationale or reason for doing so. This is the nature of any fundamental educational theory. It is expressed in a highly individualistic way, is time and context dependent, and developmental. It is derived from tacit knowledge that is acquired in practical activity, classroom 'horse-sense', if you like, and which is also continuously shaped by it. The relationship might be expressed thus:

Here, the arrows are drawn both ways to avoid a hierarchical view of these forms of knowledge, theory and practice. In other words, they are virtually co-terminous. However, conceptually at least, these are extreme positions to take at any one time and place. Practice is practice, after all, and what teachers can think when teaching is clearly limited by the immediacy of what is occurring in the classroom. Macleod and McIntyre (1977) estimate there are up to 1000 personal exchanges each day in a teacher's life. And the operational factors in teaching a single lesson are clearly multifarious. This is the venue for immanent reflection (on action) and the application of tacit knowledge. Fundamental theory, on the other hand, is those statements of rationale and practice that teachers make about their teaching: what they think they know about teaching. This reflection on action is not random. It has a rationale that is consistent over a period of time. It also shares aspects with other teachers' practice. It is this commonality and

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consistency which makes it by nature general and theoretical. It is predictive, descriptive and open to modification in the light of further experience with it. So far in this chapter I have used a lot of terms in talking about teaching practice, educational theory, tacit knowledge, fundamental educational theory, the human science and scientific theory. It is time to link these in some way and explain my position. I want to do this firstly by positioning these terms on a triangular structure in order to make their relationship explicit (see Figure 1).

Figure 1 Based on a discussion by Vandenberg (1974) It may be helpful to give a definition of each of the points in the diagram before discussing its totality. Practice is current classroom teaching. It involves everyone and everything located there. It may also involve the planning and production of lessons and material resources. Tacit Knowledge is all that goes unspoken in operating in practice. It is that 'unconscious', implicit horse-sense or know-how which can never be fully articulated. By nature it is immanent in practice; in other words, it is activated or comes into being as part of the process of engaging in a pedagogic situation.

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Fundamental Educational Theory is a partial articulation of this tacit knowledge. However, it may include explicit beliefs, routines, and motives in shaping practice. Some of these may also draw on explicit educational theory from elsewhere in the diagram, but always in a highly personal or individualistic way. The extent of the theoretical nature of these articulations will be determined by their consistency and commonality with others. Educational Theory (Principles) is a formal expression of 'knowledge that is organised for determining some practical activity' (Hirst, 1966). In other words, it is the means by which we might make choices to affect and determine what happens in teaching. It is formal in that it is not personalised or context-dependent but aims at producing generalisable principles of practice. Human Sciences (Scientific Theory) relates to educational theory by providing it with research evidence and scientific theory to justify such generalisable principles. Such knowledge can be seen as an end in itself obtained by specialist researchers and writers who have no necessary practical intent. It forms the base of human social sciences and aims to develop empirical truths. A practical illustration of this hypothetical diagram should help to make those concepts clear (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

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In this illustration, recent trends in foreign language teaching, using an essentially communicative approach, provide the principles of practice that would be educational theory. In the same way as, during the 1960s and 1970s, sociology, psychology, history and philosophy gave rise to educational theory, in this present case, applied linguistics, sociology of language, linguistic psychology and philosophy give shape to communicative language teaching (CLT) principles. In this sense, CLT represents an approach rather than a method. However, as the audiovisual methods of the 1950s and 1960s illustrate, the relationship between the parent discipline (human sciences) and educational theory (methodology) may be much more direct, linear and prescriptive. The rest of the diagram remains as before, except that each term refers to language education; for example, practice is now the explicit activity of modern language teaching. What is important in Figure 2 is that these forms of knowledge are conceptualised as being distinct but interrelated. This is why they are linked by arrows going both ways. In other words, there is dialogue between them. So fundamental educational theory relates to tacit knowledge and practice which feed back and shape such theorising. But these theories also connect with the formal (educational theoretical) principles of practice which guide teaching, in this case of communicative language teaching, in a negative and positive way, and providing an assessment of each in the light of experience with them. Similarly, these methodological principles of practice connect with the empirical research which formed their rationale, and observation of the practical efforts to operationalise it in the classroom; for example, the way that target language use is partly advocated by socio/psycholinguistic research and is evident in oral approaches to classroom activities. Essential to the diagram is the notion that any individual can occupy only one point at one time. Teachers cannot teach and talk about teaching or carry out formal research into its processes at one and the same time. Similarly, researcher knowledge is predicated on a field of knowledge different from that of actually teaching. This means researchers will see more of some aspects of the teaching process than a teacher will see, but less of others according to their own dispositions. However, it is one thing to state this separation of persons and activity and quite another to maintain that none of those involved can communicate with the others. These positions are not intended to be hierarchical; neither are they meant to express static relationships. I would argue that, quite on the contrary, positions within the diagram are fluid and about individuals travelling to and fro along the arrows of particular times and places. Indeed, 'travelling' is an essential part of professional development. Trainees need to experi-

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ence a range of sorts of theory which give rise to reflective and analytic activity and hence professional development as a teacher. They need 'sight' of them all. Opportunities must be provided, therefore, to facilitate this travelling. Moreover, we need to recognise that such travelling necessarily entails points of departure, transition, arrival and return. These points themselves exist in time and placeschool, training institution and procedural stage in professional training. The implications of this diagram to the policy and practice of initial teacher education are important on various accounts. Firstly, we can see that the models of training outlined earlier in this chapter give only a partial picture of the totality of processes involved in training. The Craft or Apprenticeship model, for example, seems to ignore both a formal and informal expression of educational theory. Tacit knowledge is ignored, or at least deemed to be obviously accessible through contact and observation. Fundamental educational theory is left underdeveloped in any systematic or common sense. In this model, practice is all: the rest is individual. The Applied Science model, on the other hand, concerns itself with the left-hand side of the diagram. Methodological prescription is seen as a one-way process. Even if we introduce the notion of educational theory and principles of practice derived from social science research, the model presents initial teacher education as telling trainees what to do. There is little place for a compensatory, backwards movement: from practice to theory. The Reflective Practitioner model seems to solve the ambiguous position of formal theories and research in relation to practice by ignoring it. The reflective practitioner would seem to be 'travelling' up and down the left-hand side of the diagram with very little dialogue with the other positions, or types of theory about education, at all. He/she is a sort of self-contained craftsman and apprentice in one, untroubled by formal enquiries into the professional activity. This triangular model, on the other hand, acknowledges that, in professional training, there will be aspects of all three modelsCraft, Applied Science and Reflective Practitionerand that each of these has an equal status and necessarily will be involved in some aspect of the training process. The second feature to note about the diagram is that each of the positions is invested in particular individuals. In other words, these are not abstract notions but embodied by individuals reacting to each other and their world. Teachers are teachers, researchers are researchers, and theorists will theorise, but their interests are common: education. Dialogue is a structuring feature of the model I am proposing. However, it is important to acknowledge that, by definition, individuals come into the triangle with

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different perspectives based on separate experiences, preoccupations and intentions, and with preferences for different types of theory. My third point is that those involved in this training triangle have individual differences. Besides different professional agendas, they are at different procedural stages in their careers. Thus, an experienced teacher may have a good deal of practical competence and tacit know-how about teaching. However, they may have previously communicated about this in only the most basic way, which makes passing 'information' to the trainee difficult. Similarly, the experienced researcher may have expert knowledge of their field, but never operationalised this knowledge by teaching. Questions and issues are thus generated in a highly abstract and idealistic form and articulated in a specialist language. The trainee is caught between these: they have little experience of practice and thus tacit knowledge and fundamental educational theory to work from. Similarly, they have little knowledge of principles of practice, and the research underpinning them; and these may seem disconnected from what they feel they have to do. In other words, the dialogue I am proposing is bound to take place in an environment that is by nature unequal: not in status or importance but in the quantitative and qualitative character of professional knowledge embodied in those involved. Fourthly, I would emphasise that these individual differences also imply institutional structures that are by nature very different and will vary over time. Trainees and those involved in training cannot be in two places at one time. They are either in school or the training institution. The sorts of activities I am alluding to in the diagram often imply a particular institutional setting. Practice will invariably be school-based; research more likely in an establishment charged with carrying it out. Which is not to say that any one individual cannot come out of one place and move to another; either temporarily or permanently. However, there are difficulties in making effective use of these transitions for trainees' learning. The final point concerning the training triangle is that theory and practice are now constructed as part of a vastly more complex phenomenon than the bipolar pair presented earlier in this chapter. Practice, for example, seems to be linked to theory, various types of theory, in a multitude of ways. Theory has different forms; is immanent in time and place; has links to practice and deeper theory through its different dimensions of operation. Conclusions The question of theory and practice, in some respects, is irresolvable. And it is an issue returned to later in this book. Various ways of viewing training are based on concepts and judgements that often have given only

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a partial view of the complexities involved. There are deep-seated differences between teaching and talk about teaching, which have been more formally expressed as the theory/practice divide. Moreover, each of these terms involves a complex series of ways of acting and knowing. There are degrees of implicitness and explicitness, and, always, individual personal and context-bound differences. Constructing a view about the way to train teachers takes place in this space of partial images and conflicting forces. Much of how we train often seeks to limit such conflicts and to work only with those elements of teacher education which are least incongruous. Training itself is a practical activity, and talk about it an abstraction. The models discussed above make this clear. Behind them, there are real people and real places. Moreover, although it is clear that any one individual teacher's pedagogic competence involves their own personalities and practical disposition, they are, first and foremost, subject specialists. So far this subject specialism has formed only a supporting role in my discussion. I shall address this issue in the next chapter, where I also consider ways of understanding the processes and outcomes of initial teacher education.

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Chapter 3 Teacher Education: Conflicting Metaphors 'Conflicting metaphors' in this chapter's title refer to concepts which, in many respects, are incommensurate with each other, but which have often been used to explain how it is that trainees become teachers. In the previous chapter, I made a distinction between theory and practice, different types of theory and practice, and the role of reflection in each of these. Good teachers clearly access each of the points of the triangle of training I set out. But this range of activity and thought does not come over night. It arises from a developing professional knowledge or pedagogic competence. This chapter is about ways that are available to discuss this end product; in brief, what makes a good teacher. However, in order to place my discussion within its originating, real-life background, I want to start the chapter with reference to recent policy reform in initial teacher education in England. Issues raised here will also be taken up in the concluding chapter of the book where specific practical recommendations for training are made. Policy Reforms It is not difficult to understand how the models for teacher education outlined in the previous chapter would produce specific policy prescriptions from those with authority to determine the means of early teacher professionalisation. Thus, a 'craft' or 'apprenticeship' model will give rise to a policy of initial teacher education which places trainees in schools. An 'applied science' or 'foundational' model will obviously stress the input of formal training institutions and an instructional approach to pedagogy. A 'reflective practitioner' model downgrades formal instruction and lays the emphasis on time for personal activity and reflection. Of course, these approaches cannot be set tightly into a chronological time sequence of shifts in actual training policy. Nevertheless, each has somewhat superseded the other in terms of conceptual development and as guiding metaphors for

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the programmes of initial teacher education we have seen in the past 50 years or so. Yet, there is sometimes a considerable time-lag between the way writers and researchers have conceptualised the processes of teacher training and the production of policy for its implementation in practice. The extended influence of the 'craft' or 'apprenticeship' model can be seen in the way that no formal qualification in education was compulsory to teach in the UK until the 1970s. The foundational approach was based on a view of educational theory which was at its height in the middle to late 1960s. Nevertheless, it continued to predominate in teacher education courses well into the 1980s and long after doubt had been cast; sometimes by those who initiated it (cf. Hirst, 1974) on its efficacy. This time-lag between theory and practice has an excellent example in modern languages teaching, where audiolingual methods, mostly based on a behaviourist view of language learning, were being advocated into the 1980s, despite the undermining of this approach by the Chomskyan revolution in linguistics which was announced in the late 1950s. Similarly, the rampant rise of the 'reflective practitioner' metaphor as a guide for training practice in the 1990s seems to have occurred again in parallel with severe reservations expressed by researchers and policy makers about its applicability. To take England and Wales as a case example, there existed a long-standing traditional laisser-faire attitude to teacher education. In the late 1960s, a would-be teacher in a Grammar school (11-18 selective for top ability) studied for a subject degree and had the option of a one-year post-graduate training course. An intending primary or secondary-modern school (11-18 lower ability pupils not selected for Grammar schools) teacher would undertake a Certificate of Education course over several years at a teacher training college. In the 1970s, with the development of comprehensive schools (all ability and non-selective) and a wider range of examinations at 16, teachers' specialist knowledge was prioritised and a graduate teaching profession seen as desirable. The training that was now given was mainly organised and implemented by non-university colleges of education. The four-year undergraduate Bachelor of Education became the norm. However, for the past 25 years, and initiated by key players in the educational theory discourse at the time, the one-year post-graduate course has been the common entry into the profession for those intending to teach. Traditionally, the Post-graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) was regarded as a sandwich: one term based primarily in the training institution or university; a term of block teaching practice where the trainee might take up to two-thirds of a normal teacher's timetable; and a further term back in the Higher Education Institution (HEI). The first and third terms invariably

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involved day release in schools. The HEI courses combined a mixture of subject specialist sessions on methodology and more general professional studies. In the most innovative institutions, practice orientated activities such as microteaching (cf. Brumfit 1979) were offered as a means of integrating theory and practice. Over the past couple of decades these latter studies have become less 'foundational' and more practical and applied in orientation; moving from the study, for example, of the sociology of education to pursuit of issues like the teacher and the Law, or Special Educational Needs policy. However, this gradual evolution in style and content of the PGCE is nothing compared with recent reforms in teacher training. In January 1992 the Minister for Education, Kenneth Clarke, then announced a major reform in initial teacher education. The main thrust of this reform (DES, 1992) was to downgrade the role of HEI in training, make courses comparatively more school-based, and emphasise the practical, 'non-theoretical' elements of teachers' professional knowledge and competence. Known as school-based teacher training, it was for schools, not training institutions, to take the leading role in the planning, organisation and content choices of trainee school experience and particularly of classroom practice. Two-thirds of trainees' time was to be spent in 'school-based' activities. This school-centred focus was also matched in the changing roles of those involved in training. HEI-based tutors, who had traditionally visited trainees during their block-teaching practice and taken the leading role in their professional development and assessment, adopted an increasingly monitoring function in training. School-based colleagues were nominated as mentors, with the specific brief of working alongside trainees in their operations in schools and carrying out formative and summative assessments. HEI tutors monitor and moderate the supportive and assessment role of school colleagues. The relationship between schools and training institutions was redefined. Traditionally, links had been informal, often based on personal contacts and non-remunerative for schools. All this changed. Official contracts were drawn up and signed by parties entering into partnership with each other. Trainee, school and HEI entitlements in terms of time and resources were explicitly stated, roles carefully delineated. Substantial finance was transferred from HEIs to schools. All of this reform came about through statutory backed policy initatives from the governmental department for education (DFE) in the face of often open hostility and expressed doubt from those involved in training; both schools and HEIs. Neither did this restructuring remain at an organisational level. The monitoring and accreditation of training had traditionally

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been carried out by an autonomous professional body of appointees from those involved; the Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (CATE). In 1995, this responsibility, along with control of funding, passed to the newly established national body of government appointees, the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), who were charged with carrying out the detail of this major reform in initial teacher education. The advantage of such change is that it offers clarity and decisiveness where traditionally there has been doubt and vagueness. Nevertheless, it is not change which is conceptually or politically neutral. Initial teacher education (ITE) reform generally, but particularly this 1992 UK change, is predicated on a certain way of viewing the professional teacher and the skills they develop and apply. As my discussion in the previous chapter showed, pedagogic professionalism is sophisticated and complex, multifaceted and context-dependent. How can we understand professionalism of this type? Recent UK reforms in initial teacher training are based on a simple, clear answer to this question: 'good' teachers are defined in terms of what they can do rather than what they know. In the next part of this chapter I want to discuss in more detail what others have proposed and found out about the ways teachers think and actthe end-product of teacher education: the ways teachers think and act; what it is to be a professional and what makes teachers work. Understanding Teaching There is a common-sense view of teachers as professionals which links them to a life-style and code of conduct appropriate for a particular socio-economic group. This understanding of what it is to be a professional does, however, rather pass over questions concerning how one becomes a professional, what attributes are needed and to what extent individuals acquire or are born with them. And behind these questions there are further issues about the nature of professional knowledge, the professional culture, and the characteristics of some professions compared with others. In this section, I want to allude briefly to two approaches to understanding the profession of teaching. The first I shall call the 'socialisation' tradition; the second the 'craft knowledge' tradition. Teacher socialisation In order to understand a profession such as teaching as a form of socialisation it is necessary to see a professional group as representing a cohesive in-group with a distinctive culture. In other words, particular professional individuals share a common set of beliefs, attitudes, practices and day-to-day activities. Early work on professions attributed these

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commonalities to inherent traits which individuals held and which led to their becoming such or such a professional in keeping with their natural characteristics. Such a view drew parallels with a functionalist view of the world which regarded society as an organic whole in which individuals were accorded their place in keeping with their natural gifts. Clearly, this did somewhat overlook the traits of birth, or childhood, in which the necessary characteristics required for entry into a profession were acquired as a result of education or family background. Unsurprisingly, therefore, this essentially positivist view of the professional no longer holds much water, and has been increasingly attacked, not least by researchers on education, for its 'static, ahistoric' conceptualisation (cf. Ginsburg, 1988). Another major influence on understanding teaching as a profession came from work in the early 1960s in the USA from sociologists of the so-called symbolic interactionist school. The term does rather speak for itself and encompasses how individuals interact with each other and according to what values and codes. A seminal study of doctors (Becker et al., 1961), for example, portrayed their training as the developing influence on those individuals involved of a university structure which extended into professional life and created a uniform culture. By looking at this culture, it is possible to see that ways of acting are formed which culminate in a way of being which pervades the whole of someone's life. Again, extended versions of this approach have been ready to attribute a particular social culture within the professional culture. In the case of teaching, the duality of structures between schools and schooling and, the essentially class-based ruling culture backing it up, have been the focus of interest of many researchers (cf. Althusser, 1971; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Bowles & Gintis, 1974; Giddens, 1979; Ginsburg, 1988). It is the critical side of the functionalist coin. Irrespective of the positive or negative aspects of its processes, the socialisation approach to teaching as a profession does emphasise the individual with respect to institutional forms and the types of cultures implied by them. To apply this perspective to initial teacher education, is to see trainees' induction into a professional life-style which is organised and managed in a particular way. It is not necessary to view such an induction as the beginnings of the 'proletarianisation of teachers through the intensification of work pace, rigidification of division of labour and routination of work tasks' (Ginsburg, 1988: 90), to understand such a move as having a profound impact on the individual making it. Such a picture is offered by Lacey (1977) in his seminal work The Socialisation of Teachers, referred to in Chapter 2. In that study, trainees are represented by the extent to which they converge or diverge from the target pedagogic culture, and do so

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through the adoption of a series of strategies, developed in the light of initial experiences in schools. Such experience has an existential intensity which can be near overwhelming, even for the eventually most successful trainee, and involve all sorts of conflicting demands, emotions and messages. Moreover, it is clear that such strategies involve making 'choices' about responding to the content of these experiences as a way of managing the psychological disturbance provoked by them. The outcome is the emergence of a professional school-based culture, but not one that is uniform. Specific subject areas develop their own sub-culture of preoccupations and ways of seeing the world. Such a culture for modern languages teachers is described by Evans' (1988) Language People. What makes them different? Are they necessarily more tolerant, self-sufficient and sociable than others; is this their trait? Or is it the other way round? that learning a language, which necessarily involves extended periods of time abroad, makes them so? This chicken-and-egg argument is not easily resolvable. However, it does again raise the question of individual and collective attributes within a professional culture and the overlap between them. The emerging picture is of a complex institutional structure into which individuals enter with all their own biographic idiosyncrasies. The development of professional knowledge is both the process and the product of the interaction between these two. Such an interaction must involve questions of, on the one hand, methodology, theory and practice, and, on the other, of instruction and training. The socialisation approach to understanding professional teacher knowledge is often more poorly developed in these, more specific, aspects than is its conceptualisation of the overall processes involved. The socialisation approach has left others to enquire into the precise attitudes, beliefs and habits of practising teachers; in other words, their craft knowledge. Teachers' craft knowledge Craft knowledge of teachers has been defined as 'that which teachers acquire through their practical experience in the classroom' (Brown & McIntyre, 1993: 18). In effect, if the socialisation tradition of teacher education has been concerned with macro-structural issues and situational adjustments of in situ teaching, the craft knowledge approach is preoccupied with teacher thinking. Here, the cognitive psychology of teaching is of interest; in other words, teachers' thought processes and their link to observable activities in the classroom (cf. Clark & Peterson, 1986). From such research, we know that teachers do reflect, of course, in a number of different ways and on many aspects of teaching. Diamond (1991), for example, shows how teachers' personal ways of thinking about lessons

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show up in their routines and structures of lessons. Carter and Doyle (1987) relate aspects of lesson planning to issues of classroom management: teachers are aware to a greater or lesser extent of practical arguments for doing things in a certain way. The intention of such research is, by identifying the routine aspects of good teaching, to pass on details of teachers' 'edification' to those about to enter the profession: Continued research into teaching craft knowledge should, we hope, make it increasingly possible for student teachers to gain an extended theoretical understanding of its general nature and of its substance in relation to particular aspects of teaching, from reading and academic study. (Brown & McIntyre, 1993: 113) Such efforts to capture the reality of teaching as a way of objectifying it and so passing it on to those not yet in the know is not altogether dissimilar to the 'applied science' approach to teacher education, which was concerned with drafting specific features of how to teach as a means of inducting trainees into the necessary methodological techniques. The two approaches share two assumptions about teaching; firstly, that it is mainly concerned with pedagogy, or a technicist view of classroom activity; secondly, that it is possible to draft lists of technical skills in an explicit manner. The technicist view of teaching, where lessons are viewed as a series of prescribed procedures, has had increasing popularity in recent years, especially in the USA where curricula as well as individual lessons are often set out in an instrumental manner (cf. McGarvey & Swallows, 1986). It also underpins the rise of the competency-based approach to teacher education. Competency-based-teacher-education (CBTE) relies on the isolation and listing of these teacher competencies, and trainees' subsequent induction into how to use them. Indeed, the initial teacher reform discussed above (DES 1992) is predicated on a list of such competencies: 1. Subject Knowledge Newly qualified teachers should be able to demonstrate: (i) An understanding of the knowledge, concepts and skills of specialist subjects and the place of these subjects in the school curriculum. (ii) Knowledge and understanding of the National Curriculum and attainment targets (NCATs) and the programmes of study (POS) in the subjects they are preparing to teach, together with an understanding of the framework of the statutory requirements.

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(iii) A breadth and depth of subject knowledge extending beyond POS and examination syllabuses to school. 2. Subject Application Newly qualified teachers should be able to: (i) Produce coherent lesson plans which take account of NCATs and of the school's curriculum policies. (ii) Ensure continuity and progression within and between classes and in subjects. (iii) Set appropriately demanding expectations for pupils. (iv) Employ a range of teaching strategies appropriate to the age, ability and attainment level of pupils. (v) Present subject content in clear language and a stimulating manner. (vi) Contribute to the development of pupils' language and communication skills. (vii) Demonstrate ability to select and use appropriate resources, including Information Technology (IT). 3. Class Management Newly qualified teachers should be able to: (i) Decide when teaching the whole class, groups, pairs, or individuals is appropriate for particular learning purposes. (ii) Create and maintain a purposeful and orderly environment for the pupils. (iii) Devise and use appropriate rewards and sanctions to maintain an effective learning environment. (iv) Maintain pupils' interest and motivation. 4. Assessment and Recording of Pupils' Progress Newly qualified teachers should be able to: (i) Identify the current levels of attainment of individual pupils using NCATs, statements of attainment and end of key stage statements where applicable. (ii) Judge how well each pupil performs against the standard expected of a pupil of that age. (iii) Assess and record systematically the progress of individual pupils. (iv) Use such assessment in their teaching. (v) Demonstrate that they understand the importance of reporting to pupils on their progress and of marking their work regularly against agreed criteria.

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5. Further Professional Development Newly qualified teachers should have acquired in initial training the necessary foundation to develop: (i) an understanding of the school as an institution and its place within the community. (ii) A working knowledge of their pastoral, contractual, legal and administrative responsibilities as teachers. (iii) An ability to develop effective working relationships with professional colleagues and parents and to develop their communication skills. (iv) An awareness of individual differences, including social, psychological, developmental and cultural dimensions. (v) The ability to recognise diversity of talent, including that of gifted pupils. (vi) The ability to identify special educational needs and learning difficulties. (vii) A self-critical approach to diagnosing and evaluating pupils' learning, including a recognition of the effects of that learning on teachers' expectations. (viii)A readiness to promote the moral and spiritual well-being of pupils. (DES, 1992) The extreme difficulty of arriving at such a list is indicated by the frequency of re-formulations and revisions that have been needed in just four years since the initial advice (DES, 1992; Ofsted/TTA, 1996, a revision for primary training; TTA, 1997, the revision of secondary school training criteria). In some respects, such lists represent summative views of a competent teacher. Certainly they cover a wide range of potential teacher activity, and the points listed are helpful in making available to those involved in initial teacher education a checklist of competencies deemed necessary for successful teaching. They also add up to an explicit statement for assessment. To this extent, competencies democratise training and makes the detail of professional skills quite clear and available to all. Even radical sociologists such as Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) might well see such a list as a way of demystifying the culture of teacher knowledge that can veer towards professional protectionism. However, there are obviously also problems with the competencies listed. Firstly, it is not clear how they are devised or who drafts them. On the surface they seem to be tied into an instrumental view of teaching as represented by a particular national curriculum with its own methodological prescriptions. Similarly, the mix of subject specialism and wider pedagogic concerns seems imprecise. In other words, some elements on the list have a greater weighting than

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othersand is the whole considered to be greater than the sum of its parts? Moreover, how are the forms of knowing and reflection discussed earlier to be represented in the list? Not only how present are they in teaching, but to what extent are they observable in procedural terms? Furthermore, do they take account not only of the individual differences of trainees but the site contexts in which they find themselves? In other words, unlike inspection practice, where the school context is an essential element of any judgement of an experienced teacher, these competencies are offered as free-standing criteria for passing or failing individuals independent of the schools and departments within which they are trained. Little wonder, perhaps, that the list has attracted a good deal of criticism. BERA (1992: 17), for example, refer to the list as a 'conceptual mess', and Hyland (1993) finds it 'incoherent and confused'. Whitty and Wilmott (1991), on the other hand, attack the CBTE movement generally as a 'bandwagon in search of a definition', and argue that it has no basis in what we know about how teacher thinking is formed. Eraut (1990) similarly writes that a lot of teacher knowledge is tacit and not observable. As Elvoque and Salters (1992) conclude, the CBTE movement commits the behaviourist fallacy of confusing performance with knowledge and understanding. Clearly, there are also political issues involved here about who should tell teachers what to do, and the authenticity of the model of teaching competence advocated. For instance, in the English example cited above, Elliott (1993a: 66) sees a congruity between such itemising and the social market, technicist, view of teaching as advocated by the political right. For each of them, such objective criteria have the advantage of being explicitly demonstrable and thus accessible. A major issue underlying these differences of opinion over the worth of competencies is the extent to which professional learning is seen as unfolding and developmental, or, as a progression through a preset list of content features. Moreover, there remain questions as to whether such skills and knowledge are acquired or taught; in other words, passed on in an instructional manner or 'caught' on the job as it were. Here, the counter argument to the instrumental view seems to be that it is less a question of what trainees need to do in order to be deemed competent, and more an issue of what they should be. There is little doubt that these ways of conceptualising teachers' craft knowledge does give insight into how they think and act in the classroom. However, although such conceptualisation gives a micro view of teachers' practice, many of its notions still remain at a general or abstract level. If we are to discuss routines, characterisations and simplifications, it is important to know what the details of these are. As the CBTE debate shows, many

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competencies can be broadly professional and not directly related to classroom activity at all. In other words, what do such phenomena look like in terms of actual subject specialisms? It might be thought that all teachers are essentially subject specialists. Yet, this is an area of professional teacher education research which has received relatively little coverage. Wilson et al. (1987) refer to subject specific knowledge, that is the processes of initial teacher training in subject areas, as the 'missing paradigm' of teacher education research. The latter, it might be argued, has focused on generic, cognitive processes and macro-structures that transcend the particularities of subject matter. Nonetheless, the latter is all-important. Indeed, it provides a knowledge base through which general experiences in training pass. Wilson et al. refer to this new paradigm as 'pedagogical content knowledge' which is constituted from prior knowledge of the subject and the present pedagogical contexts. They posit that long-term schematic representations are 'regrounded' through experience and used in pedagogic practice. To this extent, the subject specialism is indeed 'relevant' within a pedagogic frame. Subject application and development of this sort is central to teachers' initial induction into the profession. Nevertheless, it has often been seen as being too instrumental to warrant in-depth consideration. In terms of modern languages, those of us interested in the ways linguists become teachers are indeed concerned to know what happens to trainees' past thinking about languages, and how they were taught and how they learnt, in the light of present experience of training and classroom teaching. For example, there is some evidence (Bennett & TurnerBissett, 1993) that lack of competence in trainees' subject knowledge can show itself in lessons which are less intellectual in conceptualisation or overly rigid in structure. Here, repetition and replication of practical craft knowledge given in training replaces a re-application of guiding skills and techniques along with an integration of these with personal knowledge that is crucial to a more profound professional development. Moreover, preoccupations with classroom management can result from deficiencies in subject expertise. The ways that are available to discuss the 'end-product' of teacher training therefore vary considerably. What makes a good teacher? How is this defined? For Lacey, it is all down to the degree of socialisation a trainee undergoes; albeit that there may be negative as well as positive effects on trainees' willingness to adopt new techniques and methods. For McIntyre (1991), trainees become competent by developing lots of craft knowledge. The CBTE movement expresses good teaching in terms of the adoption of a prescribed set of skills. The TTA have taken on board this

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latter in terms of a list of minimum criteria for the assessment of teaching competence, but they are having trouble stabilising the items in order for them to perform the practical functions for which they are intended. Current definitions of the valued outcome for training and teaching are therefore expressed in terms of 'practice'. In other words, it is not by their academic knowledge and thinking that teachers become effective but by their success in performing along certain definable behavioural lines. The remainder of this book deals with modern languages teachers' pedagogical competence. It offers details of linguists in training, alludes to their competence in languages, their past and present thinking about how they are taught and learn. This story necessarily involves other factors which explain the choices they make and how and why they act the way they do in modern languages classrooms. It shows how the end-product of training comes about and the processes involved. The positions and dispositions of real trainees are offered in the case studies in Chapter 4, whilst a more analytical discussion of the relationships between the ideational issues raised here and the actuality of one training course is set out in later chapters. The rest of the present chapter provides an account of the background of the practice and experience reported on; namely, the actual training course undertaken and the principles and content which underpinned it. Organising Training The case stories in the next chapter are from a one-year post-graduate certificate of education organised by a University Department of Education. I offer this as one example, amongst many, of a way of organising training. In the UK, there continue to be different means of entry into the education profession for would-be teachers; from undergraduate studies of three or more years (e.g. BA with QTS (Qualified Teacher Status)) to immediate on-thejob induction with back-up in-service training on a part-time basis (e.g. licensed and articled teachers' schemes). However, whichever route is chosen for training, the underlying issues of the conceptualisation of teaching, the integration of theory and practice, the place of practical experiences in school, the operationalisation of subject specialist knowledge for pedagogic purposes and the practical issues of course organisation remain essentially unchanged. The one-year post-graduate qualification has been a popular choice in recent times as a way for subject specialists to 'convert' themselves to teachers. It is therefore particularly appropriate to use it as a case example in order to illustrate what happens to individuals in practice when they embark on training. The full-time PGCE is also a good

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example to choose since all the elements of any teacher training course are involved within a fairly compact time scale. Furthermore, since all trainees accepted on these courses are graduates, competence and understanding of a subject specialism, in this case modern languages, are presupposed in entry qualifications. That is to say, for PGCE courses, trainees' own learning of their subject is separated in time from their attempts to use this specialist knowledge in classrooms. For our purposes here, the complexities which occur when subject teaching knowledge itself is taught alongside methodological principles and practices, as in longer training courses in Britain (e.g. BEd or BA with QTS), can be avoided by considering post-graduate training of education on its own. Thus, the PGCE offers a comparatively simple, but representative, example of how the essential elements of teacher training are inter-related. Initial teacher training is about organising experience as an induction into a practical professional activity. To return to the 'triangle of training' (see Figure 3), it is easy to see how the different approaches to defining pedagogic competence can be located within it. The 'craft knowledge' approach is very much about the top of the

Figure 3

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triangle: the development of practice and tacit knowledge in situ. The reflective practitioner is located at the bottom right-hand corner; the development of personal (fundamental) educational theory based on practice and formally expressed principles of teaching. School experience and talk with teachers/mentors and HEI-based tutors might be understood as activity at this point. Most of the trainees' reflections on their training experiences as reported in the case stories can be located in this area of the diagram. The CBTE movement, and with it the TTA criteria, very much represent the bottom left-hand side of the triangleeducational principlesexcept that these are drawn not from research but largely from a common-sense view of teaching. The course input on training can also be located in this region. In other words, the course provides a methodology expressed in a formal manner and based on particular educational principles; in this case, of communicative language teaching. However, the whole training course programme includes the totality of the triangle, in varying degrees at different times. At the top of the 'triangle' comes practice, actual classroom experience, on the basis of which tacit professional knowledge is developed. This tacit knowledge can be made articulate in fundamental educational theory. Training provides actual teaching experience and time for reflection and discussion as a means of building up both tacit and individual fundamental educational knowledge, but it is in supplying educational principles that the possibilities of explicit input of information is most apparent. Figure 4 shows how this side of the triangle was previously expressed. It is the central section, communicative language teaching, which supplies the formal principles of practice to trainees as part of their professional education. In the present context these relate to the characteristics of second language learning and teaching currently valued within the methodology employed. This is the subject approach through which individuals build up their craft knowledge; this is the style of teaching which interacts with trainees' previous learning and experience in developing pedagogical content knowledge, and this is the pedagogy around which other micro and macro aspects of being a teacher operate. In other words, teachers are first and foremost teachers of one particular subject specialism which is guided by one particular methodological approach. It is this approach which forms the context of the course which the individuals presented in this book followed. It is therefore important to understand what they did, and why, before seeing what they made of it all. It is my intention to provide some detail of exactly what they were trained to do and why. Firstly, however, I shall add a few further comments concerning

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Figure 4 communicative language teaching, since this provided the general principles around which the course was planned. The course itself offered trainees a number of techniques and activities, and a rationale for using them. Before listing these in detail I want to examine what principles of second language learning and teaching guided them. Communicative Language Teaching No comprehensive account of the history of modern languages teaching in the UK over the past decades has yet been published. For the most part, it is possible to regard developments in approaches, methods and techniques (cf. Anthony, 1963) as running closely in parallel to general international trends in second language learning and teaching; thus, a movement from strict deductive grammar methods of the 1950s and 1960s, to neo-behaviourist audio-visual methods of the 1960s, and to a greater concern for cultural authenticity and orally-based communicative approaches in the 1970s and 1980s. A formal fairly simplified statement of the principles of communicative language teaching (CLT) might express it thus:

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1. Intention to Mean 6. Target Language Use 2. Information Gap

7. Approach to Error

3. Personalisation

8. Authenticity

4. Unpredictability

9. Speech versus Writing

5. Legitimacy

10. Practice versus Real Language (CILT, 1989)

Such principles are enshrined in the English National Curriculum for Modern Languages. 'The natural use of the target language for virtually all communication is a sure sign of a good modern language course', states its defining proposals (DES, 1990: 58). Formal grammar 'is at best of very limited value', and pupils grasp structures 'through demonstrations which make a strong visual or aural impression and require active response' (DES, 1990: 56). It is perhaps worth noting that National Curriculum subject orders now have statutory force for any initial training course in the UK. Of course, it would be possible to examine such statements in greater detail, and in the light of the main characteristics of CLT. But the extent to which the English Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) National Curriculum can or cannot be regarded as 'communicative' is not the main object of my discussion. What is at issue is how the communicative approach to modern language teaching and learning was represented by the techniques and activities given to trainees on this particular PGCE course to guide their classroom practice. This discussion of how course methodology was presented and operationalised by trainees can be represented in the training diagram as an upward movement from CLT principles through tacit knowledge towards practice. Firstly, however, I want to start further down in the triangle, in the area marked 'applied linguistics', and give some account of the underlying thrust of research and reform which constituted this communicative takeover in modern languages teaching. With hindsight from a 1990s perspective, it is now easy to see how the new communicative view of language learning and teaching emerged in an academic and intellectual environment which put the nature and operation of language at the centre of its concerns. This new preoccupation with language can be traced back to the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, the French founding father of modern day linguistics (cf. de Saussure, 1916); and was firmly established with the writings of the Viennese-born philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Indeed, we might regard subsequent twentieth-century philosophy as the philosophy of language. Brumfit (1988) refers to these advances in linguistics and philosophy when he traces out the theoretical origins of communicative language teaching. The philosophies of language focused on the social construction

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of meaning and the semantic force of words. Academic disciplines related to philosophy, such as sociology and social anthropology, also became preoccupied with the dynamics of interpersonal exchanges which were communicated through language and the environmental contexts from which they arose. The growth in these disciplines spawned others, more specifically connected with linguistic analyses. Hence, sociolinguistics charted language variation in terms of speaker and context, whilst social psycholinguists studied the processes and extent to which changes were a reflection of individual and collective attitudes to linguistic in-and-out-groups. Of course, most of these writers were not concerned with the processes of language learning per se. Nevertheless, their influence can be seen in the writings of those researchers who looked at the interactionist aspects of language learning processes and saw the important discursive events (Hatch, 1978,1992), meaning potential (Halliday, 1978) and 'the rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless' (Hymes, 1972). The real revolution in our understanding of the operations of language, however, probably came from those with a psycho-centric rather than a socio-centric view of its nature. In seminal works in the late 1950s and 1960s, Chomsky overthrew the notion that language learning was essentially a question of skill-based habit formation, and posited instead that it was a naturally, biologically based property of the human brain. Learning a language was a process of activating such deep-structures from which an infinite number of utterances could be generated. Such a view inspired others, more preoccupied than Chomsky with second language learning, to regard its processes as similarly innate and natural. Thus, it is possible to posit the existence of a Language Acquisition Device and to look for natural orders in the utterances of speakers (cf. Dulay & Burt, 1974; Dulay et al., 1982); de Villiers & de Villiers, 1973). Methodologically, it is easy to see how such views ran counter to the behaviourist paradigm on teaching. Thus, errors, for example, rather than being a symptom of a lack of drilling and practice, should be understood as a phenomenon of any one individual's developing competence. Grammar, and explicit knowledge about language, at best provide a formal form of monitoring accuracy, while the real processes of language acquisition take place through comprehensible input and response (Krashen, 1981, 1982). Language learning for these writers occurs as a 'natural' approach. It is true to say that such views permeated the professional discourse of language teaching and learning to a greater or lesser extent. Moreover, others, less empirical and psycho-centrically based, coming from a more classical humanist tradition, were arguing that communication held the key

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to successful language learning (cf. Brumfit, 1984; Brumfit & Johnson, 1979; Littlewood, 1981; Widdowson, 1978). Of course, there existed huge differences in the contexts about which these researchers were writing; for example, age, cultural environment, bilingual and foreign language settings. Moreover, there were important disagreements over basic theoretical assumptions concerning the exact role of grammar and target language. Furthermore, it would be misleading to suggest that there only existed writers with either a socio- or a psychocentric focus. The two views did meet up, often in the work of those coming from a Vygotskyan tradition of linguistics (Lantolf & Frawley, 1983,1985; Vygotsky, 1962,1978; Wertsch, 1979). This socially contextualised, psycho-generative approach sees individual cognition as external in origin; the intra-psychological being a product of the inter-psychological. Individuals work within their immediate environment, or the 'Zone of Proximal Development' and build up ways of mediating their social surroundings through language. These processes are a form of self-regulation, which in terms of second language learning, amount to attempts to externalise and distance linguistic knowledge as a means of controlling it. In this way, features of it can be more easily processed or automatised (cf. Anderson 1983, 1985). Such automatisations can operate at any linguistic levellexical, syntactical, strategicbut are essentially context and semantically driven. Learning language then becomes a series of operations for constructing acceptable language according to context and intent. Moreover, such language does not arise simply as a generative product of deep innate structures but are assembled bits and pieces, 'chunks', found in the immediate social environment. It is possible to see how all of the above resonate, to a greater or lesser extent, with the principles of communicative language teaching that I set out at the beginning of this section. They all coalesce on a view of second language learning that is in some ways analogous to first language learning and the natural social and psychological processes this entails. Brumfit (1988: 7) finds a 'remarkable general consensus' in the theoretical underpinnings of CLT about the nature of language that is: context dependent; unstable within conventionally determined limits; negotiable at all levels, but particularly in meaning of particular items; and closely related to individual self-concept and identity. It is these views on language, coming from the social sciences, which provide the principles of practice for CLT on which specific methodology rests. However, CLT has been a global phenomenon as has the research related to it. In terms of the specific form of communicative approach operationalised in curriculum and syllabus reform in England and Wales, there are two other movements we should take note of. Firstly, socio-cultural developments in Europe sought to

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enhance intercommunication within the community by developing a 'threshold level' of competence for this to occur (Page, 1979; Trim 1978; Van Ek, 1975). This 'threshold level' posited a level of proficiency sufficient for transactions and interactions between individual community members at a personal and professional level. Secondly, the Graded Objective Movement had developed a model of language learning which was criterion-based and involved prescribed socio-culturally sensitive context syllabuses as a way of catering better for a wide ability range (Harding et al., (1980). This was essentially a grass-roots movement on the part of teachers looking to enhance the motivation of their learners through more appropriate teaching materials and techniques. There were, therefore, political and broad pedagogic reasons for adopting a communicative approach to modern language teaching. This approach in language teaching has been implemented in England and Wales in the 1980s and 1990s: firstly, through the General Certificate of Secondary Educationthe GCSE(Bird & Dennison, 1987); secondly, in establishing a National Curriculum (DFE, 1995). Besides the principles stated above, we can see the influence of CLT in the outcome of these changes in terms of classroom methodology. Firstly, a focus on authentic materials arising from the language culture, rather than prepared, culturally neutral texts. Secondly, a stress on oral target language use for teaching in place of English. Thirdly, a shift to first-person transactions and accountspupil or host or tourist. Fourthly, the near abolition of translation. Fifthly, a move towards more inductive, and thus less deductive, treatments of grammar. These are the characteristics of modern language teaching in England today. It is an approach which has gained legitimacy; it is enshrined in statutory documents of the National Curriculum. It provides the principles of practice for classroom methodology which teachers are required to use. Graduate linguists are also trained to use it as part of their initial professionalisation. It is against this background that the one-year PGCE course followed by the case study trainees was planned and organised. The remainder of this chapter now describes how this was done. The course in question took place in the early 1990s before explicit methodological prescriptions were supplied for training graduates to teach the English MFL National Curriculum. The methodology was closely based on the professinal view of communicative language teaching as used in modern language teaching for secondary schools in England. The Training Course As previously stated, it is misleading to speak of the communicative approach, since it does not exist as a precise methodology. Especially in the

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form adopted in curricular reform over the past decade, it is at best a series of broad principles or trends around which a vast range of pedagogic activities are grouped. There is enormous variation in interpretation, from one course book writer to another and even between exam syllabuses. It does not, in other words, exist in a pure form. Moreover, particular teachers and school departments interpret it with a good deal of individual variation. Furthermore, as I have made clear above, its introduction has been gradual; the teaching profession did not move from one methodology to another from one day to the next. This has meant that forms of communicative language teaching have appeared heavily overladen with previous methodologies and approaches. The bedrock of modern languages teaching in Britain since the Second World War has essentially been grammar and translation; in other words, the teaching of explicit vocabulary and grammar rules, memorisation exercises in these and subsequent testing through translations into and from English. Reading and listening also adopted this neo-classical approach and was mainly concerned with comprehension testing. Oral work was sidelined and very often limited to descriptive narrations rather than any sense of personal expression. These fundamental attitudes to the content of language teaching altered very little in the 1960s with the coming into vogue of more audio-lingual approaches. Here, tapes and slides were used in order to provide materials for repetition exercises, but basic approaches to grammar and translation remained the same. Indeed, the basic syllabus structure for national examinations did not change until the mid-1980s. By then methodology had developed into a more situational approach. Here, grammar was still the starting point for lesson planning. However, once a particular grammar point was isolated, it was contextualised to some degree and presented through oral exercises supported by visuals flashcards, overhead projector transparencies, etc. The basic approach to lesson planning could be described as presentation, practice, production. In other words, isolated, contextualised grammar points were first presented through repetition exercises. These might include three-stage questioning: 1 C'est un chien, oui ou non? 2 C'est un chien ou c'est un chat? 3 Qu'est -ce que c'est? Here, linguistic support was gauged in terms of what was required from a particular question, and in the hands of a skilled teacher shifting from one level to the next and from one pupil to the next could build up a real dynamic of classroom exchanges. Once material had been presented in this

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way, there then followed a series of practice exercises which might include listening and reading. Finally, in the production stage, pupils were expected to have assimilated the structural points dealt with and be able to use them for their own personally generated language; both oral and written language. Invariably there was a final consolidation exercise in the form of written prose and notes taken of the explicit grammar rule which formed the basis of the lesson. One piece of grammar was added to another as the edifice of linguistic competence was constructed. There were clearly problems with this approachthe focus on the third person, the interrogative nature of three-stage questioning, the problem of finding suitable grammar-based contexts, the underlying assumptions about linguistic assimilation. Nevertheless, many of the features of this methodology can be detected in the emergent communicative approach of the mid-1980s and today in many British schools. Firstly, there is the structuring of lessons according to broad stages of presentation, practice, production. Secondly, there is the emphasis on initial target language input with the back-up of visuals. Thirdly, there is the search to provide some authentic context for the language taught. The major impetus for shifting methodology in a new direction came, however, with the introduction of the GCSE in the mid-1980s. Unlike previous courses, the GCSE defined language learning to terms of linguistic skillsreading, writing, speaking and listeningrather than academic exercises in grammar and translation. This unlocked the door on a new perspective to classroom activity. It was not so much that grammar was absent as that it no longer formed the focus of lesson planning. In other words, instead of particular grammar points, teachers could take functional-notional aspects of communicative language as the object of their teaching. Grammar is de-centred and seen as only one aspect in acquiring linguistic competence rather than its sole means. This style of methodology is evident in the initial part of the course organised for the trainees here discussed. Modern Language Methodology CourseStructure and Content It is not possible to provide a chronological list of theoretical aspects underlying the PGCE course here, since, in large measure, CLT principles were determining factors in both the course content in terms of classroom methodology and course delivery itself; for example, target language was used with trainees whenever possible. The following, however, is a summary of the content of the course: (1) Previous Approaches to Modern Language Teaching. (2) The Communicative Approach.

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(3) Lesson PlanningPresentation, Practice, Production. (4) Oral WorkFlash Cards (three-stage questioning). Other Visuals. (5) Pair WorkRole Play and Information Gap. (6) Listening WorkAudio Equipment. Listening Activities. (7) Grammar TeachingPattern Practice. Creative Writing. (8) Reading. (9) Assessment. Of course, this summary, as listed, does in a sense provide a hierarchy of importance. However, it is not intended that first items are necessarily the most important. Nevertheless, the communicative, oral emphasis does pervade the whole course. Neither are the topics dealt with in isolation, but rather are continually interrelated to previous activities and techniques. For example, three-stage questioning can be used for work with grammar and/or notional-functional language. Similarly, some topics are addressed in every session; for example, issues of target language use, creative language games and the integration of activities within a lesson plan. All this work is framed by the prescribed outlines of national exam syllabuses. It can be seen that this is a very practically orientated course. There is the explicit importing of techniques, activities and procedures and study of the way to connect these to a coherent lesson plan. The methodology is linked with the production of teaching materials. The latter are not given in a vacuum but provide a focus to consider the principles of communicative language teaching; in short, why we do the things we do. All in all, this input represents the formal aspect of the training institution-based element of the course. It takes place in the first term of 13 weeks and provides the basic rationale and techniques for initial teaching experience. The latter is provided by the school-based element of the course: initially, a series of short visits for preliminary induction and observation, to increasingly longer periods in schools leading to a block teaching practice primarily in the second term of the academic year, as indicated in Figure 5. We can see that Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) represents the 'educational principles' of the methodology course and thus the left-hand side of the training triangle given earlier. Training in the university department is then a prime site for trainees to encounter 'principled theory'. However, although the trainees come across these principles on the course, they only try to implement them in practice where

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Figure 5

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they are dependent on the tacit knowledge of teachers, not trainers. This tacit knowledge of teachers and mentors is bound to be distinct from the tacit knowledge of me, their trainer. The details that I give are part of my theoretical framework; my personal background; my particular training. Already, therefore, it is possible to understand how schools and HEI training departments may view methodological issues in varying ways. The case stories make this clear and show the consequences for the training process of this type of variation. Throughout these stories (Part IIPractice) I want us to keep in mind that I am not trying to assess how well they managed to adopt a communicative style of teaching in their lessons. Indeed, there is, of course, a great debate as to how far the approach enshrined in official syllabuses can be regarded as communicative. Similarly, the methodology I developed with them is only a base version to get them going. For example, there is no mention of autonomy or group work. Neither are the procedural issues of teaching pupils over a five-year secondary range (11-16 years) dealt with explicitly with the methodology course outlined. There are further questions of ability. What is of interest are the issues raised about the processes of becoming a modern languages teacher. In this respect, the particular style of teaching provided for them is simply the medium through which they work. However, in the course of this engagement we shall see what are the crucial factors in their success or failure in the classroom. We shall also see emerging pedagogical content knowledge, as their thoughts and feelings about language learning and teaching develop in the light of practical experience of it. The trainees' stories take them from initial encounters with me in interviews to their initial thoughts and feelings of the methodology and experiences presented to them in their first weeks of training. We shall see how they first reacted to communicative language teaching in theory and the practice they observed. We shall pause to see where they are at prior to their main teaching practice and then see how they weathered it. Modern language teaching and their practice of it will be our main focus; although what they make of it depends on a whole range of other personal skills and attitudes, as well as the pupils and school colleagues they dealt with. Finally, we shall see how well they did and what became of them. In short, we shall see the actuality of training modern language teachers in practice as a lived experience.

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PART II PRACTICE

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PART I THEORY

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Chapter 4 Case Stories This chapter sets out the case stories of five modern languages teachers in training. Individuals enter training with particular backgrounds; for example, mature, fresh graduates, native speakers, those changing careers, others with one or two years of commercial experience. The five trainees presented here belong to one or more of these categories. However, they have been selected not so much to provide 'ideal type' pictures of individuals as a wide range of experience and backgrounds. I have taken the decision not to present their stories one after another, as this might seem rather repetitive and risks losing the comparative element of their stories. Rather, my account of their training is based around the chronology of their year's course. This happens to have been divided into three terms, but I shall not structure the narrative in the same way. Instead, I intend to build up their stories in terms of the broad procedural stages of their training. What is presented here is a shortened version of five case studies of modern languages teachers in training (cf. Grenfell, 1995). In 'Beginnings', we shall meet them, find out who they are and read of their early comments on language teaching and learning. 'First Steps' describes their early involvement on the training course and their first impressions of schools. It also includes comments on their initial experiences of teaching and how they react. This section finishes with their hopes, wishes and anticipations of their main school experience. 'School Experience' finds them located in schools full time. We shall see how they settle in and what their main preoccupations are. School and departmental contexts are, of course, all, and we shall learn about their relationships with colleagues and pupils. How do they plan? What guides them? Answers to these questions come from the trainees themselves. I shall also report on my own observations of the trainees in the classroom and subsequent discussion with them about the content of lessons. Finally, in 'Outcomes' we shall meet them again following their main school experience and see what they think about teaching modern languages according to a communicative approach. We shall read about their thoughts on training. I shall

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also add some comments on what became of them after they qualified. What is offered are snapshots or pictures of the trainees' views and experiences at particular times and places. All the information presented here was collected in a naturalistic way; that is, none of the things which the trainees were asked to do differed from what they would ordinarily be expected to do as part of their training. So, for example, interviews with potential trainees before acceptance onto the course, reflective writing in the form of trainee 'learner diaries', tutorials with individual trainees, lesson observations and debriefings are all standard procedures for PGCE trainees. Thus, early comments come from interviews with them and questionnaire items designed to get them thinking about the processes of modern languages learning and teaching. All trainees were expected to keep 'learner diaries' throughout the year's course as a point of personal reflection. These diaries were informal and covered issues and topics of their own choosing, which of course altered depending on their main location of operations and their recent experiences. Regular interviews were organised between myself and my students as a way of developing an individual dialogue with them about teaching. For the year in question, these were recorded and later transcribed. Whilst trainees were based mainly in schools, I visited them to talk and observe lessons. Both also provided information which was later written up in detail. End of course questionnaires and interviews were also used as a way of gauging final outcomes. All this information has been used in drafting the case stories. For the purposes of anonymity, the names of the trainees have been altered. However, I am grateful to them for willingly giving me permission to use their accounts for my own purposes, thus offering us a unique insight in the ways of modern languages teacher training. Beginnings All potential trainees are interviewed individually when they apply for a place on the course. First impressions are all, perhaps, for applicant and tutor, and it is an opportunity to get to know each other before making a fuller commitment. So, let us meet the dramatis personae of our story. Janet was 23 years old when she started the course, a year after graduating. She had a degree in Physical Education and French Combined Studies from a College of HE. Her PE work was allied to an involvement in general activity pastimes. She had been a teacher in a children's holiday centre, and had also been an officer cadet at a University Officer Training Corp. At school she had assisted physically handicapped pupils in free lessons. Before joining the course she had worked as an occupational

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assistant for a year at a city hospital. She had not spent a year abroad in France, but had experience in teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, which she had enjoyed. In her application she wrote of the importance of Europe and her desire to teach pupils to communicate. She also wanted to combine French with Physical Education during her year's PGCE study. She was recommended by her tutor as sociable, likeable and responsible; although it was pointed out that she had not found French a particularly easy subject. Jill applied late in the summer for a place on the course. She was 37 years old at the beginning of the course and was married with four children. She had a BA in French from a university, and, apart from her assistantship in Paris, had sporadic employment of a few months in EFL work and as a freelance translator/interpreter in local government. She worked mostly on her own at home. She described her reasons for wanting to teach as a mixture of altruism and self-interest; in other words, the need for a career that would fit in with her family commitments. On her interview form I commented that she was 'cool and sophisticated', and one who had knowledge and experience of the ups and downs of working with children. She was recommended as being co-operative, willing, trustworthy and responsible, and had experience in supervising children and pupils from local schools and FE colleges (catering for post-compulsory education students). Marie applied in good time and was interviewed and offered a place on the course almost a year before it started. She was 24 years old at the beginning of the course and was single. She was a French national with a Licence in English from a French university. Since graduating, she had spent a couple of years living and working in England; first, as an exchange student and then as an assistant in secondary schools. At the time of interview she was undertaking MA research. In interview, she stated that her time as a foreign language assistant had confirmed her choice of career; she wanted to pass on her love and feeling for the French language and culture, and had enjoyed planning lessons and making materials for pupils. She seemed extremely thoughtful in the replies she gave in her interview. She was recommended as willing to take advice, although she might have initial difficulties with less academic pupils. Jackie was 25 when she started the course. She had a combined degree in French and Media Studies, but had spent the previous three years working as an administrative assistant and projects officer for British Gas. This had involved staff support, customer account management and developing training resources. Despite this, she claimed that every initiative she had taken had consolidated an early desire to teach. She felt her

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experiences with British Gas were valuable and applicable to teaching, and she had also done some EFL and private work. Her application form was full of language coming from her management background; thus, she wrote of her ability to communicate enthusiastically, to learn and adapt quickly, evaluate circumstances and individual training requirements, to manage change assertively, to work within a budget and make efficient use of resources. She felt that teaching needed 'confident managers' with 'strong interpersonal skills'. She was recommended as a lively extrovert with a strong sense of responsibility. Carol was probably the most atypical of the whole group of students. She was just over 34 years old when she joined the course having originally taken a degree in Modern Languages at university. After completing this degree, she launched herself into the commercial world. She had obviously built up experience and expertise as a sales representative, press/public relations officer and training manager in the cosmetic industry. She was on a top executive salary and had, in her words, 'made it'. This meant expensive cars, designer clothes and a designer-world life style. Yet, on her application form, she spoke of being increasingly dissatisfied with the value and purpose of her profession. In short, she wanted a change. She said she was at home in an instructional situation and wanted now to work in schools. As interviewer I found this to be incredible, and pressed her on the 'real' reason for wanting to join the course, but she insisted that what she had said had been the truth. A personal joke between us became at what stage I would be able to say 'I told you so' as she withdrew from the course. I have not yet been able to say it, as she continues to teach. She was recommended for her energy, initiative and sociability; although her linguistic skills were extremely rusty. She had applied very late for the course, but was accepted on the basis of interview and high recommendation. So, five trainees, five individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, thoughts and intentions. Two are what we might term 'mature' students, that is aged above 30! One is a native speaker; two others have left university relatively recently. They each have various amounts and types of post-graduate professional experience. What else do we know about them? • What, for them, is language? • What makes a good language learner and teacher? • What are their fears and expectations? First comments come from a questionnaire sent out to trainees before

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they even start the course. Their responses to various issues and questions give some indication of what they have in mind on a range of issues. All of the trainees are aware, for example, of the interactive character of language. All of them mention 'communication' when describing it. But they also diverge in the particular elements they focus on in developing their thoughts about it. Janet, for example, writes of language as an important element in self-expression and intercultural understanding. Whilst for Jill it is a 'system'. For Carol too, it is a 'system of shared knowledge, or verbal and written means of communication within and between groups'. Marie, perhaps betraying her French academic training, expresses it much more formally: 'Due to the limited number of signs which are combined with one another (man) can create an infinite number of words. The latter, associated in a sentence, produce unlimited messages. Messages are interpreting reality. There are as many languages as there are realities. Languages have many functions in society: it enables communication and expresses needs, passions, wills and ideas.' It would be wrong to attribute traditional and progressive attitudes to individual trainees on the basis of such early expressions of opinion. However, it is true that such beliefs do also feed into thoughts about being a language learner and teacher. Thus, for Carol, the key to success as a learner is 'a knowledge of syntax; especially in one's first language'; and for Jill too it is 'someone who can see the patterns and structures in words'. For Janet, on the other hand, it is 'someone who is motivated and wants to learn'. They have not yet started training. What they say here can be seen as an expression of what I earlier called fundamental theory; that is individual, basic rationale originating from their own varied experiences of language teaching and learning. They all have one thing in common: they have been successful in learning a second language. But how did they do that? The truth of the matter is that they all achieved linguistic competence through a combination of teaching methods and learning approaches together with experience in the various countries. Still, even here there are enormous individual differences. Janet did not spend a year abroad as part of her graduate course. Marie is a native speaker. Carol and Jill learnt their languages quite a long time before embarking on training. Each trainee attributes success to different factors, or at least to different emphases within them. Who is to say they are correct? Who is to say that what is effective for them applies to others? Certainly, their stated positions in the questionnaire are also reflected in their thoughts about being a language teacher. Jill feels a good teacher 'makes repetition exercises interesting, and allows pupils to work at their own pace'. But all of the group are aware of

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the personal interactive qualities needed in working with pupils. 'Participation', says Carol, 'rather than talk and chalk', as a way of avoiding the negative aspects of teaching. For Janet, the accent is very much on the personal qualities of the teacher; someone who 'makes learners want to know more'. There are then predispositions on language learner and teaching, based partly from personal experience and the individual lessons drawn from it. All the trainees have communication in mind as the goal of second language teaching, and hardly underestimate the importance of the social and cultural aspect in achieving success. They are aware that social standing and cultural contacts for both teachers and pupils are all important. But they show themselves to have established positions over such issues as the balance of fluency practice and formal grammar in language learning. Often, they draw on their own academic training and personal experiences to explain how success might come about from their particular mix. Mostly, these trainees learnt languages whilst the grammartranslation method, along with its audio-lingual hybrid, was at its height. Whilst these approaches are viewed approvingly by some, other trainees are less complimentary about them. Marie says 'the grammar approach' did not really work for her, and Jackie too is critical of it. Methodology is not all, is not regarded as the key to success in the classroom. They all see personality and individual characteristics as central to becoming a 'good' teacher; perhaps more than the context in which they find themselves. So, what happens to them once they start training? First Steps The five individuals here all take part in a subject course at the training institution. They are part of a group of 30 trainees hoping to qualify as teachers that year. The subject course is organised into five two-hour sessions. There is a mixture of formal input and group work. Occasionally, trainees are given practical tasks to complete: a lesson to design, some activities to create, or materials to evaluate. Language skiils are dealt with, along with specific techniques; for example, role-plays, information gaps, and ways of dealing with grammar. Occasionally, an outside speaker is invited to give a session. An early lesson of Mandarin is organised. Trainees find it tiring and are shocked that, even with their adult attitudes and linguistic competence, little language is covered in a two-hour session. A strong point is made: a little goes a long way in language teaching and learning. Trainees work in language specific groups, and are encouraged to carry out their conversations in the target language. This helps maintain

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linguistic competence. The native speakers in the group are a help in these activities, especially with trainees who are talking in their second or third foreign language. There are frequent plenaries, where trainees report back and there is whole-group discussion. Lively discussion takes place. There are disagreements and compromises. Within a month of the start of the course, trainees are going into schools for a half-day and then a whole day. They share experiences with each other; sometimes shocked, sometimes amused, sometimes reassured. Microteaching is organised for them. Here, they give mini-lessons to each other and film their teaching. Seeing themselves on screen is disconcerting for many of them, but most are pleased to have completed it. A first barrier has been crossed. Activities are unpicked, principles emerge: for new vocabulary use old structures, for new structures use old vocabulary; in lessons, maximise activities and minimise language; variety, pace, imagination. Training is very much about organised experience. Starting with their individual dispositions, trainees are placed in different contexts and offered formal examples of methodology in practice. • What do they find in the training institution? • What do they find in schools? • What do they now think about foreign language teaching methodology? All the trainees start off in positive mood. After the first week, Jill is in her element, but writes that she is 'finding it a lot to take in'. Jackie comments that she is doing what she has 'always wanted to do'. Janet puts it succinctly: 'Try to get to grips with everything; who are all these people? Why are they here? Are they all in the same boat as me? . . . Easy to feel swamped. Felt overwhelmed yesterday with the move, new people, etc.' Some basic early approaches to language teaching and learning are presented and then compared with communicative methods. Training sessions are organised around exemplification, group discussion and individual reflection. But for Janet, there are problems: 'Discussion back at the university', she writes. 'Our's was in Frenchgulpnot used to speaking it so much. Our group's lesson plans not clear to me. Don't really get much out of group discussionsno clear points emerge. Good working group but I had switched off.' Clearly, Janet's lack of linguistic prowess is a problem for her: she does not feel confident and this leads to her partial withdrawal in group discussions. Marie too is a little withdrawn; content to sit back and speak French with another trainee from France. Carol, on the other hand, uses all

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of her interpersonal skills gained in the commercial world to integrate herself into the group. Gone are the designer clothes and make-up, to be replaced by jeans and baggy sweaters. A new student image appears, which softens her presence with the others. Three weeks later, all of them are writing copiously in their diaries about their thoughts and feelings provoked by the ideas presented to them. The way they write and the style they adopt is indicative of who they are and how they are at this stage. Marie writes longer introspective accounts of how she is feeling and what is and is not working for her. Carol is more analytical, writing freely but then offering a distillation of main points gained from a particular experience or session account. Jill is critical of what she hears and writes about how things might be improved. Jackie scatters her writings with drawings and personal comments on what to look out for and what to do. Janet is more sketchy in what she records, is less involved. The trainees do identify a number of issues relevant to modern language teaching. Communicative Language Teaching immediately comes in for criticism. Marie writes that it does not push pupils enough. Carol agrees: 'There is a real danger in demanding too little of pupilsto do so is to remove from them the potential for sense of achievement, which they would have attained.' Jill focuses on the issue on grammar in language teaching: 'Grammar is the nuts and bolts of language from which pupils can construct sentences rather than learn phrases parrot fashion; whilst use of role play, emphasis on oral work, etc. beefs up lessons making them more relevant and alive.' For her, the reason to use a communicative approach in language lessons is for its motivational rather than its procedural character. Janet is more positive. She notes: 'Need to communicate in languagegrammar comes later. Teach words, phrases, then later teach why, tools for communication. Traditional methods were stereotypical.' However, she also wonders to what extent the method is compatible with developing good teacher/pupil relations. Jackie is also positive about the approach. She writes: 'Difficult explanations need to be dealt with perhaps in English, but that means that when the going gets tough, the language turns to Englishwrong. I wonder whether we should be explaining difficult things at allis that necessary for communication?' The point is that neither of these views on grammar versus communication is necessarily right or wrong; these are, after all only preliminary ideas about the approach from an ideal point of view. They are the aspects of CLT which trainees are able to identify at the beginning of their course. In the language of the triangle of training given in Chapters 2 and 3, they are

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fundamental reflections (theory) of formal educational principles (methodology), made in the light of past personal experience and reasoned argument. Carol comments that the group of some 30 trainees is polarised into programmarians and the champions of the orally based approach, but also notes that 'in reality, we are close to agreementthe teaching of valuable/versatile grammatical constructions on a ''need to know" basis increases the potential range of oral communication by providing building blocks upon which alternative phrases may be grafted'. The example that Carol gives here is 'to have' and 'to be', which provides the learner with the basics to which a lot more can be added. She thus anticipates a sort of 'chunking' model of language, where stock phrases are modified according to functional, notional needs. It is the experience of training and the approach presented to the trainees which is bringing these issues alive for them. For the first few weeks, they are expressed in theoretical terms and interpreted according to personal disposition. The issues highlighted become still more alive when they first go into schools. Of course, it is neither possible nor desirable to replicate a methodological approach offered as a guide to practice. Schools are many and various. Individual modern languages departments also have their own ways of working. And teachers each develop personal routines and activities in lessons which are special to them. It is to be expected therefore, that, although school departments and individual teachers do indeed adopt a broadly communicative approach in general terms, there is likely to be considerable variation. This variation is one thing that trainees have to recognise and work with. For the trainees' initial school experience, a wide range of schools is employed. They start these visits within a month of commencing the training course. Carol, Jackie and Jill are all placed in average urban secondary schools: approximately 1000 pupils; boys and girls; 11-16; two hours of language learning (primarily French and German) per week. Janet's school is similar, but is known as a 'community' school. The ethos of the school is to be more open to the local community, so that school facilities are also made available to the general public of the areas. A number of activities are also specifically organised with the local community in mind. Coincidentally, Janet's school is also located in an area of social priority, which means there is especial attention given to the range of problems experienced by pupils in their home: unemployed parents; one-parent families; housing problems, etc. The school has a record of achievement for the work they do in this area. Marie is placed in a very different school. In her case, the school is private and selective. Pupils go

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to this school because parents pay fees and/or they show especial academic ability. It is also a 'girls only' school. Approach to methodology is therefore traditional. After a first visit to a school and some observation, Marie comments: 'Mr Grenfell played a trick. I cannot see any connection with what we are doing now.' Janet is concerned for different reasons, writing about what she considers to be low standards and 'sloppy' lessons. Carol treats observation as an exercise in objective criticism. Thus, the lessons are noted: 'Errors not corrected specifically: correct model provided but exact nature of the mistake not necessarily appreciated. Pupils' attention decreasing towards the end of the lesson. Classroom arrangements not good.' She also writes that she finds repetition exercises 'unimaginative and dull'. Jill is sceptical of communicative language teaching: 'How to set up group work without expecting a single right answer . . . modern language teaching tends to be designed to elicit the right answer, but good grasp of the target language is needed before you see there is more than one way of expressing something.' However, her first visit to a school is successful: the staff are warm and welcoming and the lessons she sees demonstrate to her that the communicative approach can work in practice, albeit adapted for different (especially disruptive) groups. Jackie too stresses the importance of flexibility in her writing: 'I feel that it is important to be flexible with the approach to communicative language teaching. If the class are used to traditional methods, then I would start slowly and build up to a fuller use of communication. I do not think you should be a slave to it if it is threatening the group. It should be presented as a better way of learning, not a threatening way.' Her early observations also note too much use of English, and she wonders, therefore, if communicative language teaching only works with the early years. After a couple of weeks of observation, the trainees have a go at teaching. Initial efforts are confined to the presentation of a set of flashcards or the setting up of a particular activity. These slots are then extended to part lessons, building up to whole lessons planned and implemented with the full-time teacher's support. These early experiences provide a fresh mixture of thoughts and feelings. Janet gets off to a good start: 'Worked great. Well received. Felt good afterwards, (though) taught a mistakeune souris! (not un). I know that my French is not nearly half as good as it should be. I want to spend time helping every pupil but the system does not allow for this.' There are limits to what is and is not possible in the classroom; training to teach is partly learning what they are and how to work within them.

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Obviously, what is possible varies from school to school and class to class, but all the trainees are nervous about their first steps in teaching. Marie, for example: 'I was wondering what they think about me. Then they were extremely understanding, which encouraged me.' Jackie gets positive comments from her head of department about her first teaching, but immediately reflects on what went wrong in the lesson: 'The tape whizzed past the spot. I must practise that more with recorders . . . I made the mistake of role playing across the room with no reason for the rest of the class to listen. Won't make that mistake again.' Carol writes in an ironic mood, again about what is and is not possible in school language teaching: 'Having tackled the "why do we have to learn French?" queries and established myself in a "non-pushover" role, we settle down to the riveting subject of "ma chambre".' The ironic stance, slightly tongue-in-cheek, seems a way of distancing herself from the experience; the distance between the imagined ideal and the reality. Humour is a good way of making light of a disturbing context. Despite an initial positive reponse, Jill becomes increasingly critical of a communicative approach: 'I am very concerned that the material on offer in the communicative classroom is, by its very nature, boring and extremely limited. After all, what is so interesting about going to the post-office to buy stamps?' Carol also wonders about the relationship between practice and learning: 'The pace of lessons has become frantic . . . obviously a high degree of practice is necessary if a topic-based communicative approach is to be successful.' On one of her first full taught lessons, Jill adopts a structural approach, but gets a mixed reaction: 'I enjoyed it . . . their class teacher, however, said I was too slow/not lively enough and did not play around with the words enough before setting up the activity . . . also unhappy that I taught the class "à côté de" and "en face de". She felt this was too much like grammar structure. I felt this was a little unfair. I am there, after all, to teach them new things, including structures and the class responded well. I could hear them saying "oh, I get it", and they grasped the meaning without the need of a direct translation.' Carol's first experience of teaching leads her to conclude that: 'The pupils would benefit from clarification of a few basic grammar points which were seriously inhibiting their ability to communicate.' Clearly, the messages the trainees get from the various aspects of training at the momentthe course, colleagues, pupilsis mixed. Nevertheless, half way through their first term, Carol and Jill seem to be set with their notion that 'grammar' is the prime way to learn a language; Janet and Jackie are

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going along with the communicative methodology with mixed response; Marie is unsure, but achieves some success: 'Worked with flashcards and 3-stage questioningsuccessI can do the 3-stage questions. Miracle. I like flashcards. You can do so much with them. Sometimes I make up others.' Many comments are about the context of teaching and what they observe other teachers doing as much as their own actual experience in the classroom. Jackie notes the time 'wasted' at the beginning of one lesson observed and the predominance of English in a lesson for an older age group: 'Too much English. Does this mean that the communicative approach only works for the early years of language learning, when the motivation and novelty of learning a language carries teachers through? I really do not think this should be the case at allcommunication does not stop after the age of 14. In one 4th year middle class, adjective agreement is quoted as the topic of the day. Hang on . . . what about hiding the grammar?' Carol comes to a tentative conclusion about the relationship between ability and age, and methodology, again by referring to the 'basics': 'Better to sacrifice higher levels of attainment with low ability pupils but to expect accuracy at a lower level of performance. Do basics well rather than expecting all pupils to achieve a high degree of knowledge.' For Carol, the preoccupation is still grammar in language teaching: 'Half of the pupils I sat with did not grasp the significance of the indefinite article plural. Do such omissions in basic knowledge prove a hindrance in the assimilation of more advanced materials?' As times goes on, Marie develops a deep introspection on the basis of what she observes and how that should affect her own teaching: 'The teacher sometimes talked to the same students (Be careful in the classroom Mariedo not talk to the same ones.) I felt passive because he was always in control. I felt frustrated. Give pupils activities in which they are in control . . . The gap between my knowledge and theirs is enormous. I need to develop enthusiasm, imagination, curiosity. I must make everyone feel comfortable. I believe that we have to be very enthusiastic and create lively classrooms . . . We have to create the space and the organisation in order to help them work in better conditions.' All these reflections can be understood to be theoretical in one way or another, and in relation to the practice or ideal model of language teaching the trainees encounter. There seems a need to be theoretical at this stage. Jackie writes on the need for theory at one point: 'It is interesting how theoretical the group's requirements are compared to the practical ideas given to us . . . I do not understand why the group has to grill visiting speakers about the weakness of their packages . . . I get the feeling the group

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is very inflexible and dogmatic. I am taking in all the sessions and learning from them, not being clever for the sake of being clever.' Theory gives something to bite against in some cases, some guiding methods in others, and a way of rationalising classroom experiences of both teaching and observation. Such comments also remind us that training in these early weeks consists of life as a group in the training institution and as an individual in schools. Two-thirds of the way through their first term and the way the five think and feel has changed. Issues have been heightened, personal concerns accented. Jill seems to have enjoyed getting back into academic life. Her contributions to group sessions are lively and insightful. For her, communicative language teaching is something to argue about in the light of previous beliefs and observations in school. She is clearly not convinced about many aspects of it and sees grammar and talk in English as a short cut to a more process-based approach. Carol takes a similar line. Her socialisation into student culture has taken place. She plans her written assignments and practical tasks in meticulous detail. The Mandarin lesson given at the university in order to put trainees back in a language learning experience elicits some 20 pages of close writing from her; almost a commercial report, on the various facets of it. Lists are then drawn up of salient points and proposals for future action. For Carol, the diary is a means of thinking through things and coming to tentative conclusions. This is not the case for Janet. It is clear from the appearance of her diary that weekly comments stop about a month into the course. After that, entries are sketchy and perfunctory. She seems marginalised in the group partly because of her own perceived linguistic weaknesses, which have also been pointed out to her in early school practice. In her observations, she remains unconvinced about the extent to which it is possible to use a communicative style of language teaching with a range of classes. Marie finds that a grammar method did not really succeed for her, and yet, at this point, and despite some success with some of the techniques involved, she is not altogether sure of the significance of a different approach to her own teaching. She remains very reflective, almost reserved, and has high ideals about how a teacher should and should not be with pupils. Jackie is apparently the happiest of the group. Her diary is filled with comments and pictures to herself. Her personality and her apparent enthusiasm for everything she does is very evident. She is enjoying her teaching and working with the methods given. Jill and Carol take up a position of rather negative regard for communicative language teaching. They can see the value of talking and listening as much as possible, but, for them, explicit grammar teaching, in English, is

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the way to gain linguistic competence. A retreat from this position is only warranted when pupils 'cannot manage it'. Jackie is most pro-CLT. She does have reservations about the way it is implemented in classrooms, but essentially she sees it as the best method. Janet and Marie come somewhere in between these two positions. They are not keen about the way they learnt languages, but are not yet convinced about a realistic alternative. The approaches to language teaching they encounter in their initial school experience schools seems to exacerbate their indecision. Twelve weeks on, and they are completing their time with their first school and preparing themselves for their second school. This time they are required to teach much more; in fact, two-thirds of a normal teacher's timetable. They are now almost entirely located in schools for a 15-week block of school teaching. However, before seeing how they fare, let's meet up with them again on the eve of this main school experience. Where are they now? What do they feel about the training they have received, their school experience and the language teaching approach they have been encouraged to work with? Carol's concluding comments at the end of her first term show how she has made some moves to adopt a more communicative approach to language teaching compared with the traditional methods she started with: 'The term's work has provided us with a wealth of knowledge, both theoretical and practical, which should enable us to cope with the demands of teaching practice. I am in agreement with the more communicative emphasis in language teachingthe ultimate aim being practical use of the language rather than theoretical knowledge. However, I still feel that a degree of interdependence exists between the two and this viewpoint will probably influence my teaching methodology.' Jill takes a similar line: 'I don't think I have changed my mind about the communicative approach. I have always thought it was a good thing to go and speak as much French to them as possible . . . that things have to be presented in the target language, but I have also always thought that they have to be taught the way the language works.' However, she writes that the real key to success for teachers is individual personality and appeal, a thought she finds 'awesome'. In other words, in teaching, according to Jill, an individual teacher's whole character comes through and determines success or failure. All the greater feeling of success or failure therefore when lessons succeed or fail: 'One teacher I observed did not have fantastic material but she was very upbeat. Her way of presenting things has a sense of urgency . . . urging pupils along, etc. And that's great when they are willing to work with you; you really feel you are getting somewhere.'

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Jill realises that teaching success does not necessarily come down to just methodology. And yet there is a sense that one succeeds or fails, and this is absolute. One day, she thought she had 'cracked it' with a difficult group of pupils: 'And then I took them a second time and they were absolutely diabolicaljust as bad as ever I had seen them with their normal teacher.' In a similar manner, Carol draws on her managerial and commercial knowledge in expressing how success depends on attitude. She writes: '(Performance = skills + knowledge) . . . You can teach people skills and knowledge, but all that is multiplied by attitude. If you don't get the attitude, it doesn't matter what you teach them in terms of the skills and knowledge . . . you must get to the stage where all three are at the right level to get the job done.' Her intention is and has been, therefore, to work on attitudes by making lesson content a bit more relevant through personalising it as much as possible. However, she still finds it difficult to believe that someone can learn a language without the 'basics', seemingly unaware that the 'basics' are not basic for many pupils. We might say, therefore, that Carol has a mixed model of language teaching; she has selected some of the positive, experiential elements of communicative language teaching which connect with her notions of attitudinal factors as the determinant of success. She also has a model based on her own past experience that she can only partially abandon in theory. In practice, she does not seem to have had much positive experience of an alternative view of language learning aside from some motivational enhancement by personalising work with pupils with special needs. With reference to the culture shock of coming from retail training to schools, there is nothing in what Carol says that suggests that the move is regretted: 'I was prepared for facilities to be worse than they really are. It's bad when you're using an OHP and you have one hand clamped to it because the thing is falling down. That's not terribly good but it hasn't been so different than in industry. You see training in organisations is always the department that operates with the lowest funds and is cut first.' And on her change of life-style: 'You have a nice house, but you're never there . . . you sleep all weekend to recover . . . you feel you are on the sidelines watching this life . . . quality of life is an important consideration, even though teachers are underpaid and do not have ideal conditions at work . . . the quality of life is better.' Janet has not had a good term. At key points, she was called away with

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family problems or was ill. She remains positive about teaching, but has misgivings about the context of schools. She comments: 'I want to spend time helping every pupil but the system doesn't allow for this.' Janet does have an image of language teaching to work from. This is based on her own learning experience, the training course and her involvement with TEFL. She tells me: '(The communicative approach) It's not perfect and it's not brilliant but it's on the right track. I enjoyed reading and finding out the history of it. The way I learnt it, it was a nice balance of both which worked well for teacher and pupil. So that is what I am going to do eventuallya bit of the traditional side, give them the reason behind the language.' This is what she has done in the past: 'I gear lessons around communication but I do see the importance of going back, once you've got the grips of it, and saying this is how you build on it, otherwise they just get a phrase and they can't build it into anything.' Marie has thought deeply about language and language learning in the course of her initial experiences. She has been placed in a traditional grammar school, and finds the pupils' behaviour unusual. She writes: 'The children do not talk. I found it very strange: the class were very quiet and they worked a lot, but when I looked at the children they were completely bored. Not children any moreadults. They just sit in their chairs. I find it awful that parents put children in this situation. They lack energy and activity; at this stage, it is very sad. They listen and the teacher talks, talks, talks all the time in English.' Marie wants pupils to be more active, creative and to learn about the culture of France. Her view of language has changed but is still a complex concept for her. How pupils should be taught is based on how she was not taught. Hers is an experiential view of language learning but: 'How to organise them? . . . Every time you make a move, it becomes very messy. Make them active. I find that a lot of things that happen in schools prevents that. Rows of desks, the layout, the number of pupils, the size of the classrooms, the topics you are working with, all this to find to do things differently from the textbook.' Marie tells me that she feels there was 'no communication' in the training group during the term because each one had their own perspective. Yet, she also says she feels herself to be very 'passive', which seems to be a 'bad attitude'. She puts this down to personal characteristics: 'Yes, I like to put some distance between me and what happens to me. I don't know if it is a good thing, but I don't like much involving myself. I like to be in control. I don't think it is good sometimes . . . it's not what you need to feel committed completely.'

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She connects this attitude with the style of her academic training in France, and, indeed, the French national character. Teachers are functionaries who come to school, deliver lessons and go away again with little other involvement. The French are also individualistic and reactive. This last point may well be the core of Marie's character. There seems a contradiction in that she claims that the English are pragmatic, they like to apply what they know immediately. The French, she argues, stop and think. It seems that this is characterised by a very individualistic reflection; an inward gaze prior to a response. The final, characteristic French reaction, as described by Marie, gives the picture of unpredictability on the basis of idiosyncratic reactions rather than communal trends. She even goes as far as saying that in England people all look the same, whilst in France there is greater variety. Jackie too thought that there were tensions in the training group. She writes: 'The group became rather stilted. We are all strong characters, very strong in our feelings. So, once we had worked out how we wanted things we all had different ideas of how we wanted to do it.' As with Jill, Jackie sees the importance of personality in teaching and training. She tells me: 'School experience is an opportunity to be yourself and see if you can have a good relationship with the class.' Her own personality seems to be a positive asset but she is self-aware enough to note that not everyone can be as enthusiastic as she is and it may get on 'people's nerves'. Still, she feels that it is her 'personality, character and charisma' that are going to be most useful to her as a teacher, rather than her 'academic prowess'. She feels unsure of her linguistic ability. The latter aspect of her fellow students had frightened her at the start of the course. Still, Jackie continues to be most positive about communicative language teaching. She says: 'If a fly flies into my room, I want the fly to see fun. I will be as communicative as the pupils can handle. The communicative approach is the way to make pupils feel not threatened. And I want to use listening materials for something other than testing comprehension. This is all I have seen in the classes I have observed this term.' Several weeks into training, including both school and university-based experience, therefore, the five are faring rather differently. There are varying views on language teaching methodologies and the ways of classroom practice. Individually, they are in different states, and anticipating extensive teaching with mixed thoughts and emotions. They are personally involved to a lesser or greater extent. Is teaching about a formula or about a personal engagement? Theory, in some cases, seems a protection, in others a weapon. Practice is practice: rich with experience which is often contradictory. Yet, relatively little time has elapsed. We are still only a few

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weeks into training and more extensive school-based experience looms nearer. School Experience In this section, I am going to alter the format and deal with each of the five trainees separately in order to give a clear picture of them during their main school experience. Trainees are placed in various schools for some 13 weeks for this. The schools vary in character, but are all typical, state secondary schools in urban areas; that is catering for the 11-16 age range. For the purposes of locating trainees with particular classes I shall indicate the various age groups from Year 1 (the youngestage 11) to Year 5 (the eldestup to age 16). One or two of the schools have a 'Sixth Form'; that is two years of study as preparation for entry into higher education. Throughout their main school experience, the trainees continued to keep diaries. I shall draw on these together with details of conversations I had with them during my visits to the schools. Various observations of them in classroom action are also recorded. I shall give the specifics of one of these in its entirety and then contrast the lesson with details from others in order to raise various issues. What follows is my writing as a tutor about what I see my trainees experiencing. The writing is part analysis and part description, and represents how I thought about, engaged with and reflected on the classroom work of my trainees and what they told me. Above all, however, I want to preserve their own voice in each case and the reality that was training for them individually. This latter is often messy and does not easily conform to the conventional theories and approaches set out earlier in this book. This messiness is important to represent in order understand just what it is like to train to teach modern languages. Their experiences are individual, but many of them will share commonalities with all those in training. Jill Jill is placed in a county town school. It is traditional in tone, and, in what she observes in classes, Jill finds that a grammar approach and discussion in English are still very much the norm. During her first term, she has had a lively dialogue with the theory of language teaching but is 'eager to put it into practice'. Let us meet up again with her teaching an early lesson. The group is a first-year French class and the lesson lasts 35 minutes. The structure of the lesson is very close to a classic presentation, practice, production approach discussed on the training course: there is a topic; birthdays, flashcard materials, and an oral presentation and practice of related language.

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Lesson Structure (35 mins. Year 1 French) Oral PresentationFlashcards WritingCopying Vocabulary: Board Pair Work Writing (Pupils on the blackboard) Homework The opening sequence shows a pattern practice activity: T: Qu'est-ce que c'est? Ce sont des cadeaux Anna, viens ici Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire? P: Le 6 novembre T: Aujourd'hui, c'est ton anniversaire Voici un cadeau On t'offre un cadeau (opens present) This sequence is repeated with different pupils before Jill introduces: 'On m'a offert un parfum', which is repeated to lead on to eliciting: 'On m'a offert un tricot.' Clearly, the teaching point is the perfect tense of 'offrir' used with the preceding indirect object pronoun, but the pupils struggle with both Jill's language and the intentions. Why might this be so? Firstly, there seems to be a combination of real and imaginary situations. The pupils are asked their real birthday, which is the only genuine language response from them. They are then asked to assume that this date is indeed today's date, and that they are being given a present. Jill does not explain this and the pupil response is not individually based but limited to repetition of 'On m'a offert . . . '. Secondly, there are repetitions that involve the class, effectively repeating an individual's answer. It is not clear that the pupils have grasped the sense of what they are saying, either the tense or the content. After this sequence, Jill instructs the class to copy a list of written words, along with corresponding pictures. She makes an effort to stay in target language, even to the point of asking and answering her own questions. Thus: T: Qu'est-ce que c'est? T: C'est du parfum Other instructions are given in English. These instructions are clearly for scaffolding:

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T: Quiet please What do you say after 'Bon anniversaire'? P: . . . . T: C'est voici un cadeau In this statement it is not clear if the pupils would see the 'c'est' and the voici' as being in different clauses, and indeed, that the 'c'est' in this case is part of scaffolding language. This mixture of English and French, and for different uses, suggests that she has difficulty seeing target language use from the pupils' point of view. The English scaffolding is also used for organisational rather than learning issues. Jill makes efforts to create a pedagogic dialogue in French: P: Excuse me Mrs . . . T: Excusez-moi P: Excusez-moi Mrs . . . ., is it J-A-P-E or J-U-P-E? T: J-U However, there are problems in this lesson: too much pupil noise; too much English; repetition of teacher conversation with no pupil input. Some of this lesson is entirely consistent with Jill's earlier comments on language and language learning. In her initial questionnaire, she had explained that the good language learner 'had a good ear for rhythms . . . and an ability to see structure and pattern in words'. This statement implies the notion of the learner being the quiet listener. She had also berated pupils who 'talked over their teacher all the time . . . I would be a lot stricter . . . I know that I can explain my subject to other people if they are prepared to sit and listen, but it's hard against a barrage of noise'. Yet, this is exactly what Jill does: allows a lot of talking, over which she works: 'They get bored, I rather like to get them on with the work and hope they enjoy the activity.' Jill described the good language teacher as one who could 'make repetition interesting'. She found the lesson planning units most useful in the course in the autumn term, along with the formula: repetition, practice, production pattern. She is then applying this theoretical model. However, her diary notes show that she is essentially adopting the structural approach she claimed to be necessary in her earlier comments. One first-year class, who had not grasped the idea of verb and subject pronoun, offered an example. Jill then decided to take remedial action: The blank look on several faces when I tried to explain made me realise that they did not know what a verb wasI built the following lesson around showing what a verb was and pattern drilling the verbs they

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were learning. I made a cardboard dice with tu, il, je, etc. on it and we played team gamesmaking the verb match the personal pronoun. They enjoyed it very much. I tried throughout several lessons to repeat the sentence they gave me with the correct pronoun and verb but it was evident that they did not even notice and that the explanation was not only quicker but absolutely essential. Jill is continuing a dialogue that puts her model of language learning in the right and the assumed 'inductive' method in the wrong. Yet, it also contradicts what she had previous claimed to be impossible: (Games) are all very well in theory but get a class of 12-year-olds and it would fall apart as it is too complicated to set up; for example, the one we used the other day which involved dice. I know from my own children that using dice is asking for troubleit's going to be thrown out of the window, etc. However, she has little confidence in the teachability with some phrases. I ask her about the 'on m'a offert' structure. She claims that there is no way they would get it, so it is not worth teaching. But she did 'teach' it. She claims that this was because it has to be covered in the textbook and that 'some of them might get it'. Jill is complying with external demands, almost as a way of explaining her own lack of success. Jill tells me that the kids get bored. This is a different statement from the pupils finding her lesson boring; responsibility is then shifted from her to the pupils. Nevertheless, Jill is 'happy with the way things are going'. In other words, there is no pressing reason to change. There are obvious tensions between external and personal positions on language teaching: 'There is a certain tension between the way the children are used to being taught and the way I am expected to.' Poor grades from her pupils are also explained away in terms of materials being too complicated and covering too much too soon. Approximately half way through her school experience Jill is still finding that 'her' approach works best: 'Explaining the grammar and giving vocabulary to learn can get you through the book faster than the painstaking setting up of dialogues and organising role plays.' Yet, there is clearly some guilt involved here. She teaches the perfect tense, but then organises lessons based on finding your way around town. This is abandoned, however, because assessment tests have to be done and she does not want to get too far behind. Such comments give the picture of a curious contradiction of choices and justifications. It could be summed up as she knows how she wants to teach, but cannot do it. The factors

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prohibiting her are tutor demands, the pupils' usual learning habits, the demands of the school, the teaching materials. All of these are cited in place of an examination of the reasons for her own inability to operationalise the method we have discussed at the university. Yet she still feels she is being communicative. A high point comes when a pupil asks to go to the toilet in French; apparently, a result of her 'perseverance' with the target language. In another (Year 2) lesson, Jill adopts a near textbook approach. Again, this is based around presentation, practice, production, and three-stage questioning on the topic of food and drink: T: Ecoutez bien Voici une glace Claire, c'est une glace, oui ou non? P: Oui (repeated by three pupils) T: C'est une glace aux fraises C'est une glace aux fraises ou au citron P: C'est une glace aux fraises (repeated by three pupils) T: Voici un café Qu'est-est que c'est? P: Un café (repeated by two pupils) T: C'est un café, oui ou non? P: Oui T: C'est de la bière ou de la limonade? P: . . . T: C'est de la limonade Such a sequence can be viewed as trying to comply with a definite activity approach given at the university. However, in its application here there are problems. Firstly, there are some important differences between au, aux, de la and un, which are not brought out in the sequence. The questions are 'closed', which is a major reason for using the technique as it offers a high degree of control over what is elicited. Jill does this to keep the pupils passive. This passivity is reinforced by the follow-up listening, which has the pupils writing on sheets but not engaging with Jill. This could also be for disciplinary reasons. Certainly, this is her preoccupation at this stage: 'Difficult group. I constructed a very controlled lesson to keep them busy.' A mixture of French and English also appears to perform different

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functions: to provide organisational support to the lesson; to maintain a semblance of target language use. French is preceded by English: 'For your homework I have a crossword for you. Un mot croissé pour les devoirs et donnez-moi vos cahiers', and English is sometimes used to elicit translations: T: Who can tell me the phrase for 'I would like'? P: Je voudrais T: Yes, Je voudrais What is Jill's understanding of the pupils' view of language? She understands both French and English, but the pupils do not. The language used in French and English also performs various purposes. Jill can operate these as she knows both languages; for the pupils this is not the case. Jill comments on the use of materials such as flashcards. During the previous meeting she said that the pupils got bored with the use of flashcards. She now contradicts this: The pupils laugh at them a bit, but I think they appreciate me making the effort. She seems to get some personal gain from making them. She feels that it helps her 'to think about how to use them'. Yet, the flashcards she produces are incredibly small and difficult to see from the back of the class. Is Jill 'self-centred' about her thoughts, and relatively blind to pupil experience? She finds it difficult to put practical ideas into practice: Yes, there are a lot of activities, but it's difficult to take them on board and make a lesson of them. Jill seems unable to imagine the activities in practice; they therefore, seem fragmentary. They need to be unified by an understanding of how they interconnect, and how the guiding principles should be consistent. But it is difficult for Jill to do this at this stage: firstly, because she does not yet have a theory of teaching that has worked for her in practice; secondly, she feels caught in the various contradictions of her position and what is required of her. This ties in with the fact that she does not seem to be able to imagine pupils' experience or their separate views of language. Jill is just over half way through her school experience, and her approach to lessons does not seem to have changed much. However, when asked to give a 'score' for imagination in one of her lessons, she awards nought. Indeed, she is less 'happy' than earlier in her experience, and can see room for improvement, but does not yet seem able to move forward in language teaching. The problems seem 'elswhere', not her.

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Later, Jill is asked to give an in-service training session on the communicative approach to her teaching practice school colleagues. The contradiction she feels in this school is summed up: 'The teachers here are negative and sceptical; however, they do get good results.' Jill observes another teacher's lesson and offers a critique: The lesson was boring: followed an exercise in Tricoloremeeting friends off a train, instructions, what is happening tomorrow, etc. She taught them 'demain, j'aurai les maths', when I am positive that most young people would use the present tense. A case of accuracy versus colloquial street cred. Then in pairs they had to make up their own dialogues. At one point she said: 'I don't want to hear anyone say ''You say this and I'll say such and such". French only please,' But not once did she use any French herself to set the scene or the atmosphere of the class, or to give them a model of any kind. Yet, this is precisely the level of criticism which might be levelled at Jill's lessons. Guided by ideas, she seems capable of seeing the failings in others but not in herself. She seems unable to take responsibility for her own teaching. Another lesson towards the end of her experience is based around 'Il /elle va', 'Ils/Elles vont' and 'loin de/près de'. After demonstration, Jill uses questioning to elicit responses from pupils: T: Où vont Nicholas et Françoise? P: Ils vont à la banque (#2) T: Marie, où va Françoise? P: Françoise va à la banque T: Oui, Françoise va à la banque Où va Françoise? P: Françoise va . . . T: A la banque. Françoise va à la banque Où vont Françoise et Nicholas? P: . . . . T: Ils vont P: . . . . T: au café P: au café T: Ils vont au café 'C'est loin' de and 'près de' is then added, but she cannot get pupils to use the desired language: T: La piscine, c'est loin de la maison ou c'est tout près?

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P: . . . T: La banque est tout près de la maison mais la piscine est loin This initial sequence in the lesson leads on to Jill reading a simplified version of 'Le Petit Chapereau Rouge', and following up with attempts at questioning. Maybe Jill tried to do too much, but she does not agree: I know that the head of department would ask 'How are you going to cover the syllabus in that case?' Coverage of the syllabus is the main deciding factor in determining activities for Jill, not whether the pupils are learning or not. This trend connects with her tendency to see others and other situations governing what happens in lessons; i.e. Jill is not responsible. It also reinforces her view that direct telling is easier and quicker than indirect methods: There are many things that can be explained quickly which children don't always see the meaning if you demonstrate. Jill has not been able to satisfy any of the criteria she feels that are being imposed on her. She wants to be communicative, but there are constraining forces; she wants to deal with structure but has another method prescribed to her; she wants to be lively and get the pupils working and learning but has not been able to do that. Her head of department makes the point that they are rather traditional in the school, but sees that a teacher has to be 'lively' to use more target language. Jill is not. She continues to shift the blame away from herself in her own sense of limited success: for example, in the inherent nature of the teaching materials and activities'cue cards do not work'. Finally, her school experience seems to be a disappointment for her. She sums up: 'I am better at doing than making things happen.' Marie Marie is placed in a typical urban school. The whole of her school experience is marked by continued deep selfreflection. Her diary notes are awash with comments and reminders. She uses many diagrammatic forms to image relationships, highlight and extrapolate practical consequences. Yet, all this borders on hyper-reflectivity, and methodological indecision. The impression given is one of continual crisis. The impact of starting full time in school is very evident: 'I feel too tired. I should stop working too much as I have noticed the damage of it.' In class too, she 'uses' herself too much. Discipline is a strain for her, and she feels there were so many things to think about. Lesson planning is a real issue; not only in terms of the time it takes to do, but the actual implementation of the lessons: the beginnings of

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lessons are difficult, and, by Week 2, she still does not feel that she has started a lesson in an orderly fashion. She feels that she spends too much time on lesson planning and that they are too theoretical: I concentrate too much on the communicative approach and forget the essentials. There is then a conflict between planning and implementing a perfect language lesson according to theory and the 'essentials'those aspects of classroom management that are needed to realise a good plan in practice. It is as though Marie is operating according to the lesson plan activities as if they were a formula: I plan too many things and rush to get through them all. In fact, I would rather make it updo what I have to do. But it's exhaustingthe kids are amused, but keep thinking up activities, games that they will enjoy, is exhausting. But Marie is re-reading the course notes, which 'now make sense'. Practice with them makes them come alive. Marie is a native French speaker. This means that she experiences French differently from those students who have learnt it as a second language. In previous school experience she had some positive experience with using her French; she was able to 'control and support' the pupils: I felt that everyone was participating, everyone was moving at the same time. For her, French 'is always there'. This contrasts with her second language, Spanish, the use of which makes her more self-conscious and inhibited. The fact that she uses French natively, and she is working with a communicative approach, clashes somewhat with what she finds in her early school experience. Firstly, she has to use a published course book, which is overly grammatical. Secondly, unit assessments of this book are required, limiting what she can do in a communicative mode. Teaching therefore includes several conflicting factors. She uses a lot of French, 'because the pupils appreciate it'. However, the standard is low, so she has to give instructions in English. Her English itself causes problems, which undermines her confidence. So much oral work also puts pressure on time to include other skill areas. Despite these initial concerns, things go quite well for Marie. She likes to make her own materials as this helps her to develop her own style. Planning still requires a lot of time. However, plans become less of a 'barrier' for her

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and she is even 'able to change things on the spot'. She gets a 'good response from the pupils when the lessons are practical', and with some classes she can even express her personality which pupils enjoy. At this point the picture is one of a training teacher beginning to have some success in the way she feels she wants to teach. In particular, there is a clear attempt to form a relationship with pupils through her language. This is apparent in an early lesson. The lesson is with a Year 3 French class and is based around pupils making simple telephone conversations. Lesson Structure (1 hr, 10 mins. Year 3 French) Oral PresentationOHP Pair Work 1 Pupil/Teacher Oral WorkCue Cards OHP Textbook Pair Work 2 WritingCopying from board Pupil/Teacher Oral WorkCue Cards Listening Homework Song The lesson starts with Marie using a lot of French to organise pupils: T: Un peu de silence Sortez vos livres Asseyez-vous Vite Je fais l'appel This introductory sequence is followed by Marie setting up an activity where pupils get the telephone numbers of their partners: T: OK. Maintenant vous cherchez le numéro de téléphone de votre partenaire. OK. Now I want you to find the telephone number of your partner. This sequence indicates a translation technique, from French to English, to organise pupils, and tell them what they are to do: T: O.K. I want you to practise in pairs. One asks: 'Quel est ton numéro de téléphone?', the other one answers. This leads on to another exercise in which pupils are given cards with

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information on which they have to exchange with a partner. Again, Marie attempts to present the language and what pupils are to do in French before pupil response leads to an English translation being given: T: Je vous donne une petite carte Il y a un Nom, un pays et un numéro Et maintenant je téléphone, dring, dring. Et vous dites C'est Michel à l'appareil (Class repeats) T: Par exemple, je voudrais le 44,22,17,14 C'est Jean P: C'est Jean T: Vous dites, c'est moi P: C'est moi T: Jean à l'appareil P: Jean à l'appareil T: Did you understand? P: No T: (Explains in English) This conversation shows Marie using language for different purposes; organisational, demonstration, clarification. In 'vous dites, c'est moi' there is an example of a combination of language for instructional and demonstration purposes. The actual conversation appears quite successful, and it is only when Marie reverts to English to ask the pupil if he understands, and he claims not to, that it 'breaks down'. Marie is attempting to create a dialogue. In this case, understanding is being monitored as she tries to get pupils to use language through a condensed model of presentation, practice and production. Some 20 minutes into the lesson, Marie uses this work on numbers to practise asking the telephone numbers of key places in town. She also uses some published materials to practise this while she hands out the next oral input from her. The latter is based on a written presentation on the board, to be used with matched cue cards for pupil pair work. Marie presents this with English translations to check understanding: T: Je voudrais le 34, 21, 67, 19 P: Oui T: Je voudrais parler à Odile P: C'est de la part de qui? T: C'est de la part de Marie Où est-il? P: Il n'est pas là T: Je rappelerai plus tard

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This is a successful conversation, repeated with other pupils. It is not fully generative or personalised, as pupils have visual support, but it is not totally reading written prompts. Marie is using her own name, as if this was a real conversation with her seeking to speak with a specific individual. Marie is trying to be herself in the classroom, albeit compromised with English translations, pupil demands, structural teaching materials, and so on. She continues with a listening exercise, then some songs to end the lesson. Marie had clearly succeeded in engaging with the pupils, using French and English, and getting them to engage with each other. To this extent, the classroom was communicative. What is Marie's state of mind at this stage? This was a good lesson. She still feels tired, however, by the effort involved; the previous day her mind went blank and she became confused. The class is top ability and the teacher wants Marie to stay closely in contact with what was being done in lessons. Marie is told what to do on a weekly basis. The teacher also feels that Marie does too much oral work, which needs to be 'corrected'. Marie continues a dialogue with herself about what it is to be a teacher. She notes the affective nature of pupil experiences in lessons: 'Words reflecting experienceexperience being a child: emotions, feelings, play, security . . . they like things that are close to them'; and the relational aspect of her work with them'(communication) good pointhow to relate to pupils and create relationships with them.' She writes that she has no reaction to certain poor behaviour from pupils and notes that she has 'not conformed'. Marie is a bit of an outsider within the school. This seems to connect with her attempts to form a personalised relationship with the pupils rather than develop a teacher persona. Communicative language teaching points in this direction, and her native French competency allows her to be herself. Teacher attributes, however, are expected from schools, and indeed the pupils. Marie does not yet seem to have developed or even recognised these. Still, by mid-way through her school experience she seems more integrated into the school: 'I am starting to have a rough idea on how I should behave.' But how has her language teaching evolved? The following lesson takes place approximately three-quarters of the way through school experience. It is with a Year 4 French class. Lesson Structure (1 hr, 10 mins. Year 10 French) Oral PresentationBoard Pair WorkBoard WritingCopying Vocabulary

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ListeningTape/Board ReadingText book Homework Game The lesson is based on airport information giving flight numbers, times, destinations, etc. which are displayed on the board as the pupils entered the classroom. After settling the class down Marie practises various times using a clock; this includes the 24-hour times. She then indicates the diagram on the board: T: Regardez le tableau Je vais prendre le vol à 15.40 C'est quel vol? P: AF110 T: Où vais-je? P: 15.45 T: Où vais-je? (pointing) P: Nice Time is a significant factor in understanding this lesson. The school in which she is placed operates lessons of one hour and ten minutes each. The initial exercise of practising the times and questioning them based on flight information lasted ten minutes. Marie then transfers the same activity to the pupils: T: Maintenant, vous allez travailler en paires Tu demandesje veux aller à Amsterdam quel est le vol et tu disc'est le vol AF110 tu comprends? Alors, allez-y There is no translation in this case, so the structural transference from teacher leads to a pupil-centred activity which appears to be successful. However, Marie quickly stops the activity and asks four pupil pairs to perform their dialogue. The whole activity had lasted two minutes. This is clearly a misjudgment of timing and activity. There are none of the conversational patterns she had tried to incorporate in the previous lesson. The dialogue has been reduced to a basic question and answer sequence with no genuine exchange of information. Neither was Marie involved in the dialogue. In fact, it seems to amount to little more than a practice exercise, and did not connect with the follow-up exercise in any productive sense. The next activity lasts 20 mins. It consists of Marie checking a list of

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relevant airport vocabulary on a listening tape. The vocabulary is dealt with by straight translation into English: T: Ouvrez les cahiers (mimes) T: La porte, qu'est-ce que c'est en Anglais? P: Gate T: Le vol? P: Flight number . . . etc. The listening tape consists of eight announcements, each with a flight number, gate, time of departure and information on lateness or possible cancellation. Of course, to give this information takes a relatively small amount of language or tape time. In order to grasp such detail as 'flight number AC850' Marie has to replay the taped sequence some five times. Marie tests the comprehension by pupils of each phrase by asking for an English translation and repeating the French: T: What's that? P: Cancelled T: And what's that in French? P: Annullé By the end of this sequence, most pupils were bored and chatting. Some 40 minutes into the lesson, Marie moves onto another activity, this time based on reading from the textbook as a way of calculating the destinations of a given group of travellers. Her approach is again translation. T: Maintenant, on va lire. Après chaque phrase. After each phrase you will tell me the words you do not understand and I'll prepare something to write on them John, tu lis A P: Il est midi T: OK. You understand: it's midday . . . etc. Pupils are left on their own to read for 20 minutes. The follow-up is in French: T: Où va Miss Carter? P: Los Angeles T: Elle va à Los Angeles

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However, the class is very restless at the end of the lesson and the activity is abandoned after four examples with no further comments. The lesson is brought to a close with homework and a game to finish. It is clear that a pedagogic discourse has to be created and maintained by the teacher. In order to do this in French, a variety of repair devices are employed to keep the pupils in relation with the teacher. This relationship seems to become the primary concern of teachers, to the extent that principles of language teaching are abandoned or heavily modified in order to conform to real pedagogic relationship of the lesson. So, for Marie, there is a noticeable shift between the first and second lessons. Both make use of translation, but in the second it is used not only for organisational purposes but to systematically check the meaning of all vocabulary. Armed with this clarification, pupils attempt listening and reading activities in terms of giving solutions to linguistic problems. In the first lesson, Marie was using language to hold a dialogue with pupils, and to make them talk with each other. In this second lesson, language is continually seen as the problem that can be solved by Marie giving the meaning. The structures of the activities are different. In the first lesson, there is an attempt to relate through discourse in French; in the second the basic activity is pedagogic in design, and can be solved only through the understanding of the language. Understanding is brought about with Marie supplying 'the' answer, which satisfies her pedagogic need, to be a teacher. This is a disappointing lesson. Marie seems to have deteriorated. There are several factors at play in this. Her diary notes again suggest the contradictions of activity/passivity in her own view of herself as a teacher. On the one hand, she feels she must be more adventurous, yet, on the other, she sees that she is not able to do that through lack of personal strength: As a teacher, I must realise I need to create more space for myself and switch off from work. Some of my lessons did not go very well because I was physically not fit (lack of sleep, etc.). Still, she realises the potential criticism in what she has done: I thought and thought yesterday and could not think of anything to do . . . I'm just too tired. A few weeks ago I was exhausted making materials, and now I can't do it any longer. In fact I spent so much time making materials that I was forgetting how to use them. Now, I am trying to make a little material go a long way. Otherwise I don't know what I'll do next year. Significant realisations can then come about from very negative experiences; in this case, the perception of her own physical limitations. A

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pragmatic turn in this case can be extremely positive in modifying behaviour. It can be viewed as a compromise, but it is also a move away from a theoretical construct or ideal, and the coming into being of a closer relationship with the experience of teaching at hand. Theory is not abandoned, but it does become less explicit in determining practice and a personal evaluation of it. The same might be said of her lesson planning, which, whilst continuing to be problematic for her, leads to modification of practice: My lesson plans are getting shorter and shorter. I just can't do it anymore. It's too restrictivewhen you always have to move on, you can't wait for the pupils because your lesson plan says you must be doing something else. It doesn't allow you to react to something the pupils have said. So now I have a basic outline and work on that. Her views on communicative language teaching also produce different responses. She criticises the department for being very 'teacher-centred', and feels that 'teachers should love giving independence to children'. Yet, she seems to feel that the communicative approach is somewhat an imposition: Yes, indeed, we don't do what we wantwhether we like it or not, we have to use the communicative approachbesides, it has proven to be the best method, so why criticise it. School experience seems to have a negative effect on the model of language learning which Marie wishes to put into operation: I knew what you would say. I knew you wouldn't like it. The book is so dull and boring. I just couldn't think of any way to make something of it. And anyway, they have to learn the rules for the grammar test. It's all traditional here. I'm sinking like everyone else. I'm the only one trying to approach the lessons in this way and to use as much French as possible. All the others just talk away in English, so I'm becoming like one of them. I'm sinking. Janet Janet is placed in an inner city school for her teaching practice term. It is not an 'easy' school. There is a large proportion of 'difficult' pupils. The department itself is unsettled, with an acting head in a caretaker role. The staff are used to following their own approaches to teaching, which tend to be traditional, mostly in order to manage disciplinary problems in some classes. At one point, the department is inspected and heavily criticised. These factors influence Janet. During her first week's observation she notes:

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'Not much evidence of the communicative approach'. And wonders consequently how to approach her teaching: 'Do I carry on simulating their style or do it my way/will this disrupt the learning of the pupils?' In her second week she starts teaching and finds it 'hard, challenging and . . . rather draining'. At this stage she feels she is getting the balance about right, although the pupils are wary of her new methods. She also reports herself and her department to be disorganised. An early lesson is with a Year 4 French class. Lesson Structure (1 hr, 10 mins. Year 4 French) 1. Oral WorkFlashcards 2. Pair WorkBrochure 3. HomeworkWrite-up The lesson starts with the roll being called; Janet in French, the pupils in English. Without further ado, Janet launches into the lesson requesting and getting the date in French. She then starts the lesson proper with a group of flashcards of various parts of the town: T: Aujourd'hui, nous sommes à Southampton (With flashcards) Où sommes-nous? P: L'information This continues with various parts of the town, with Janet eventually questioning about what there was to see in Southampton: T: Est-ce qu'il y a un musee P: Tudor House T: Est-ce qu'il y a un jardin P: En centre ville Some answers are not so detailed. A question asking if there is a station in town is answered by a simple 'oui'. Another elicits 'oui, est-ce qu'il y a un musée'. This exercise is followed up with Janet giving out brochures on Southampton in French. An explanation in French is given telling pupils that they have £50 for the day. They have to write down what they want to do: T: Vous êtes ici au bureau d'information. Maintenant décrivez votre journal. Je veux visiter le cinéma (written on board) pour voir 'Anarchophonie'. Après je veux manger.

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With reference to the brochure on Southampton, Janet continues with points concerning places: T: (Ocean Village) Qu'est-ce qu'il y a à faire? P: Le cinéma, les magasins . . . T: The Anchor. The Anchor est situé au centre ville. The Red Lion, c'est assez célèbre. Pourquoi? It's quite famous. C'est un pub historique (writes and reads). At this point Janet is some 40 minutes into the lesson. She has had some success in relating the materials to the pupils and, indeed, eliciting answers based on the personal knowledge of pupils. There is 'translation into English' techniques being used to check understanding but the lesson has a dialogue flow. Eventually, she goes into English, partly as a result of pupils' fatigue, to set up the following activity: T: Voilà les hôtels mais j'ai seulement £50 Maintenant écoutez, décrivez votre journal. Qu'est-ce que c'est en Anglais? P: . . . T: Right. I want you to describe your day in Southampton the way I just have. Don't forgetyou only have £50. OK. Voilà les dépliants. Décrivez votre journal. It is perhaps not surprising that pupils become fatigued. The language in this last sequence is being used organisationally, managerially and demonstratively. The check in English sets the next activity going with pupils working on the brochures. The activity goes well for five minutes but increasingly pupils disconnect from the task and begin to chat generally in English. Janet had clearly picked up a lesson structure that is based on oral presentation and written production. She also provides a context that relates to pupilsin this case, Southamptonand uses some real-life materials. Her use of target language is insistent, and she manages to engage in dialogue with some pupils. The main weakness is in the move from oral presentation to written production. Here, pupils do not have enough familiarity with the language to complete the task accurately. The context is also too open-ended, with no real specific aim or goal; for example, information that would allow pupils to know when they had completed the task, and a personal context for them to relate to and connect with their fellow pupils. The lesson is, however, based very much on the model used at the university: oral presentation, questioning, written consolidation, authenticity, attempts at personalisation. Commenting after the lesson, Janet confesses that she has planned it well

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because I was coming. She is clearly not happy with the group, who, she thinks, are disruptive and have been negatively influenced by their previous teacher. However, at this stage Janet appears to be working from an ongoing model of language teaching: We are aware that the communicative approach represents an ideal towards something we may not teach . . . it's a question of sorting out where we are at and then working towards it. I hope I can do this in future. This may be the ideal situation Janet would like to be working from, but three weeks later she is off school ill. She comments: 'Can't decide if I have made myself or really am ill.' She is not enjoying teaching and it is difficult for her. By now it is clear that Janet is becoming increasingly dispirited and disaffected. A day back in the university only seems to highlight her isolation; she finds it difficult to talk about her experiences as she is not enjoying herself. The presence of other trainees who are discussing their problems only seems to make Janet feel more detached from the training experience. It is as if there is nowhere to turn to; school, university, fellow students. The following week she is reluctant to go into school, but does so, and has some success; she feels her lesson planning is coming together and she is able to be stricter with some pupils; it is possible to have fun with her second year classes. Yet, the pressure of her thoughts about teaching and the lack of opportunity to express them causes her to break down in tears with the head of department, with whom she is able to share her feelings and increasing doubts about teaching. She starts going to classes of pupils with special needs and helping with the 'vocats', a group of students that have been removed from mainstream lessons and are following an alternative, pre-vocational curriculum. This is a significant move, as, increasingly she sees positive experience in teaching as working with these groups and her physical education classes. Things do go better for her, however, with classes. She seems to have settled on a formula for lessons which works for her. This follows a pattern of oral presentation, pair work and tape exercises. A typical lesson finds her setting a context: 'Nous sommes dans la chambre': T: Qu'est-ce que c'est? P: Une table . . . etc. T: Où se trouve la chaise? P: La chaise est sous la table T: Où se trouve l'armoire?

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P: L'armoire de sur le lit T: L'armoire est sur le lit, oui A picture of a bed is fixed to the board: T: (To pupil) Viens ici Qu'est-ce que c'est? (with flashcard) P: Une chemise (sticks flashcard on the board) T: Ecris où se trouve le lit P: (Writes) La chemise est sur le lit T: Est-ce qu'il y a une armoire dans ta chambre? P: . . . . T: Est-ce qu'il y a une armoire dans ta chambre? P: . . . . T: Oui ou non P: Oui T: Il y a une armoire dans ma chambre P: Il y a une armoire dans ma chambre. After getting pupils to write various object items in their books, Janet set up the following pair/group work activity: T: OK. Maintenant, avec un parténaire, demandez si il ou elle a une chaise, etc. dans la chambre (Demonstrating with ticks and crosses) Pupils do this in pairs and then in groups of four. Finally, Janet asks individual groups; for example: T: Quel est le plus populaire? P: L'armoire et le lit This is also done as a whole group activity with numbers calculated from the group: T: OK. Levez la main si le meuble est le plus populaire après le lit est l'armoire (etc.) The model of this lesson is classic. Indeed, it is applied almost in a way that allows her to avoid engaging with the problematic nature of its structure. Janet has a dilemma: I enjoy the teaching, it's all the rest I can't stand. However, this is only partly true; she likes the pupils but not language teaching:

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The problem with language teaching is that it is all about preparing materials and giving to the pupils without getting anything back. Besides this, neither her home nor school environment are a comfort to her: (At school) the atmosphere in the staff room is really weird, even the head of department says he hates the politics and just gets satisfaction from the kids. (At home) a group of us came back to the house (after the day at university) for coffee and it was more of the same thing. It's just a bit off if you're not having such a marvellous time. It's not that I'm having problems with the kids, I just don't want to be talking about it all the time. At the moment it's 7.30 in the morning until 9.30 at night. Approximately half way through her school experience Janet has had her crisis about teaching languages at least. Still, she is starting to relax and enjoying her work with the 'vocats' and PE groups. Despite not liking the course books, some of her language classes go well and she comments that one day was 'enjoyable' as (she was) able to channel excitement of the children into the activities prepared. Two significant events then happen. Firstly, her uncle dies, which results in her taking time off school to attend the funeral. Secondly, there is a half-term holiday. The combined effect of these two seem to remove the beginnings of a more positive feeling about teaching. Following half term she comments on her attitude to the rest of her teaching practice and pupils: I'm in a so-what mood. I'll do it; get on with it; get these four weeks over without getting moved . . . I don't see why I should try hard for a class that is disruptive and reluctant to participate. Notes in her diary again dwindle out, with only the most sketchy references being made. She does not put a great deal of effort into lesson planning, which means that a vicious circle is created; poorly planned lessons result in poor lessons which result in deterioration of attitude which results in less effort being put into lesson plans. By the end of her school experience, Janet continues to apply her lesson formula: Lesson Structure (50 mins, Year 2 French) 1. Oral WorkFlashcards 2. Pair Work 1 3. Pair Work 2 4. Tape exercise

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5. Tape Follow-up 6. Homework The lesson again starts with her applying her formula for beginning the lesson: roll, date, and setting the context. For this lesson the context is food in the fridge: T: Bon encore nous sommes dans mon frigo The absurdity of the literal meaning of this sentence is missed by Janet and the pupils. Having stated the context she gets pupils to come to the front of the class and choose from a series of flashcards depicting foods and drinks: T: Choisis quelleque chose Qu'est-ce qu'il y a? Qu'est-ce que c'est? P: Du lait There is then an oral consolidation exercise, which she attempts to set up in French. When this is not successful, she reverts to English: T: Maintenant, tombez sur la page 110 Il y a trois frigos et les sept hommes. Maintenant exercice 9. Choisis un de ces frigos. Fais l'exercise 9. OK. Exercice 9. You're working with a partner. One of you chooses the fridge and the other one guesses which one it is . . . Well, for example, you have to ask 'est-ce qu'il y a de la bière dans ton frigo' and your partner says either yes or no there isn't. The next activity is set up in French, and Janet again requires pupils to talk to each other; this time moving around the class and finding a partner with an identical cue-card: T: Maintenant je vais vous donner une feuille de papier avec 3 choses dans le frigo. Alors maintenant écoutez. Il faut trouver votre partenaire parce qu'il y a deux feuilles comme ça. Demandez aux autres. Est-ce qu'il y a du thé, le café, etc. Different features make the setting up of this pair activity more successful: firstly, Janet is able physically to use two pupils as an aid to gesture in conveying her sense; secondly, she has the cue-cards, and represented on the OHP, so that pupils have a visual support to her French with Janet demonstrating; thirdly, it is clear that the pupils have done this type of activity before, cue-cards therefore indicate a 'find-your-partner' activity. Her follow-up suggestion that the exercise is repeated is clearly

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not understood by pupils, indicating it is the type of exercise rather than the language that fires the pupils' comprehension. What is also clear from the tasks is how little Janet is actively engaging with the pupils; rather the objective of the lesson from her point of view seems to be to move the pupils on from one exercise to the next. Some 30 minutes into the lesson and, apart from the opening revision sequence, Janet has mostly organised pupils to work with each other. In neither exercise does Janet follow-up in a way that demonstrates that one exercise connects with the next. The model is as given at the university, but Janet seems to be using it to occupy pupils and distance herself from engaging with them rather than developing language in a constructive way. In this sense, the lesson appears as one large practice exercise. There may be various reasons for this; pupil control, the desire to present a 'model lesson' for observation, the need to economise on energy and input into the lesson. The model lesson requires another skill activity, and Janet chooses a listening text. This is based on a waiter taking an order from four individuals; pupils list in a grid what each chooses to eat and drink. The display of the grid on the board offers support to Janet's explanation in French, along with the conventional mode for the exercise. Pupils therefore carry out the exercise as a convention. The follow-up activity has Janet requesting answers to the question 'who eats and drinks what': T: Patrick, qu'est-ce qu'il y a à manger? P: La soupe T: Et aussi? P: Les Frites T: Qu'est-ce qu'il y a à boire? T: Coca-Cola This sequence indicates the way that Janet continues to limit her own discourse with pupils to eliciting the correct answers from various exercises. In this sense the lesson is interrogative. Where pupils work on their own Janet does not pick up on this work to engage with what they have been speaking and therefore to use it to build another exercise. This lesson follows the formula approach of all three observed classes. In many ways, they share common features of the model: an attempt to sustain target language, standard entry and exit activities, oral presentation followed by pair work and consolidation exercises. However, taken as a group they seem to be characteristic of the attitude Janet has expressed elsewhere in her diary; that she will do the minimum to get by and to get to the end of term. There is no real sense that she is actively engaging with the problematic features of the model. Neither is there a strong indication that the model has evolved much for her over the term.

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Further comments indicate the way that she has orientated herself towards the relationships she is able to establish with pupils outside of her modern language lessons: Well, I'm really enjoying my work with the 'vocats' and the Special Needs because you have more of a physical progression, but they are not as confident as this lot. So you teach them a few of the life skills and that's good. With modern languages it just doesn't seem to have much to do with them and they get bored . . . Working with the 'vocats' is great . . . when I go up there they say: 'Do you want a cup of coffee Miss?'. It's like a little suite up there and these kids that normally mess about have decorated it really well and made it comfortable. There are clearly features in this that link with Janet's previous experience as an occupational therapist, which she stated 'seemed to connect with real life'. Similarly: 'I really liked my work with handicapped children and I think that's more what I would like to do. Language teaching on the other hand is detached from the real world. For me I can understand others' way of thinking, but I can't adopt it.' Janet certainly refers to discipline problems: I plan some things but then abandon them because I know there would be a riot. Preparing and planning materials is also 'shattering'. The situation described is one where modern language teaching has all the disadvantages and is the root cause of her problems. Despite all these negative comments on pupils, Janet still states that the 'relationships she built up' are the aspect of her teaching practice she is happiest with; presumably outside language work. The department is divided in its attitude to use of target language, etc., which means that Janet does not have an unambiguous commitment or support for the approach. The physical environment also has a negative effect on Janet: If I want to use an OHP I have to book it the day before and most of the rooms don't have screens anyway so I go and write on the board. And the rooms are so small. Even if you're half way down the room you seem to be nearer the back. I feel confined to one room. Anchored on the spot but really I like to get out and about. Janet's developing negative attitude perhaps leads to her exaggerating the difficulties presented by the school e.g. needing to book an OHP is a far

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from ideal situation but is not unusual in many schools or unique to modern languages departments. Even having successfully completed the course, therefore, Janet decides early on not to become a language teacher. The reasons for this seem to be a combination of her background, and the positive and negative attitude towards teaching which arose from her teaching experiences. The actual school she is placed in was one causal factor for her decision: (Becoming a Modern Language teacher?) I've lost interest in that through teaching. I think I shouldn't have gone to that particular school. It didn't help. The environment is clear from the comments above and descriptions of Janet in the school: break is a fairly isolated experience. Janet sat and drank coffee, almost in a dream. She had very little contact with the other teachers. Many of them seemed similarly isolated; a norm for the school. On another occasion, a conversation is recorded that gives some indication of the influence on Janet: One Teacher: Fundamentally, it's all very well for people to say that you can do this or that active, participatory type lesson, but you don't stand a chance unless you have discipline. What can you do if the pupils are crawling up the wall and don't want to learn? So, as a student you try something active and it doesn't work because the kids misbehave and you feel bad. So you try something more traditional and they get bored and they don't work either. So you still feel bad. You try to do something more active for your tutor to see to get a good mark. But it's bad when it doesn't work. It does get easierbut not much (laughter). Janet: Yes, that is where I am at. Jackie Jackie is very happy to be in the school in which she is placed. In fact, it is the school she attended as a pupil. She feels at home there. The department is 'traditional' but supports her in the use of her 'new' techniques. She settles in well and applies the approach dealt with on the training course: thus, loosely, a Presentation, Practice Production model, the designation of final dialogues, and a quasi-structural approach to language learning. She notes the need to be flexible, especially with lower ability classes and to plan lessons to match where the pupils are at. For her, communicative language teaching is to be approached slowly. To begin with, pupils do not understand it when she speaks French.

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Right away, she becomes aware of the demands of her position. At first, she is not 'performing' the teacher role that pupils expected. An example of this is the need to discipline and punish pupils, which she starts to do. Jackie very much takes the initiative in sorting out problems. She is disappointed when she has to have recourse to the head of department over a disciplinary matter. She sees the main responsibility for what happens in lessons to be very much her own. Help is needed for moral support, but essentially she is in charge. During these early days Jackie continues to engage in a dialogue with herself concerning both language teaching and herself as a teacher. She is more descriptive than analytic, and many of her comments concern classroom management. Thus, 'I consciously tried to be quicker today'; and 'must learn names as quickly as possible.' She is very positive. Her first note is 'brilliant day', and she later writes that she cannot stop talking about her classes. There are also minor criticisms; for example, 'planned too muchneed to focus on smaller element of the topic'. An early lesson is with a year 4 French class. Lesson Structure (50 mins. Year 4 French) Oral PresentationOHP Flashcards WritingOHP Exercise Books Homework The lesson shows a clear commitment to using the target language for classroom discourse, both in learning and organisational mode: T: On va commencer Est-ce que vous avez la feuille de papier qu'on vous a donné, hier? comme a . . . Qu'est-ce que c'est une photo . . . . . . Je mange du chocolat . . . etc. The opening sequence of work has Jackie using a number of classroom discourse techniques: T: Qu'est-ce que c'est mignon? P: Cute T: Oui, Je joue avec le chat. Dans le photo, j'ai trois ans . . . Quelle âge ai-je? P: You're three

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T: (Writes on board) A trois ans, je mangeais du chocolat Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire? P: When I was three I ate chocolate T: Yes, when I was three, I ate chocolate I used to eat T: (Repeats with 'limonade') P: I drank T: Or I used to drink T: (Repeats with flowers) P: I liked T: I used to like . . . etc. We can see at least two levels of discourse going on in the above extract. Firstly, a learning one where Jackie is presenting information about herself to the pupils in French. This is very teacher centred, with the pupils being put in the position of passive recipients. There is a need for Jackie to involve them in the subject content. She does revert to translation into English, both to engage the pupils and check understanding. This second pedagogic level also includes the implicit teaching point: the imperfect tense. However, the example demonstrates the problematic issue of at least three English applications for the one form in French; thus, 'Je buvais' in French could be translated in English as 'I drank', 'I used to drink' or 'I was drinking'. Jackie is indicating the 'used to' form by correcting the pupils in each case. However, the distinction between the perfect and imperfect tense meaning is difficult. The lesson continues with transformation exercises to be rewritten using the imperfect form, again based on who Jackie was and what she did, compared to the present day. Jackie does engage in language that attempts to convey the organisational intent of what the pupils have to do with the inner dialogue of the example: T: Et maintenant, il pense, 'ah . . . quandj'avais 20 ans . . . '. Il faut écrire . . . This is another example of a 'double dialogue': one between the person who is reputedly thinking to themselves; and a second narrative one that allows Jackie to contextualise the speaker. The statement from Jackie therefore attempts to relocate the tenseEt maintenantthe person speakingiland the temporal direction of this personal reflectionquand j'avais 20 ans. All this is combined with an organisational instructionil faut écrire. Obviously, this level of sophistication is difficult for pupils to deal with.

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Twenty minutes into the lesson and a dialogue between Jackie and a pupil is used for another contrasting example: T: Maintenant, je joue au squash. Comme toi, oui? Tu joues au squash? P: Oui T: Où a? P: A Appelmore T: Ah bon, tu joues au squash à Appelmore Mais à trois ans, je jouais avec mon frère. The follow-up to this sequence is a written exercise, where pupils have to fill in gaps using the imperfect tense. There are asides as Jackie attempts to insist on French dialogue: P: Do you have a piece of paper? T: Est-ce que vous pouvez dire ça en français? P: Est-ce que vous avez une piece de papier? T: Hmm, OK. Here you are. There are also further examples of 'double dialogue': T: Je ne les aime pas maintenant. On peut écrireQuand j'avais vingt ans, je portais les vêtements comme ça. Mais je ne les aime pas maintenant. On peut dire ça. On peut écrire ça. The lesson concludes with Jackie giving first a French, then followed by an English, explanation of homework, which is to draw pictures and write imperfect descriptions of habits, etc. After the lesson, Jackie is keen to develop her thoughts about communicative language teaching: Target languageat first they didn't know 'il faut' or 'on doit', so I taught it to them. So, I had them up touching arms, etc. It's the thing about target language; you've got to introduce it slowly. Attitude pervades all: Jackie is confident and eager. Her materials are beautifully produced. Jackie presents an extremely positive image of her teaching, which she says she loves. However, slowly the reality of the classes begins to call this view into question. A third-year French class become her problem group; another third-year group, who she earlier reported as 'loving being stretched' causes her problems. Two pupils swear at her. Some of this she puts down to 'Fridayitis'. However, she increasingly uses classroom activities as a way of gaining control. So, a wordsearch is seen as 'calming' to start the lesson. Jackie seems to be very self-assured

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and confident in lessons. When a class punctures this enthusiasm and confidence, and she has to ask for outside help, she is 'shattered'. Yet, Jackie moves to cope with this feeling. So, three weeks into her school experience, and continually confronted by her difficult third-year class, she decides to join them after school in their drama class in order 'to facilitate getting to know them rather than be in permanent conflict'. This tactic has an immediate effect on her, both in terms of the group in particular, who she reports as being 'much better', and her general outlook. A couple of weeks later, she is commenting about 'another good lesson controlled by ''moi"' and a 'brilliant idea' concerning lesson design. Problems are always a source of learning: I fell into the trap of introducing a menu without preparing what each item was before (and with the sixth year) their lack of vocabulary means that 50 mins. is spent introducing vocabulary and cramming a few sentences in at the end. It is half-term and Jackie is exhausted. There is a high energy cost to be paid for her high enthusiasm and positive attitude. Yet, these are central to her potential success. One teacher colleague observes Jackie and comments that her exercises are confusing, but the impression is that Jackie is closed to outside influence. She seems to identify her own problems and deals with them on her own terms. Poor lessons are often explained in terms of various constraining factors: 'horrible negative lesson cramming them with pattern practice'; 'group still low on vocabulary'; 'writing lessons to quiet them downnot very communicative'; 'trying to cover the book ties me down so much'. Soon after half-term she is having discipline problems and is exhausted. It is time to take some time off school. The impression is one of sheer physical and mental exhaustion in keeping up the level of energy and positiveness she has set herself. After resting, there is again an act of will in not only making 'brilliant' lessons but insisting on them being 'brilliant', or so she sees them. Some lessons are extremely difficult for her. With one second-year class she is trying to teach them the vocabulary of places in town: Lesson Structure (45 mins. Year 2 French) Oral PresentationFlashcards WritingOHP Exercise Books Oral PresentationOHP Listening Tape

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Visual Presentation/ WritingOHP SpeakingT/P Game As before, there is a mixture of French and English, the latter being used for organisational and disciplinary reasons: T: Eh bien. Quiet. I've marked your books and I want to say two thingssome of you I want to see because you haven't done all of your workI want to see all of your books on Friday, so that they are up to date ... Quelle est la date aujourd'hui? P: Mercredi T: (Writes Mercredi on board) Et la date? le . . . ? P: vingt-sept T: Oui, le vingt-sept février Ouvrez vos livres et écrivez la date T: Après la date, écrivez . . . Can you stop talking about your marks and write what I've told you . . . Eh bien, commence. Some of these words you know, and some of them you don't . . . (with flashcards) Le château, le parc . . . I'm not continuing with this much noise. This lesson goes on until lunchtimewe can continue then if you like. Three-stage questioning follows, although there are frequent interjections concerning disciplinary matters: T: C'est le parc ou l'auberge de jeunesse? Look, if you don't shut up, you can go to see Miss Smith. C'est l'auberge de jeunesse ou le parc? P: C'est le parc . . . etc. From this activity, pupils go on to write out the vocabulary, along with the English next to it. While they do this, Jackie moves around the class to answer questions in English. Jackie then orally presents family members and locations: T: Où est mon père? Il est dans le parc . . . (Writes: où est mon pre? . . . Il est dans la maison) P: Have we got to write this down, Miss? T: Not yet

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Qu'est-ce que cela veut dire en Anglais? . . . (elicits translation + other examples) Il est où? P: Dans le marché (P): Have we got to write this down? T: No, I'm going to play the tape now and I want you to make a note of which relative and where they are. The pupils then do this activity with Jackie playing the tape of five examples. Jackie gives the answers: for example, 'No. 1, Brother and market'. What about her criticism after observation ealier on in the training that she had not heard one listening comprehension that did not involve translation, and her stated intention not to do this? A pupil points out the illogicality of this: P: If we haven't got it right, how are we to know the correct French? The lesson approaches the end. The pupils have to make a sentence that involves them, or at least the 'je' form. Jackie takes in the marks. The class play a language game, with pupils repeating statements and adding location vocabulary to each. The bell goes. The lesson ends. Jackie is aware of discipline problems: 'I don't seem to be able to get enough control of them.' Language structure is a way of controlling pupils. Still, she is having some experience at least of the type of lesson she is aiming at: T: One group I had, I just flung myself in it and I was the waitress. And they were going 'Kellnerin' and ordering meals, etc. I had them just . . . I'm not sure how to express it . . . (holding cupped hands) I held them, just, just like that. It was marvellous . . . I'm with them just there. Like it's being totally there with them. And that's a joy. There is clearly a sense of oneness in these incidents, where Jackie feels the pupils and she herself are working together. She feels she has never enjoyed her language so much: 'like at the university it was OK, but now I'm totally into it.' Carol Carol is happy to go and teach in the school in which she is placed. There is an initial 'honeymoon period', but then the first hints of problems. The second year are 'gregarious' and a 'delight to teach'; the fourth year 'resemble a bunch of beauty advisers on a bad day'; and 'the third year shows signs of being a challenge'.

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The ironic tone again seems to hint at the disturbing aspect of initial contact with these classes. Carol earlier insisted that attitudinal factors were the most important key to successful language learning. In this respect, her worst fears are confirmed: pupils' negative attitudesare they trying it on or do they really see it as no use to them? Such attitudes clearly also give rise to various disciplinary problems for Carol, which require a tougher approach than the one she adopted previously: (teaching) demands stricter group control: a gentle reprimand leaves a group of trainees feeling ashamed. It has no impact on the third year. All this makes plain to her that the gap between teaching and her previous training career is wider than she had first imagined. She had thought that teaching could be mastered as she had already mastered training. When this does not happen, she has to reassess herself, her beliefs and how she is to act. She continues her dialogue on actual language teaching. Now the communicative approach is seen as an aid to discipline and attitude, as 'it has taken the emphasis away from the more taxing aspects of language'. But: . . . if they are not aware of the correct grammatical form, they won't appreciate the difference between their response and my corrected repetition; if they cannot appreciate the difference, they are unlikely to learn the correct form. Perhaps more 'discovery based' learning is necessary with a great deal of pattern practice. She does then begin to sense an alternative to the dichotomised position of communication approach or structural grammar methods of language teaching. This shift starts her thinking about how the classroom is organised. A more open plan allows for 'competitive, participative activities'. It also has the advantage of avoiding direct confrontation over disciplinary matters. However, Carol sees the major challenge as ensuring that pupils still learn something from these activities and 'do not just see them as an easy option'. Carol implements this new policy early on in her school experience; for example, with a third-year class: Lesson Structure (60 mins. Year 3 French) Oral PresentationBrochures ReadingWorksheets

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Oral WorkPupil/Teacher Pupil/Pupil Set-up of ProjectSheets Brochures The introduction to this lesson uses translation for making organisational language explicit: T: Nous avons étudié les hôtels, les régions, les spécialités. Pendant cette leçon vous êtes les propriétaires et vous allez faire un dépliant avec les détails de l'hôtel. OK. You've studied hotels and the specialities of the region. Today you are going to make a brochure with the details of the hotel. P: . . . T: D'abord, nous sommes au syndicat d'initiative OK. What we are going to do is have numerous brochures, etc. of France and you're going to prepare something on your region. I hope we'll make a poster but to do that you're going to have to ask at the syndicat. Carol goes on to give the pupils a model dialogue based on a conversation in a tourist office; the exercise is for pupils to read for five minutes and to note down any vocabulary not understood. This sequence is followed up with Carol checking and translating vocabulary: T: Vous avez fini? Moi, je suis Steve Vous êtes les employés Vous commencez s.v.p. P: Bonjour Monsieur T: Bonjour Monsieur Vous avez une auberge de jeunesse? Qu'est-ce que c'est en anglais? P: . . . Youth Hostel This conversation mixes imagined context with classroom pedagogic practice and organisational moves, much as the other trainees have. There is the request if pupils have finished, the switch to imagined role, which, in this case entails a change of gender, then the practice of a situationally based conversation which collapses into a move for vocabulary clarification. The sequence is repeated with two other town sites, and then Carol reverts to English to organise pupils into pairs for the purposes of the project. She then goes through a number of regions in France explaining

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their relative characteristics: foods, monuments, leisure activities. Carol has a number of information packs but the pupils do not get the information until they ask her. There is further support material in the form of photocopies from the textbook. For the 30 minutes, pupils work in pairs on the materials. Finally, the bell goes and pupils pack up and leaveno further comment to the class from Carol. In this lesson, the pupils mostly work on their own from materials prepared by Carol. There is no doubt that a great deal of time and effort went into preparing the information packs. Everyone comments about both the quality of the materials Carol produces, and indeed the time it takes her to prepare themreputedly six hours each night. But in this case the impression is that the materials and project are a way of diverting attention away from a direct relationship with Carol as a teacher. Even the inputs which are included in this lesson seem to be confined to giving pupils, as briefly as possible, all they need to get by on their own. This approach could well be a way of avoiding confrontation; both in terms of language and lesson planning and discipline. Carol has had problems with this group, has threatened detentions, but says she is still steeling herself 'to do the deed'. Carol feels that the project is successful. OK, there was not much productive language use between pupils, but 'that will come later': The downside seems to lie with the 'pre-communicative' aspects. I am making a rod for my own back when classes expect every lesson to be enjoyable. The presentation and practice activities do involve the class in the odd bit of concentration and hard work which is less well received. Success seems to be expressed in terms of keeping the pupils positive. With other classes she continues her reflections on alternative approaches to language teaching. A communicative approach is seen as inductive, with all its resultant problems. In pattern practice: 'They identify key structures in the context of one situation and don't transfer them to another context; "je voudrais" becomes an opening used in a restaurant or shop rather than a means of expressing what they would like to do/play/see/visit'. And she feels that this approach takes longer than the old-fashioned 'learn-by-heart' method. Such a statement can only be made from conclusions drawn on immediate experience. Success is in the apparent acquisition of grammar structures; for example, the identification of 'ich' and 'wir' endings by her second year, which is, she says, a 'significant achievement'. Carol uses all her skills and training from her previous career. Five weeks into her school experience she uses video with classes. The pupils are

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entertained. Again, Carol seems to be avoiding planning lessons for classes, either grammatical or communicative, that will engage the pupils in a pedagogic relationship. Another typical lesson has Carol handing out two worksheets. The first indicates a conversation, where pupils have to find out prepared names, jobs and addresses from each other. The second deals with bus lines and their destinations. Carol then elicits the information obtained by the pupils and awards points for it. A taped dialogue then tests pupils on further bus destinations. T: Ruhe, Bitte Schaut ins Heft an. Seite 120, 120 P: One hundred and twenty. (translates) T: Letzte Seite Nächste Woche werden wir Kapital H beginnen Heute, wir werden 7 Dialogen zufhören. Wir müssen in die Tabelle die Antworten schreiben Zum Beispiel, Nummer 1 im Dialog ist: Welcher Bus fährt nach Chanfield (repeats) Sie schreiben A. You write A OK, what you have to do is listen and work out from the dialogue where the bus is going. Give it whatever letter it corresponds to in the book. (The tape is then played) Marks are then given and taken in. Carol gives out 'bugs', small promotional furry creatures which had been obtained from her job, to pupils as rewards for good work. Pupils enjoy this; indeed, all the class get a 'bug' in the end. Her head of department is similarly complimentary of her. In fact, she is exemplary in several areas: work with pupils, commitment, lesson preparation, materials, attendance at meetings, attitude to advice and criticism and organisation. Many of these features clearly relate to her own belief in attitude and motivation as a driving force and key to success; and Carol seems not only to adopt such an approach openly herself but conspires to produce it in others. Her materials are of an extremely professional standard, again reflecting the level of quality she sought to establish and maintain in her previous job. It is as if this approach will solve the problem of language teaching methodology for her. However, in the style of teaching she is adopting, the various parts of the lesson do not seem to connect, and there is no clear direction to it. Moreover, Carol does not seem to enter into a direct dialogue with pupilsin German or English. She is rather the

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checker and organiser. Carol is not engaging in a working relationship with pupils; either pedagogically or disciplinary. She is substituting well prepared activities and bribes for the development of a critical understanding of what she is designing in lessons and for what purpose. The good relationship that she is managing to create with pupils is one that is not based on pedagogic principles but personal, attitudinal ones. Presumably this relates to Carol's belief in the necessity of good attitudes as a prerequisite to effective learning, which seems to make the actual lesson content incidental. It is half way through her school experience and Carol is pleased with the way things are going; although the question of discipline dominates and she is disappointed at how authoritarian and autocratic she has had to become. Success is still seen as the teaching and production of structure, albeit it in a more orally based form: Certainly, some children are better served being taught situations they can use rather than to write a grammatically accurate business letter. Also, the fact that they feel more confident to do so. What I did suited me for A-level but I was woefully inadequate in buying a train ticket. However, do the pupils understand why I address them as 'ihr' in one context and 'euch' in another? Carol clearly cannot see the communicative approach in structural terms. She cannot see it as having anything other than motivational advantages. Ultimate successful teaching still depends on the structural mastery she has achieved with pupils: It is difficult to know what to do for the best . . . in order to make sure that those pupils who are nearly there understand the language structure, whilst trying not to inhibit those with a lesser grasp of the fundamentals. Here, there is an inability to see the 'fundamentals' as not being fundamental for the pupil. However, she does have glimpses of how she might have improved her own language teaching: There is a chasm between 'phrase book French' and knowledge of the structures and vocabulary which they require in order to hold a conversation. In hindsight, we should have spent more time discussing their experience of each subject. This statement is somewhat tantamount to seeing what was lacking from her lessons; communicative dialogue and a personal involvement from pupils on the level of the subject covered.

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Later in her school experience, Carol adopts a 'carousel' approach after observing another member of staff doing so. Material preparation is time consuming, but this is Carol's forte. She is able to analyse the advantages of the carousel approach: variety of activities maintains interest and impetus to exercises. individuals work at their own pace and control their own input rather than being obliged to work at the average pace of the other members of the class, etc.. It is clearly also an approach that harmonises with Carol's previously observed tendency to avoid taking a lead in what occurs in the classroom, as her effort goes into the materials preparation rather than the actual teaching input in the lesson. This approach leaves Carol with a maximum amount of time to attend to the relational, attitudinal aspects of the lesson, and avoid overly demanding input from her which may risk having a negative effect on the pupils' esteem for her. Each time there is a disciplinary incident, Carol notes it with regret; a trend that she sees as regression rather than progression compared with the good grace she recalls from her own schooling. A disciplinary attitude seems to be anathema to her. Lesson Structure (50 mins. Year 4 French) Writing TestBook Oral PresentationOHP Carousel ActivitiesTape Speaking Reading After the class arrives, Carol settles them and sets off with a mixture of French and English: T: Bonjour la classe Shhh! Aujourd'hui. Can you make sure you are in test conditions? The test comprises tasks requiring the writing of a letter to a tourist office requesting information concerning the opening times and cost of entry to a local castle, along with transport details, etc. Pupils settle down to do the task for some 20 minutes. The test papers are then collected in. The next section of the lesson has Carol working from the OHP: T: Hier, nous avons visité le musée Qui a visité un musée hier? Levez les mains. Quel musée?

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P: Musée de Louvre T: Et qu'est-ce qu'on peut voir? P: Le Mona Lisa T: Oui le Mona Lisa Et Gary? P: Le Louvre T: Le Louvre aussi Mary, can I have your attention? OK. With the boss you visited Le Musée des Beaux Arts What is that? P: The fine art museum T: OK. Yes, I suggest you write these down. These are the places your boss wants you to visit. Le musée du château . . . etc. The lesson continues with Carol listing places to visit and eliciting translations from the pupils in English. The exercise quickly transforms into a listing of place names along with requested translations. For most of these, it is apparent that cognates are the major guide for pupils (e.g. la poste), with the exercise being one of 'guess-themeaning'. Having worked with this exercise for some 15 minutes, Carol moves on to the third section of the lesson: T: Maintenant nous allons au cinéma Mettez les feuilles dans vos livres Yesterday we started a new section: divertissements. What we are going to do for the rest of the lesson We're going to divide up into groups (1) Group 1here's a tape (2) Group 2some talking (3) Group 3looking at a film review A few minutes are taken to go through necessary vocabulary, after which, pupils work in groups until the bell. Carol continues to avoid constructing a coherent lesson plan with an integrated structure and a balanced set of activities. However, she continues to make a great deal of effort in materials production: Well that comes from my previous job where presentation was everything. However, there is also the notion of the teacher-as-entertainer: Well again I think it's the discipline thingI always think I'm going to lose them if I don't try to gain their attention.

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But Carol seems reluctant to gain pupils' attention pedagogically. There have been substitutes in the form of gifts, her over-friendly attitude, attractive materials, and pupil centred exercises. However, most classroom practice is designed to avoid a direct pedagogic encounter. She also feels disappointed with the way pupils often behave: I feel disillusioned that children do not respond to my attempts to motivate them, but see it as a weakness. Hence, I have become more authoritarian . . . I feel I have been unable to develop a strong rapport with the pupils. Indeed, there is evidence that Carol tried to develop such a rapport, but this was outside of classroom activities rather than through them. One might even say that she sacrificed such activities in her attempts to accommodate pupil preferences. This experience must further disrupt her confidence in the method of language teaching, communicative or grammatical, which she is trying to operationalise. She claims that the authoritarian figure that she now sees herself to be, negates every principle of management she has propounded for the last ten years. Outcomes After their main school experience, the trainees are back in the training institution for a short while before the course finally concludes. Time to reflect. Time to think back on the training experience itself, what they made of communicative language teaching and life in schools. • How have they put up with it all? • How do they think they have changed? • What about modern language teaching? All the trainees take a measured view of communicative language teaching. As Janet puts it: 'CLT is not quite right but it is in the right direction.' Marie agrees that it is the 'right way because children are responding'. The methodology has only been a beginning for them in developing their classroom pedagogy: 'The things with the flashcards I liked, but I did feel it was directing the pupils a lot. All these little activities also seem very scatty. When I try to learn a language, as I have done, I try to learn the value of each word and how to use them in different ways.' Personal experience matters a lot. For Jackie, this style of language teaching is everything that her own was not, and she liked that. Jackie has picked up on the negative effects of doing exercises that everyone gets right

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straight away, and where there is no room for error: 'I know that is so because I've spent time doing it. I'd prepare games that I knew they would all get right eventuallythere was no way they could get away from what I wanted them to do. Then someone suggested giving them homework that allows them to bring in and add to what they have to do, their own creativity and then use that in the lesson, so that they are bringing more of themselves into the lesson rather than what you have described in the final dialogue. This is how I see my method developing.' This development of the term 'communicative' is evident from her personal reflections on what she had been doing in the classroom: 'I thought I was being child-centred about a lot of the activities that I was planning. I thought I was using the term communicative, but it was not as refined. I was getting them to do things but I was still the contact in the role plays. I would be going around interacting with groups rather than leave them that little more time to do their own thing.' Jackie feels this will come about through 'building on lessons you've done before, re-introducing things, so that pupils still feel they are able to bring things in from previous lessons, previous final dialogues, and also giving them scope to bring in things they've done away from the classroom'. The importance given to 'personalisation' has become very alive for Jackie. Of course, it had been there on their training course from the very beginning, but it is only now, and with the insight from direct experience, that it has become real. Jill and Carol, on the other hand, return to familiar themes. Carol, for example, still sees it as a soft option: 'I have nothing fundamental against the communicative approach. I just don't like pupils who can do more, not doing so.' However, she does see that it is a matter of interpretation: 'I think that defining the communicative approach is part of the difficulty. I got the impression at the beginning of the course that it was geared towards the lowest common denominator. It took away grammar, so it was language learning for idiots. But then you go back and look at it more, and you see that it is more to do with covering the same work but organising it differently.' There is a tendency, therefore, to polarise issues of grammar and more oral-based methods rather than work with the tensions in procedural terms. Jill has modified her position on the communicative approach. Games, for example, are seen as useful rather than 'impossible'; and she feels that lower ability pupils need more support, thus less rather than more oral work. Talk in the foreign language is thus not a soft option. However, her essential position remains similar to Carol's: 'I still feel you have to put more into telling pupils how the language actually works. I feel you have to give them

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as much target language as possible but grammar explanations are necessary. Pupils still pick up the language quicker with an explanation.' So what of the course itself? Is that also something against which trainees have to kick as part of the learning process? As always, the answer is yes and no. Jill has found it 'intellectually stimulating', which is something she felt she needed. Janet accepts that what has occurred is training for a particular type of pupil. Carol notes the link between the training course, the pedagogic approach and how individuals are likely to react: 'Seeing most of us learnt in a different way, we got the impression that this approach was now used because people were not able to cope with the traditional ways . . . you were dealing with a group of people who learnt by the traditional method . . . even younger people seemed to have followed a very traditional pattern . . . to be told that communication is more than the 's' on the end of an adjective was heresy . . . we thought we've all done it and got on, and it was pointed out that we were slightly brighter than the rest, so we interpreted it in this way'. Marie is more critical of the course itself: 'We could have straight away gone on trying to find a good method ourselves all together. For example, we have good linguists, people have got good qualifications. We could have tried to teach each other . . . Try another language unknown to us; maybe then we would have understood the way we had learned.' Carol too suggests another approach based on her previous job as a trainer: 'Rather than give a basic framework, why not create a hypothetical situation, criticise it, then state wouldn't it be nice if we had such and such model. Sell the idea. And then produce it, so that now we've all criticised our own way of learning languages, we can appreciate how good the communicative approach is.' Jackie, on the other hand, does not agree. She reflects on the general approach used in training: 'One of the turning points or great things was a couple of weeks ago on the Monday. A rediscussion of the communicative approach. Although I did not partake in that debate, that was a great point for me because I could see that the point of you introducing the approach as and when you didand it made sense of the whole year. Although different people in the groupit was coming across as a conflict situation. They were questioning your interpretation of the approach but it all came together for me: of course you have to have an approach that is presented to you and for some people it is going to fit the way they work, and for others it's not, so they'll modify it. But we need the original approach.' Jackie sees the method as the trainees being asked to take the approach on board in a basic, preliminary form and then problematise it: 'You've set

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yourself upyou've allowed things to be questioned . . . you've moved on again. You're allowing people to question the communicative approach . . . you've even hinted that it's in question in your own mind as well.' These types of statements are indicative of the trainees' individual personalities, and they are aware of these to a certain extent as part of the training process. Jill notes that she is better at doing than making other do. Janet decides that she does not want to teach, but is clear about the sort of person who would make a good language teacher: 'Someone who has links with the country, which I haven't. Someone who is integrated and organised enough to get authentic materials, which I am not . . . The people I know like Kathy are always on the phone speaking Spanish all the time. She sees Spanish in a daily situation. She loves the language. And if anyone can speak it, she can help them, she gets a real buzz out of it. So for her teaching Spanish is great and puts her on a high. But for me, I enjoyed the literature and didn't spend a year abroad and so didn't get anything. I don't know anything about French culture because I got it all through the literature.' It is probably this feature that was finally decisive in Janet abandoning language teaching; for her the language had never become a real experience. Faced with having to create that real experience for pupils, she just did not have the experience to draw upon. Although she was able to teach through formulae, and show some academic insight into the principles of language teaching, for her, real relationships could not be formed through classroom interactions. What was real for her was extra-curricular. By the end of the course, she could see that she had gone into it because of the influence of those around her: 'Both my sisters have done it. Most of the people I know have done languages and have come out with the reasons of why and what they have gained. I see the relevance and the importance but I don't feel my skills and qualities go in that direction . . . I could teach PE, but not French. It's too square: the classroom, the timetable and assessment.' For Marie it is the opposite. She 'is' her language. Her lessons are an extension of herself in a very real sense. Lessons that bring language into question in a problematic way will then also bring her own identity into question. Such an experience is likely to be threatening. Children experience in this direct way, adults cannot. This phenomenon connects with the language of pedagogic activity in the classroom: 'It was difficult to synchronise the activities and to be myself; to be in the right place at the right time . . . I try to distance myself more . . . (but) . . . it depends on what sort of distance I am. If I stand at the board and stare like this, it is horrible. But the teacher in the primary school could just make her presence felt.' This latter teacher had provided Marie with a model of how to 'be' with classes that connected with pupils in a way that was interactional, but

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allowed pupils not to be subjugated in a negative way. The method of language teaching provided on the course had imposed itself negatively into this possible ideal relationship. In both cases, language and the communicative approach, there existed a problematic medium for the interconnectedness of those involved. By constantly objectifying and reflecting on theory and practice Marie found herself caught in various dilemmas, most noticeably expressed in her quandaries over the approach to language teaching she wanted, and felt obliged to use: 'I think that it is important that I can internalise, analyse myself. If you are given a method: this is the way you have to do it and I'm here and I can't see the relation with me to that, so I have to build up one if it is necessary.' At first, she accepts the communicative approach, but each encounter in the classroom disrupts both her personal model and the one she has been presented with, an interpretation of which she attempts to operationalise. This contrasts with her own practice. To begin with, she is concerned with lesson planning as a means to applying the approach; then she is able to produce some lessons where she can be herself and interact with pupils. Finally, she moves to standard and routine practice based on published material, partly as a result of the physical effort involved in directly engaging with pupils, and partly her own contradictory readings of what is expected from her by different groups of individuals. The trainees' own personalities are therefore caught in the training situation. They want to be themselves, but they want to be teachers as well. This entails reacting with colleagues and pupils, and these relationships are problematic. Jill: 'I kept getting the feeling of failing all around. I felt I was doing what was expected of me from the training course but I was forced into doing something that the pupils expected. They have been doing things in a certain way. Mainly sticking to the book.' Again, there is this sense of making something happen in the face of circumstances which do not necessarily accord with what they intend. As a trainee, you either do what you are told, follow a course dictated by pupils accustomed to a certain pedagogy, or do something more individually based which is a synthesis of all these things. Such action is clearly highly problematic at this stage. Marie: 'To be in between, to implement all these ideasI thought it was what I had been trained for, so I had to do it. But there was pressure from the school and department to do something else.' Jill notices the importance of the individual character of pupils in the learning context: 'There was one (kid) in one class who really used to annoy me. I used to have to make a real effort to be nice to her. It didn't matter

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what you did . . . it (was) boring . . . In the end, I said: ''If you find everything boring, then it's probably because you're a boring person . . . if you don't put anything in, you get nothing out . . . criticising means that you are putting the blame on other people and dissociating yourself from it." I suppose that's what she was doing. It was difficult and that was how she was dealing with it.' Of course, it is very rare for any individual to be able to provide this sort of insight about themselves. But the process of criticising and blaming others as a dissociation from the failings of the immediate environment is an obvious defence mechanism. And in some ways, it is possible to suggest that criticisms of the pupils, the schools, the materials and methodological approach is a way in which trainees might distance themselves from their own perceived lack of immediate success. Jackie does this less, but sees teaching as a matter of relationships; of keeping pupils' interest and making sure they are not disobedient. What trainees cannot always see is a time sequence, and therefore how this position is an early stage towards gaining more pedagogic competence. Conclusions These case stories are not offered as an assessment of how well individual trainees fared in the process of training. It is not a question of how good a teacher has each become. A year's training course is not long enough to do so. These stories are their beginnings and immediate outcomes only. Still less are they intended as a measure of how successful they have been in applying a particular methodological approachcommunicative language teaching. Pedagogy is too imprecise a science to do so, and really language teaching is a broad-based activity. Rather, the stories do give an indication of who these five were and what they experienced and tried to accomplish in the course of their initial teacher training. In the next chapter, I want to look at the structures and content of training in more general detail. For the moment, we can make some concluding comments on our five. Jill clearly relished being back in a university context and enjoyed the theoretical discussions. However, in practice she was unable to operationalise her method of language teaching. Caught between traditional approaches from her own past learning and the ambiguities of method she finds in the schools in which she is placed, she struggles to develop a coherence in practice. She mostly holds on to certain key beliefs and externalises contradictions by blaming constraining factors. She does develop her thinking in the course of training but this is still full of contradictions she only resolves through personal assertions.

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Marie attempts to be herself in the classroom and make her own native language come alive. She too has strong views about language teaching and is sympathetic to modern approaches. However, she is extremely reflective and personalises the limitations she finds in practice. In particular, her own physical fatigue is an important element in the collapse of effort she puts into developing methodology. She feels she is becoming like 'all the rest'. Her reflectiveness is attributed by her to national characteristics and academic training. Jackie is without doubt successful, and quickly so; although mainly through force of personality. She appears hermetically sealed in her enthusiasm and highly independent. This attitude leads to a productive engagement with issues as in the strategy she adopts for problem groups. Other problems, however, seem to be brushed aside, and there is often the suspicion that her actual methodology works through energy and willpower rather than design. Carol struggles to use what she sees as valuable past experiences in a different context where she is vulnerable because of her rusty language skills. She replaces pedagogic contact through methodology and/ or the language by strategies to ensure pupil compliance to the atmosphere she is seeking to create. She too finds traditional methodologies more convincing than modern approaches, although she wants to use the latter. Janet certainly has a grasp of modern approaches to language teaching, which she begins to develop with classes. However, she is always out of place, and this, along with her modest linguistic competence, undermines her commitment to modern language teaching. The search for social relations brought her into teaching, but she can only find these away from the modern language classroom. Teaching languages becomes unreal for her and she aims to find another more caring profession. As these case studies are based on individual trainees, it is understandable that each highlights different facets of training. Even so, it would be possible to return to the concepts provided by teacher education research and the issues of theory and practice discussed earlier in this book in order to read each case study against these. For example: each of the trainees is reflecting to a greater or lesser extent on the components of training and thus can be viewed as reflective practitioners. They clearly are all having to adjust to the particularities of training situations, and their pedagogic content knowledge, in the form of linguistic competence, which appears crucially important in the case of certain students at least (Carol, Janet, Marie). Different trainees seem to engage with the various forms of theory and practice in differential ways. Jill and Carol, for example, are taken by the

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theoretical argument behind the notions of language teaching expressed on the course. Such theories seem, for them, to be interesting in themselves. This attitude to theory is much less apparent for other trainees. Such processes of engagement clearly involve a number of ambiguities and contradictions which are only ever partially resolved during the training course. Personalities are extremely important (for example, in the ways which Jackie and Marie attempt to express themselves in the classroom), and the question of individual student security, both in and out of the classroom, and in physical health and self-regard, is important. Trainees each attempt to develop a systematic approach to lessons. Janet and Carol are good examples of trainees routinely putting work systems, whether in the classroom or outside of it, into operation. These approaches vary but attempt roughly to respond to various demands perceived as emanating from training; either from individuals or curricula. Lessons are often disrupted; they do not go the way that they were planned and outcomes do not always match intention. The stories show up the contradictions and problems in the type of approach to language teaching being advocated; for example, the way that target language use can create a multi-layered discourse with organisational, managerial and pedagogic meaning being included in the same utterances. Similarly, the way that authentic materials and situations can lead to ambivalence of context and near absurd topic treatment; for example, in Janet's statement of being 'in the fridge', or Jill's half real/half imaginary use of birth dates. Moreover, it is clear that teaching language is only part of the demands of training for trainees. These case studies demonstrate the complexity and diversity of experience for students. What happens out of the classroom and away from modern language teaching often seems more important. Different trainees have different demands put on them in different situations to which they respond in different ways. Developing teaching abilities therefore often appears fragmentary, highly personal and indeterminate. These responses themselves have different outcomes. Thus, Jackie's move to meet her problem Year 3 group in extracurricular activity such as drama has a significant impact on her relationship with them in modern language lessons. Janet's involvement with the 'vocats' entails a similar quality of relationship; but the experience for her underlines rather than dissipates her problematic relationship with modern language teaching. It is through these features and incidents that the processes of teacher

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training are located. Such processes are embedded in each case study, the products of which are different for each trainee, as they each react in differential ways; not only because of their own individuality but the particular circumstances and contexts in which they find themselves. For example, the process of training to teach modern languages engages all trainees in confronting their own linguistic competencies. The resulting product is manifest on an individual basis. This engagement is therefore essential, if not always unproblematic. Time spent in a foreign country has structural significance for the process of modern language teacher training, but does not necessarily determine the outcome of that process in a linear fashion. This aspect is central to gaining pedagogic competence as a modern languages teacher. Epilogue Having dealt with the five stories in terms of a range of issues concerning modern language teaching and teacher training, it is probably worth adding a few comments about what became of my trainees. Moreover, I continued to visit them for two subsequent years after their training course. I was able to discuss their progress with the school and observe them teaching. Jill found employment for herself in a local school, not dissimilar to her main teaching experience school. The lessons I subsequently saw her teach were not unlike the ones I had seen her teach during her training. There was a good deal of pupil activity and noise, over which Jill tried to organise activities. She continued to make much of her home-made materials and seemed to genuinely empathise with her pupils. Target language was hard work, but she did persevere. She continued to accept the communicative approachwith reservations. Generally, she fitted in with the school where she found a mutual regard. Marie also found a post in a local school. Visiting her after a year, I found her to be very independent, but rather isolated within the school. She moved school at the end of her first year of teaching; something which is hardly the done thing in England. Perhaps she treated employment as she might in France. School teachers are considered to be middle-management, and frequent changes are very much the norm. In her second school, she again appeared hardworking but rather out of place. Her teaching showed her continual search for meaningful, authentic dialogues with pupils, which were not always successful. Four years into her teaching and I was not surprised to hear she had returned to France. Janet did not go into teaching. Instead, she returned to the care industry, where she said there was more of a sense of reality. I caught up with her there and she explained all the advantages of what she was now doing and

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how happy she was. A year later, I received a request for a reference in support of her application for her first teaching job. A recent letter indicates the rapid progress she has made in obtaining promotion to a senior position in modern language teaching. Jackie stayed in her teaching experience school; eventually to become head of departmentthe school where she had been a pupil. They were happy with her, she with them. Her later teaching had less of the energy for which I had known her. She was more methodical and down-to-earth. Carol also stayed in her teaching experience school. Senior colleagues were impressed by her attitude and commitment to the job. Her professionalism was without question and she became a dedicated member of the school. However, in the lessons I saw her teach, there continued to be a reluctance to actively engage with the pupils in target language. Lots of materials were produced and she policed classes well. Clearly, she had established a good rapport with her classes. Creating a good attitude, it would seem, continued to be her main objective. Yet, there always seemed a reason not to engage with pupils' pedagogic specifics. In Carol's lessons, pupils set their own pace and organised themselves according to the parameters laid down by her. Her head of department confirmed this trend. She was a first-class professional, but avoided interaction with pupils in modern languages. She provided the materials. The rest was up to them!

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PART I THEORY

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PART III POLICY AND PROCESS

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PART I THEORY

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Chapter 5 Place, Time, People We saw in the previous chapter how five individuals went about training, their initial thoughts and reactions to schools, and then what they experienced during school experience. Finally, we saw how their individual views on language teaching changed and what they thought about the training process. This chapter will examine in more detail the nature of training in the context of modern languages. The chapter title is 'Place, Time, People'. These are the aspects of training on which I focus, but I shall also consider the issues raised in Chapter 2 in the light of the case stories. A good deal of discussion about teacher education, both initial and in-service, produces arguments concerning theory and practice, or the place of training, in an almost decontextualised way. Thus, there is a tendency to consider the relative merits of school-based or higher education training irrespective of issues of what is addressed, why, and at which particular stage in a teacher's professional development. Theory and practice sometimes seem to exist in some platonic ideal realm, in which they have an existence outside of time and space. The reality is quite the contrary. These features exist in real time and space, which involve specific concrete surroundings and people with real, individual, personalities. This chapter is about looking at some of these real people and the issues that arise in their involvement with the reality of schools and the organisation of their initial training. It is also about how the trainees engage with each other, with departmental colleagues and with their training tutors and mentors. We shall see the nature of the alternatives that arose for the five trainees and the consequences of choices made in response to them. First, however, I shall look at the topography of training in a little more detail in order to get a clearer picture of its structure. Mapping the Field In order to understand the processes of training, it is necessary to appreciate the nature of its structures; in other words, to 'map the field'. I refer to it as a 'field' in order to present a picture of a specific set of

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relationships, involving a number of individuals as well as intra- and inter-institutional relationships. Mapping the field gives us a way of finding our way around. It is an obvious fact that trainees enter training with their own individual personalities, and we have already seen the importance of their characters in shaping what they think and do. These personalities encounter something that is called 'training'; a way of organising knowledge and experience for them with a view to developing professional competence. These basic components are the primary level of training. Trainees are located in different places at different times: school or 'non-school', the latter is most obviously the training institution. This might be understood as the secondary level of training. However, schools and training institutions do not exist as onedimensional entities, but involve groupings, or sites of influence, which each share a degree of independence. They each function according to their own guiding principles. We could express these groups or sites in a loosely hierarchical way (see Figure 6). This diagram shows the variety of contexts in which trainees might be involved at any one time during their initial professional development. Many are not normally specified or disclosed in discussion about what happens in schools or training institutions. And yet we can see that they represent a vast range of different types of activity and organisation. Trainees will share each of these to a greater or lesser extent. At one extreme, we have society (9) at large and individual trainee lives in which education and teaching forms only a part. At the other extreme, there is face-to-face interaction (1) between teacher and pupil in the classroom, or between those involved in training. These inter-relationships are the tertiary levels of training. These sites of training themselves are organised in ways that are relational, one to the other. So, for example, schools relate to an education profession at large and implement policy derived from it. The practical implications of these relations affect classrooms, classes, and ultimately individual teacher pupil interactions (1). Similarly, training programmes in modern languages (3) are located within a wider initial teacher education course (4), which itself is located within a institution of higher education (5/6). Policy and practice at these various levels partly influence and shape what occurs in individual course sessions (2) and ultimately the content of personal exchanges. These sites of inter-relationships are nested one within another and overlapping where the physical sites of school and institution both exert influences. We only have to introduce an idea like communicative language teaching into this structure to see how it might come from different groups or sites, which by their nature will interpret it in different ways. It might,

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Figure 6 The contexts of training for example, be seen primarily in pedagogic, methodological terms, based on research and enquiry. Another will define it from a curriculum and syllabus design perspective. We have seen that any one version of communicative language teaching does not exist except in the interpretation of others, course requirements, teaching materials, lesson plans, curriculum prescriptions, etc. In short, language teaching involves events between individuals and the medium of their interaction. In theory, at least, these events might involve the interaction of any of the tertiary levels with each other, both within and between their place contexts. So, for example, a trainee may be operating in the classroom (4), but acting according to information coming from the education profession (7), or the school (6) or

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Figure 7 Primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary structures in training the department (5). On the other hand, classroom action might be determined by something on the training course (4), perhaps concerning classroom management; or more specifically pedagogy derived from a modern language training session (2); for example, three-stage questioning or how to use flashcards. We might call these interconnections within and between sites the quaternary level of training. In order to complete our picture, the various levels might then be expressed as shown in Figure 7. Why bother going to such trouble to express training in this elaborate way? Well, firstly it allows us to see the complexity of structure behind debates on the ways and means of training. Secondly, it is immediately evident that such organisational complexity will necessarily produce tensions between what is seemingly demanded; in other words, there is a great deal of potential for ambiguity of experience or perceived mixed messages. Thirdly, it enables us to locate an individual trainee at any one time and place. Fourthly, such locations allow us to interpret what is going on and being thought or said in terms of the interlocking structural features. Whilst the issues are the same for all of the trainees, the questions posed for each of them are different. If we address an individual characteristic

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such as linguistic competence we can see that what comes from a trainee's past life will have different demands put on it in different parts of training; for example, when a trainee is attending course sessions, or in particular modern language departments, and classroom exchanges. In other words, linguistic competence does not exist as an individual, isolated feature of training but needs to be understood in terms of other contextual aspects. Similarly, a predisposition to act and think in a certain way as a result of past professional practice may be perfectly congruous with a training programme session but may give a trainee all sorts of problems if the same approach is taken to the teaching of particular classes; for example, in terms of attitudes and expectations. The formally expressed methodology of communicative language teaching will also be translated differently in various contexts and in relation to the modifying features of such contexts; for example, when a trainee attempts to adopt a high target language use with classes who are poorly behaved or not used to it. Flashcards in themselves do not fail, but they may fail in that particular context. All those involved in training, not least the trainees themselves, have to make sense of such paradoxes. These structural relationships between components are therefore important in understanding the processes of training. The rest of this chapter examines these sorts of relations as a way of discussing the professional development of individual trainees' teaching competence and pedagogic personality. Pedagogic Personality Is there such a thing as a pedagogic personality? In other words, are teachers born, not made? We have already met five personalitiesJanet, Carol, Jill, Marie and Jackieand seen their interpretations of and reactions to teaching. It is clear that training is a demanding time for them; physically, psychologically and intellectually. However, it is also clear that trainees learn from the problems they encounter. I begin by looking at some of these problems as a way of exploring their formative effects. Firstly, I want to consider linguistic competence, as it is relatively straightforward. Trainees' learning has already occurred in this area and can be considered to be pre-given, but nonetheless varied in quality and character. Other sources of the problems they experiencefor example, teaching approach or planningare more complex and interconnected since these are the elements of pedagogic subject knowledge which trainees are learning about as they learn to teach. Linguistic competence offers a first example for us to see how personal dispositions and the field of training interact, and the resultant effect for professional development.

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It is perhaps obvious to state that high linguistic competence is a prerequisite to being a successful modern language teacher; and we have seen, in the cases of Janet and Carol, how rusty language skills can undermine confidence in a way that makes classroom practice a challenge. We have also seenin the case of Jackiehow doubts about linguistic and academic skills are overcome through force of personality and general commitment. However, to state that high linguistic competence equates with success in the classroom, or the opposite, is a gross simplification. The real picture of the place of linguistic skills is much more complex, and involves the contexts in which the trainees find themselves together with their personal and professional backgrounds. In Chapter 2, a diagram was offered to explain the relationship between theory and practice in communicative language teaching (see Figure 8, which is a replica of Figure 2 in Chapter 2).

Figure 8 In this diagram, the acquisition of professional competence was presented as a dialogue between different ways of theorising and the development of tacit knowledge in practice. However, this model does presuppose a high level of subject competence. We have seen, for example

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in the case of Janet, how her weak linguistic skills interfered with her ability to develop her own pedagogic subject knowledge and her tacit knowledge of teaching in practice. In other words, weaknesses in subject knowledge interfere with the dialogue between areas of theory and practice in developing professional knowledge. How is this so? Janet was weak linguistically; although she had the necessary qualifications to gain entry on the course. She experienced related difficulties in training, but it would be simplistic to regard them as the result of her linguistic weaknesses. Firstly, it is clear that Janet's modest language skills undermined her confidence early on. This lack of confidence inhibited communication and encouraged feelings of marginalisation on the course. And, finally, her stated reason for not going into teaching makes it clear that Janet sees her own language training background as a determining factor. One result of this disengagement was for her to limit lesson planning to the formulaic. Although organising pupils and filling lessons with activity, and providing enough evidence of competence to pass the course requirements, Janet disconnected from an active relationship with methodology; she 'applied' it rather than working 'through' it. She accepted the model lesson given during the modern language course at the training institution and applied it to school lessons in a compliant way. However, in both school and university, Janet did not move to the core of the structure shown in Figure 8 in a way which allowed for an actual relational involvement between pupil and tutor, in working with the problems and potential of the methodology. It is as if the rationale for the methodology became a support for the way she positioned herself with respect to various aspects of training; particularly with regard to lesson plans. Yet, hers was a static interpretation, and it is this fixed relationship to methodology that finally became a barrier to Janet developing a more dynamic pedagogic relationship between herself and her pupils. Hence, there was little change in her approach to lessons over time, and a concluding attitude which amounted to 'agree with it in principle, but I personally cannot do it in practice'. This stance might also be set in the context of Janet's position within her school department and the course. In the latter case, early sentiments towards disaffection with teaching languages began with her difficulty in communicating in a foreign language and resulted in her marginalisation from the group at the university and the issues discussed there. This disaffection indicates disturbances for Janet at the core of the university structure. Within a few weeks of entering training, Janet appears to have failed to respond positively in relational terms to both her colleagues, pupils and the content of the course. She then referred back to her previous successful language teaching as an EFL tutor, rather than more recent teaching

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experience, as a source of justification for the practical approach she intended to adopt. In this TEFL situation, she had been able to strike up relationships in English with her students, which she described as 'the best part of teaching' in justifying it as her choice of career. She was, however, finally unable to replicate this experience in modern language teaching. Her modest language skills again played a crucial role as limited success further undermined her confidence, and language became 'unreal'. Her disaffection was reinforced by her being placed in a school department which itself felt marginalised, both in terms of the school as a whole and of more 'progressive' styles of language teaching. Janet's initial attempts at teaching were partially successful, but her previous, more successful, teaching was in TEFL, a language in which she was 'fluent'. The 'unreality' of teaching, then, is as much a reflection of her use of the language with pupils as it is her own relationship with language (remember: 'Aujourd'hui, nous sommes dans le frigo). She had not spent a year abroad, a time well known for it transforming effects (cf. Evans 1988), and did not have personal contacts there. The foreign language itself was then literally 'unreal'. Janet had a problem in connecting her personal experience with that represented as the ideal for becoming a language teacher within the education profession. All of these thingsher previous professional experience, her poor linguistic competence, and consequent reactions to theseled to her rejection of teaching as a profession. 'Good' linguistic skills are important, therefore, but other factors are involved; such as the possible compensatory effects of the different aspects of their background. Jackie, for example, appears to be the most successful of the group. From the start of the course, attitudinal factors seem to override any possible negativity. Any doubts over her academic prowess or her linguistic competence are overcome by recourse to her own strength of personality. She is conscious of doing this for herself. She finds it hard to tolerate less than full commitment and positiveness from fellow course members, and she is open-minded in her appraisal on language teaching. Her positive critique always searches for a better way, identifying problems and rectifying them. She is also clear about locating the source of the problem, whether it is herself or her pupils. Some of these principles she seems to have acquired from her previous employment in commercial management; for example, organisation and project definition, and an attitude to teaching that seems to rely on personal application to the task in hand. Aspects of her past life then become very important in her present life. Unlike Janet, Jackie was placed in a school where she had always wanted to teach, and where she says support from the department was total. This

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mutual regard, between school and trainee, is also evidenced by the fact that she was offered a post in the school at a particularly early stage of her teaching practice. Yet, the actual structure and content of her lessons was not noticeably different from Janet's. Both trainees also had perceptive and 'theoretical' comments to make on language teaching in practice. Of course, a successful lesson amounts to more than its structure and content. And what they both see about language learning will always go beyond its realisation in practice; theoretical competence outstrips practical performance. For Jackie, personality seems to pervade all, even to the point of being occasionally overbearing. Indeed, she herself makes the point that some colleagues and pupils find her so. To be able to objectify personal qualities in this manner offers a way of using them as a preservation of self image, or as a means of establishing a quality of relationship with pupils in the classroom. Not only does her personality compensate for lack of confidence in linguistic and academic competence, it also seems to bring the language alive for her. Notice how at one point she says that she has never enjoyed her language more. For Jackie, language has become the basis of her 'good' relationships with pupils; whilst, in contrast, for Janet, language formed a barrier between her and her pupils in language lessons. Carol was also relatively weak linguistically but her reactions were different again in the context of the course. For her, there seemed to be an attempt to minimise linguistic interaction with pupils as much as possible, and to construct what might be viewed as an 'extra-linguistic meta-discourse', in other words a strategy for being, that relied on pupil compliance in exchange for gifts; for example, her coaxing attitude to classes and the actual giving of gifts. She consequently limited the demands she put on pupils. In return, pupils behaved, which limited the demands put on her. Her background includes not only positive dispositions that can contribute to pedagogic effectiveness, but negative aspects that exert influences which move her away from realising this goal. Carol came from a top executive job. Presentation was all, in this case. This trend continued during Carol's training. Her materials were produced to the highest professional standards and integration into her teaching practice department was highly successful as a result of the efforts she put into personal relations, attendance at meetings and general industriousness. She adopted the same approach in the university. She also involved herself actively in the theoretical debate surrounding language teaching. The question of her proximity to language teaching, and which site of activity, school or training institution, is crucial in her case. Her theoretical preoccupation 'worked' for her when she was based at the university. However, this debate seems to be put in the place of practice. This became increasingly

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evident during her school experience. It is as if, no longer having recourse to explicit theory, Carol replaced it with professionally produced materials and pupil compliance as a way of avoiding direct pedagogic contact, which would necessitate communication in the modern foreign language and risk disclosing her lack of linguistic competence. Carol's management background and experience was characterised by her belief in achievement through individual effort, as this had previously worked for her. However, there is a crucial difference between past and future lives. For Carol, the effort went into constructing a suitable theory, professional activities, a professional role and a sympathetic relationship with pupils rather than engaging with and working to resolve the uncertainties of teacher led lessons, confrontations over discipline and a critical awareness of the shortcomings of her methods. In short, whilst there were no doubts over Carol's professionalism, there were concerns over her ability to teach languages. Carol's relative weakness, and the entrenched positions she held about learning in general and modern language teaching in particular meant she 'by-passed' some significant aspects of the training course programme and individual course sessions. The reason for this was the strength of the links she made between her previous professional life and the presentation and management aspects of lesson planning and interaction with pupils. Carol's rusty linguistic skills therefore seem to prevent her from engaging with pupils in a way which develops her practical understanding of methodology. Jill was a similar case. Her departmental head criticised her for not being the very thing that the department itself was not; namely progressive and active in its approach to language teaching. The dislocation and disconnection of expectations is hence very real, and was a source of ambiguity for Jill. Such a position, concretely in terms of the school where she was working, and ideally, in terms of the views and opinions expressed there, is an uneasy spot to occupy. How do you, as a trainee, make sense of such apparent contradictions? Jill, like Carol and Jackie, was happy to theorise about language teaching in the university. She also seemed almost preoccupied with the various issues raised, and described the experience as intellectually challenging. Yet, such a stance led to an overcriticalness on her part: of the principles of language teaching; of pupils in classes; of the school department and their ways of doing things. Of course, any personal criticism, no matter how guarded, is a threat to trainees. And there is no particular reason why trainees should be able to put into practice the theoretical insights they gain from the observation of others. Jill was not able to use her perceptive, critical eye to improve her own practice. The reason why this is so does not lie in her particular personality, or linguistic

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ability; in fact she was very competent in languages. Rather, it lies with her chosen position, where she sees the practice of teaching and the theoretical issues of teaching as two separate activities. Jill chose teaching as a career partly to suit her domestic arrangements and partly to re-engage with the topic of her academic studies. Prior to her starting the course she had worked as a secretary, and had an amateur career as a part-time journalist. Words, rather than gesture, mime and personality projection, were her previous experience. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that she was able to articulate well within course sessions on language teaching; indeed, that a large part of her reasons for teaching was well-satisfied by this activity. Nothing in her experience on the course, however, suggests that she was someone who genuinely wanted to engage with pupils in a teaching relationship. As she herself said at one point, she is someone who makes herself rather than makes others do things. The active part of her training seems to remain at a dialogic level with the communicative approach as expressed in the modern language programme. Her side of the dialogue involved all the reasons why this approach to language teaching could not work in her classroom. Both Jill and Carol remained wedded to a formal expression of traditional methods of language teaching rather than the communicative approach being offered. The situation was not helped when Jill was placed in a school department whose teaching methodology seemed to support her view. Proximity to this apparently contradictory method seem to have acted as a barrier to her experimenting and critically assessing her own lessons. Her previous experiences and a formal position then became not only the basis of what she felt she should teach and how, but a self-justification for this when any principles of language teaching offered through the university seemed to clash with her own. Her own position became entrenched through continuous over-objectification in a separate context; namely, the university training course. The strength of these connections for her led to objectification of rather than engagement with classroom activities during her main school experience. Jill then is an example of a trainee with good linguistic skills who did not develop into an equally good classroom teacher. For Marie, there is no question of her linguistic competence, as she was a native speaker. In her case, since language was a way of expressing herself, and was always 'there', there was a real effort to be herself in the classroom and to connect with pupils on a personal level; for example, by using her own christian name in the way she had previously done as an assistant. In this situation, it is perhaps unsurprising that lesson plans become an imposition for her. They 'get in the way', and classroom

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activities themselves seem 'bitty', as they take away from the continuity of her language, as she is experiencing it and as she is trying to get the pupils to experience it. Yet, there is no evidence that in abandoning her lesson plans, Marie is able to replace them with a more direct interaction with pupils. Indeed, according to her own report, such abandoning of plans and failing to establish a direct dialogue in the target language with pupils rather led to her becoming more under the influence of the department in terms of approach to lessons. The language may be 'there' but it is compromised by the demands of her position as a teacher. One of her strategies for dealing with such problems was to engage in a form of analytic reflection that comes from her culture and academic training. This was partly true of Jill. However, for Marie, this reflection seems to be turned in on herself; a dangerous move as it turns her overly critical stance onto her own efforts. This degree of reflexivity finally debilitates her and prevents her from working in a more measured way with the predominant view of language teaching that she finds on the training course programme and in her school department. This phenomenon is expressed in her own claim to becoming 'like all the rest'. Moreover, there is some evidence that initially, and partially as a result of being a native speaker, she feels that she does not fit into the department. She says she has not conformed, and she is not clear how to behave. Such marginalisation sets up a space to be filled. One positive element in becoming 'like all the rest', is the feeling of being accepted into the fold, although this is obviously tinged with guilt in terms of tutor and course expectations. Marie could be seen to be caught in what she perceives as the dichotomy between activities on the training course and practice in schools; a classic theory and practice situation. She does not seem able to link between these two but is seeking to locate herself within one activity or the other. Marie's undoubted language skills are not sufficient to smooth her passage into teaching, since her over-reflective nature and sense of her herself as a 'foreigner' work against an easy transition into classroom practice. We can see that although training is a generic term, and, in theory at least, it is the same for all those involved in it, the way an individual trainee responds to its processes depends on who they are and their background, as well as where they are located at any one time and place. Linguistic skills do affect the development of theoretical and practical understandings needed by teachers, therefore, but in ways which are often indirect. In the next section I would like to look, in a more formal manner, at a range of other dichotomies facing trainees. They are other aspects of classroom teaching and communicative language teaching seen in terms of a variety of school/institutional contexts. They are similarly the ways and

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means of dialogue within the triangle of professional training, the connecting ideas between theory and practice. They are the problems which trainees face and work on in developing their pedagogic competence. However, they are not simply facilitators. In extreme forms, they can also inhibit. My discussion explores the issues involved and the choices trainees have to make, as well as considering the positive aspects of what seem like negative effects. The Choices of Training The case stories give an indication of the stresses and strains on individuals as they face the various demands of initial teacher education. Some of these are physical; the sheer amount of energy required to work with schools and teachers. Some of these are intellectual; the new ideas contained in teaching materials, syllabuses, curricula and methodological approaches. Some of these are personal; new contacts with colleagues, mentors and tutors. All of these are potentially problematic, all of them might threaten trainees' self-image and the picture they have of themselves as a teacher. For example, Carol does not want to be authoritarian in the classroom, but finds this creates discipline problems for her. Janet wants to use a teaching style with which she has had some previous success but finds that this runs counter to both what the pupils expect and the predominant views of the department in which she finds herself. The period of time involved in initial teacher training of this type, i.e. the PGCE, is one year, which is relatively short for the first steps toward professionalisation to take place. Moreover, during this time trainees find themselves in different schools, different training contexts and thus working with a wide range of people. There is little time for day-to-day routines to form. The potential solidarity within the training group is constantly disrupted by changes in the programme. They are expected to act as individuals, to show what they each can do in the classroom, not to work together as a group. Training then can become a rather isolatory experience. Trainees want to teach. They think they can teach. Some of them know they can teach. They all want positive confirmation of this, but often what they get is ambiguous feedback. They are partially successful, for some of the time. This is the nature of developing any practical skill. But there are frequent obstacles, and what works in one context is not always possible to repeat. Divisions about what to do and how to act present themselves as a series of choices about mixed messages, past and present experience, and future intentions. The whole of life during training is about such choices. Bellig et al. (1988) refer to them as social psychological 'dilemmas'. These

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are 'problematisations', and 'dilemma' is an apposite word to refer to dichotomies that are never really resolved. But it is in working with these tensions that change occurs, through various mechanisms of defence, adaptation and innovation. Training is clearly a period of a heightened sense of problematisation. Moreover, problems change and develop over the course of the first year. This section is about such dichotomies as experienced by our five trainees. The clearest dichotomy is between what might be regarded as the personal and the public; between what is 'known' to them personally and the extent to which this is confirmed or challenged by public statements. Dichotomy: The incongruity between personal views of teaching and those presented on the training course As Jackie says at one point, most of this group learnt languages by traditional methods. Therefore, to consider language learning as anything other than the application of taught grammar rules presented itself as 'heresy'. Communication has a common-sense meaning to which many of the trainees are sympathetic but they are dubious about its implementation as a basis for pedagogy. The whole sense of 'approach' also runs counter to a precise method. A grammar-translation method is unambiguous as a pedagogy; a communicative approach can seem incoherent, inconsistent and contradictory in comparison. Such uncertainly is unwelcome amongst the other demands of teaching. The tension between past and present views of teaching is heightened when one is based on the relatively light weight of unformulised personalised experience (I think I know) and the other is a formally expressed approach coming from research and based on recognised authorities; for example, tutors, school practice, literature and official documents. One is personal and intuitive, the other is impersonal and seemingly prescriptive. However, the trainees 'know' their method worked because they learnt a language; the new version, although recommended, is untried. Dichotomy: Past experience which has proved to be successful versus a new approach which has not One important feature of their own remembered method is that they know that it 'worked'. They have personal experience of this in their own language learning and sometimes with other groups. We cannot claim that in order to find out why individuals successfully learn a language it is sufficient to ask them. In short, the trainees themselves may not be the best people to know the full picture. They may not have succeeded for the reasons they think they have succeeded. For instance, true competence may

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only have come with communicative contact in the foreign country. It is possible that grammar knowledge only offered an entrée into this, and a more communicative approach may have better facilitated their learning: but, they focus on the grammar aspects of their learning, as these are the most concrete and objectifiable, and thus describable. Their own success may well be attributable to unusual individual characteristics. Nevertheless, the need to stress a personal successful experience of language learning is self-evident. Clearly, not all students necessarily take up an entrenched position in terms of pure method. Janet thinks that communicative language teaching is not 'the' method, but certainly on the right track: and both Carol and Jill want to balance their views on the need for grammar explanations with an expressed desire to get pupils to talk as much as possible. Jackie's view is more clear-cut. She disconnects completely from her own learning background and calls communicative language teaching the method she would have invented had it not been already. This, at least, is an unambiguous position to occupy, suggesting that this particular dichotomy was more easily resolved for her. Where it is felt, disruption can result, as, for example, the case of Marie. She seems to accept the theoretical position on the communicative approach as something that will remove her problems in the classroom. It promises her the possibility of being herself, and working in a way that is creative and active. When she is actually in the classroom, the problem of putting the idea into practice becomes very real. Rather than adopt a modified form of the ideal, she seems to give in to the alternative. It is as if the new approach itself shatters, leaving her only with the polar opposite. These sorts of dichotomies are, of course, not necessarily experienced in disembodied form or in isolation. Alternatives of method are embedded in course and school documentation and are represented by individuals seen teaching. Dichotomy: The choice to be made between trusting what I know about teaching, and learning from and trusting what others tell me to do That some trainees see the methodological approach given to them as an imposition is self-evident. But training is also about personal relations. Not only are colleagues and mentors in schools and tutors in the university a source of instruction, they are also objects of trust. In other words, do the trainees trust their own experiences and the conclusions drawn from them or what others are telling them? Teaching is about making choices; not only about general approaches but about particularities of lesson planning and classroom activities. Should Marie trust the advice of a colleague who says

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she is doing too much oral work, or Jill trust her tutor who feels she is trying to do too much in one lesson? Are such comments of help? Is advice welcome or merely a way of undermining a trainee's own confidence in the choices they are making? In some cases, for example Jill, in order to continue to trust what they 'know', a trainee might have to adopt a more objective, critical stance towards a newer approach. In other words, letting go and trying other ideas, entails a degree of trust that does not emerge from relations instantaneously. The problematic nature of such relations is made more acute by the fact that authority is involved. Individuals on the course, sources of advice and objects of trust, also have an assessment responsibility. Trainees do, after all, have to pass their course of training, and according to externally set criteria. Dichotomy: The need to respond personally to the pedagogic approach versus the need to fulfil the course requirements Becoming a teacher means developing personal ways of teaching and working with pupils. This has to be an individual response. Yet, trainees are not free to do what they want. Course requirements are set out, and a pedagogic approach, no matter how broad, has its limits. Trainees may be pulled in one direction to fulfil the requirements of their formal academic qualification, and in another in response to their own predilections. A teacher's job is multifaceted, and some aspects of it have nothing to do with foreign language teaching at all. These too are assessed, and by particular individualstutors, mentors, teaching colleagues. Each of these may have different agendas, and there may be a tendency for the trainee to stress a particular feature according to with whom they are dealing at any particular time. So, for example, issues of pedagogy are emphasised for the universitybased course tutor; assessment matters for the departmental head; and discipline and class control for the deputyheadteacher. The authority invested here could lead to compliance, only to please, in order to pass the training course requirements. It could also lead to a fragmentation of the teacher's pedagogic personality. A rift can appear between public acquiesence and private rejection of major aspects of what are considered to be orthodox ways of acting as a teacher. Of course, to what extent these dichotomies are experienced depends on who the trainee is and on where they are located at any one time or place. What is clear is that many of them do appear early on in training and are heightened by the intensity of extended school experience. For example, in their early observations of teaching, trainees are aware of what they do not like about what they see, but have relatively little or no personal experience with which to compare it. However, once they are more active themselves

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in the classroom, the practical problems with improving on what they have observed become self-evident. Dichotomy: The ability to criticise versus the ability to do better oneself Jackie, for example, criticises the use of listening exercises merely to test comprehension, but then uses them herself. Jill comments on another teacher's insistence on the use of the target language while not using it herself. And Janet too finds not much evidence of communicative language teaching in one school but then discovers the problems of working with it. Such experiences are indications of the gap between the ideal and the real in life, and certainly in teaching. Indeed, learning to work with what is possible is probably an important part of becoming an independent teacher. Once trainees are located full time in schools, the issue of transferring ideals to reality becomes more acute. This is more than simply a question of theory and practice. It also implies a technical versus a spontaneous approach to teaching. In both cases, individual personalities are involved. Dichotomy: To teach by technique versus to teach through individual personality One school of thought states that teaching is all about technique and having the right methodology. Another puts success down to the individual teacher's personality. The reality, of course, is somewhere in between. Teaching requires a personal engagement to develop positive learning relationships with pupils. However, it also requires precise planning and an in-depth knowledge of the worth of a range of pedagogic activities. Janet has problems when she tries to teach according to a formula. She does not develop her own sense of being with pupils, which leaves the occupation of teaching as a fairly dull and routine experience. Carol stresses presentation, an attitude she gained from her previous job, but she also wants to charm pupils. Such a teacher-as-entertainer approach has its problems. Most noticeable in her case, is the need to keep upping the entertainment stakes in order to keep pupils satisfied and further consequent problems when she tries to insist on more systematic learningsomething they have not been prepared to expect. Teaching according to pre-determined technique will always be a problem. The trainees themselves quickly show that they are skilled in deconstructing others' technique and the principles behind it in theoretical terms. This approach also produces a barrier to building productive pedagogic relations with pupils. Teaching which depends on personality is problematic for initial trainees when they do not really know how their pedagogic character will and must adapt for the classroom. This personal involvement also carries with it its own dangers.

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Dichotomy: The need to attend to personal security versus the need to attend to the pedagogic needs of the pupils Teaching is an activity that always demands more. Individual pupil needs are extensive and class needs are hardly less. There can be a tendency for trainees to increase their activity and involvement to the point of personal exhaustion. Marie writes of the need to create more space for herself and 'to switch off from work'. Some lessons do not go very well simply because of stress and tiredness. If things do not go so well, trainees may feel that the answer lies in more effort not less. Therefore, six hours are spent in the evening planning and producing materials. The result is that they are more tired and therefore classroom teaching hardly goes much better. Making materials might be seen as tackling the teaching problem, but without the pupils. Perhaps materials production is a diversionary activity. It may make the trainee feel safe to compensate for the threat of the classroom. Poor behaviour from pupils can be personally very threatening for trainees. The need to take care of yourself as a prerequisite to taking care of teaching is an important lesson for trainees to learn. It goes with learning to live with the less than perfect in teaching and the limits of extra effort. To economise energy so that there is something left for all classes rather than spend it all on the first lesson taught in the day is another important lesson. To do this, trainees need to focus effort, make maximum use of available resources and develop routines that do not require maximum input from them all of the time. Attending to personal security and putting it in the context of pupil needs is central to trainees progressing over time when in school, as the sheer demands on physique are enormous. Each of these dichotomies becomes apparent early on in training and becomes more real for individuals as training progresses. Very often they are not explicitly articulated until precipitated by direct experience of them. These dichotomies pre-suppose choices to be made and questions that are as yet unresolved. If they are left unresolved, if the trainees do not move to accommodate one or other of the alternatives presented by the dichotomy, there is likely to be acute tension felt; especially in the places from which the choices arise. For example, Carol and Jill never really resolve their reservations over the methods represented on the training course. Ironically, despite her struggles with teaching, Janet does this by drawing on previous experience and reading. Method is less a problem than the language itself or the ways she can use both to create pedagogic relationships that are meaningful for her. One option is to transfer the problem to someone else, as Jill does: to the method, pupils, tutor, department, etc. This may arise as a question of 'who to blame' when dichotomies are experienced in a negative fashion. It is an obvious move to explain this

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difference in terms of the contrast between schools and the university, and, with that, the distinction between practice and theory. It is, however, misleading to draw up clear opposites with respect to these issues. It is not justified to regard one or other of these as representing the real or the ideal. What is true is that these dilemmas are increasingly experienced in real, 'lived', situations in schools and in interaction with pupils. The basic dichotomies are increasingly actualised in specific practical contexts. A blunt description of training might refer to students being asked to form effective relationships with pupils when they do not know the nature of this relationship. Dichotomy: How can I be a teacher versus how can I be myself? Behind this dichotomy is the question of how trainees hold on to their own personalities whilst adopting the role of the teacher. At one point Jackie talks about teaching practice as 'an opportunity to be yourself and see if you can have a good relationship with classes'. Yet, she also notes that she is not performing the teacher role as expected. Marie too wants to be herself and not to conform. Being a teacher is therefore seen as more than adopting the orthodox methodology. It is also about having the right persona. Trainees clearly know about relationships and have some knowledge of teachers themselves as learners. However, knowing how much of their own personality they can express in the classroom may be problematic. Jackie is quick to assume a teacher's role; Carol is not, and sees it very much as a loss of her own self-image and of the teacher she would wish to be. It is not only a question of becoming a teacher, but becoming the sort of teacher each trainee felt they wanted to be. Essentially, what is at stake is the degree to which trainees wish and are able to impose their own definition onto their relationships with pupils. Few amongst the five manage to do this, and only Jackie really achieves any success in this direction. Unable to be truly themselves in the classroom and needing to compensate for the difficulty in developing genuine pedagogic relationships, trainees may have undue recourse to techniques. Essentially, these are the activities, techniques and lesson plans offered on the training course and used in a standard, routine manner. However, lesson planning itself comes with its own dichotomies. Dichotomy: I want everything planned so that I know what I am doing versus I want flexibility to take pupils' response into account There is plenty of evidence that trainees are planning lessons quite carefully. Here, there is a tension between a creative attitude to lessons,

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where there is room for the unexpected, and an overly planned lesson that leaves no space for pupils' own individual responses. Janet's lessons are a good example of the latter, and all of the lessons seem 'overplanned'. This is probably not a bad thing at this stage. Still, there are desires to break free of such constraints. At one point, Marie talks of planning things and then rushing to get through them. In her case, she would rather make it up as she goes along. The process of lesson planning is itself complex given the amount of detail required and the time spent on them. Clearly, producing their own materials allows students to think through the details of a lesson and of how to make use of them. Also, planning and materials production has the added advantage of being one aspect of teaching, at this stage, over which trainees do have control. The certainty involved in actual materials production may well compensate for the other uncertainties in their use. It is instrumental activity, but less problematic for that. Exactly what language to use also plays a necessary part in planning; otherwise there is the risk of overlooking what is being asked from pupils. Three-stage questioning is a good example. In the hands of an experienced practitioner this method allows for a careful grading of linguistic demands on pupils. But it takes time to develop this skill. To begin with, trainees often have to remind themselves 'what happens next' and what to do when incorrect answers are given. Fluency in these exercises, as well as such methodological techniques as flashcards, listening tapes and setting up role plays, takes planning and practice. In these situations, it is not unusual for pupil spontaneity to be sacrificed. Gradually, however, lesson plans become the basic skeleton around which classroom activity is hung. Plans are a type of scaffolding structure to support pupil/teacher and pupil/pupil language. There is an optimum degree of planning, therefore, and in the initial stages, as shown in these case stories, trainees are likely to be overly prescriptive about time and activities. At the very least, strict planning enhances class control, because the teacher dictates what is going to happen and when. However, slowly, they take a more pragmatic view of planning, and are less adverse to letting lessons follow their own pace and direction. Marie, in contrast to this, and perhaps because of her attitude to language and the business of being a teacher, objects to lesson planning in principle. She does not work through the medium of plans, but finds them inhibiting to the ideal towards which she is working. When this ideal itself proves difficult to implement for a variety of reasons, her abandoning of one approach and the adoption of another is sudden and sharp. All these dichotomies link with each other. A dilemma over one particular issue becomes a 'trilemma' when it links with other associated problems for trainees trying to teach classes. For example, to achieve the

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ideal in a limited amount of time with a limited amount of energy includes not only the need to cope with less than the ideal in language teaching, but with what is personally realisable from a physical point of view within the demands of a particular context. Something that is a theoretical proposition early on in training, for example the use of target language, becomes a lived reality. The consequences of trying to operate with it on a daily basis are very much felt in a personal way. Moreover, the extent to which individual trainees are willing and able to alter their practice to resolve any problems arising from such tensions varies considerably according to individual positions and the the contexts in which they find themselves. One stark choice is the extent to which trainees feel they should work according to the normal practices of particular classes or make a new start on their own terms. Dichotomy: How far to bring the approach to the particular class and how far to bring the particular class to the approach? Janet, at one point, gives a graphic description of what it is like to walk into a classroom fully prepared to create a foreign language atmosphere only to be confronted with a range of misbehaving pupils. Clearly, to act like nothing is happening and to launch off with 'Bonjour, Asseyez-vous' is neither realistic or desirable behaviour. Flexibility is all, and there are comments where other trainees are unclear as to the extent to which their intended approach harmonises with what the class are used to. In this sense, a pedagogic gap appears between trainees' intent and pupils' consent. The teacher is normally able to say what happens in their classrooms: but, for the trainee, authority to dictate what occurs seems only partly to be given to them. Not only is there a gap with regard to whole classes but also how to behave towards individual pupils. These issues link with notions of the personal and the public or, in this case, the dichotomy between the need to respond on an individual basis and the necessity to have and develop general principles for applicability of approach. The personal and public referred to here really is no more than a static form for discussing dynamic relations and practical contexts, as, for example, when a trainee experiences difficulties whilst teaching. A trainee may be asking the pupils to do something that they are not used to doing, and so they react negatively. This may well give insights into how particular exercises give rise to disciplinary demands: large whole-group oral work is more difficult to control than pupils' private reading. Or the trainee may become aware of the relative success and failure for different pupils. However, such a context offers alternatives of how to cope with negative responses. For example, when faced with a particular problem over the amount of target language a trainee is using, and the negative effect this is having on pupil motivation

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and hence behaviour, they may consult the classes' normal teacher. Advice from this source could well improve the pupils' attitude but takes the trainee away from what is seen as the basic tenets of a communicative approach; namely, a high proportion of active, monolingual oral work on the part of pupils. In the latter case, the way of doing things, as presented on the course, may be perceived as making the situation worse. Connected with these questions of the real and the ideal in teaching are issues about who the trainee should relate to for support, tutor or mentor, university or school. The question of target language use is clearly highly problematic for trainees. Dichotomy: Do I use the target language or English? Jill's mantra becomes: 'It would be quicker to explain it in English.' Literally, this is true, but there are, of course, procedural reasons for getting pupils to experience language and expressing themselves in language, which can be justified methodologically for enhancing the development of a versatile communicative competence. As some of the dichotomies above indicate, it is often difficult to justify this to trainees by appealing either to theoretical reason or personal experience. It therefore appears as an assertion; almost something to be resisted. Clearly, to use the target language creates a linguistic context and offers the opportunity for foreign language discourse. Yet English ensures understanding and creates a shared classroom knowledge. The trainee's natural relationship to the class is to use language to organise activity and pupils. However, trainees also want or feel obliged to use the target language as a form of real communication. In the latter case, the language offered to pupils does not give them the means to engage in natural language exchanges; for example, opportunities to use statements like 'ouvrez vos cahiers' are not available to pupils in the 'natural sense'. There is then a separation between the real teacher/pupil relationship and that which it is possible to express in a particular methodological mode. To express them both in the target language may seem the correct way to adopt a communicative approach to language teaching but it sets up a dual layer of discourse within the classroom, and requires quite a sophisticated grasp of this on the part of the pupils to appreciate what is going on. It expresses the belief that both can be articulated through the target language, whilst in fact they each entail different operational orders and demands on pupils. This dual level of function in itself is potentially confusing for pupils as they are unlikely to be able to separate them out in the general flow of language. It is why trainees have such recourse to English for the real relationships in the classroom, and revert to the target language for that supposed other. It is not uncommon for them to switch into English to deal with a disciplinary

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matter, or set up a particular exercise, and then go back into the target language for the imaginary natural foreign language discourse. Because pupils are not offered the means of engaging in natural language, one proceeds by ignoring it. How methodologically inevitable this is is one question. At base, however, there is this in-built sense of not getting the legitimate method to work; thus, of having failed. Yet some trainees do live with this dichotomy and resolve it for themselves in pragmatic terms: Jackie's 'I want to be as communicative as they can take'. This flexibility precludes an all-or-nothing attitude to target language use which often has destructive effects on what is possible for individual trainees in their classroom practice. Associated with this issue of target language use is the question of grammar. Dichotomy: To teach grammar versus to teach through the target language At one point, Jill spots that her class do not know what a subject pronoun is and sets about teaching the topic to them. Carol too feels that her class would benefit from clarification of a few 'basic grammar points'. In both cases, understanding grammar is seen as the means to communicate, not the other way around: and understanding is dependent on sufficient explanation. This common-sense view of grammar and understanding is a strong position to hold in the face of a lack of clear views about precisely how languages are learnt and consequent methodological certainties. That attitudes to grammar and target language go together is clear. Rather than establish natural pedagogic relationships between trainees and pupils through the target language, the two elements get separated out. If the pedagogic relationship is formed in English, then the tendency to develop that through explicit reference to knowledge about language increases, as in the cases of Carol and Jill. Trainees do not experience use of target language on its own as the key to forming relationships with pupils, quite the contrary. They then often have undeveloped pedagogic strategies to compensate for limited success of target language use as the key to classroom effectiveness. If there are methodological difficulties, trainees sometimes do not know who to go to with their problems. Dichotomy: Who do I turn to with problems? As I have already noted, a little praise goes a long way with trainees, but so does criticism. Suggestions to improve methodology may be taken as explicit criticism, or as an undermining of individual effort. One or other

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of those involved in training may be seen as asking the impossible, or not appreciating what it is like to experience early teaching. In differences of methodological outlook, loyalty and trust may be involved. If there are serious problems with teaching, there is the question of who is going to help and who is going to use perceived problems as part of a judgement of individual competence. School-based mentors are there, and training institution-based tutors are also on hand, but both have an assessment role to play. Trainees may therefore be reluctant to confide in them with particular problems. It is safer to act as if everything is going fine. But, this can lead to a lonely existence for trainees, and a consequent vulnerability which is scarcely conducive to professional development. In the earlier part of this chapter I set out a 'map' of the field of training, and argued that it is necessary to understand experiences of and comments on teaching in terms of who individuals are and where they are placed at any one particular point in time. Trainees are in school or the training institution, never in two places at one time. Even when working in schools, it is not just that they may or may not be in direct contact with pupils in lessons, but at any one time or place they are acting according to a range of influences which impinge on their scope for individual action. And these influences may not be school-based at all, but may have the education profession and/or the training institution as its primary source. I called these tertiary level structures. Now I have listed some of the possible dichotomies arising from these structural differences in general terms: • Dichotomies of teaching method; • Dichotomies of approach and context; • Dichotomies of contrasting inputs. Dichotomies are possible ideas, that is all: and they may or may not be experienced at any one time by trainees. Some are resolved, or do not arise for that particular trainee in that context. However, potentially, they are all present. They arise and gain intensity as trainees fail to make connections between the messages, the demands, the practices at the various structural levels. Trainees experience a dichotomy in an intense form when they fail to find a way to act. Many do make a choice in order to resolve the dichotomy, but often not in a direction which may be considered to be immediately desirable from a trainer's point of view. But work with the dichotomies they must do, and seek to resolve them one way or another, if they are to avoid the quandaries that Marie, for example, often seemed to find herself in, with their consequent debilitating effects. These are structural consequences of place as trainees find themselves changing positions over time.

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Having expressed these dichotomies in general terms, it is also necessary to go back and see that individual trainees will respond to them in their own particular related ways: personal dispositions and the places in which they find themselves. Let us take an example. Carol comes with a high degree of professional experience; clear views about teaching and training and successful language learning. However, she also has weak linguistic competence and is wedded to a traditional approach to language teaching. Early on, this profile allows her to engage in the discourse on language teaching in an academic way; and this is not particulary problematic to her while training is mainly based at the university. However, knowledge gained there, once transferred to practical situations, encounters a world in which a variety of dichotomies are faced; she is not clear that pupils are being taught properly; she is not certain which method works; she is not sure who to trust; she is unconvinced about the appropriate mixture of target language, English and grammar; she wants to be herself but finds pupil response not what she expected. At first, because she is mainly university based, she is able to maintain a detached, ironic stance. However, during extensive school experience, she is immersed in the department and the classroom context. Detachment and irony are no longer possible. Her actual operation in the classroom is undermined by modest linguistic competence in French. She reverts to two strategies deriving mainly from her previous professional experience: firstly, she aims for a degree of meticulousness in presentation, as well as demonstrating total commitment to her department; secondly, she aims to enhance pupils' motivation through gifts, restricting demands, planning entertaining lessons, etc. Neither strategy achieves what was intended, lessons do not appear more successful. These strategies arise from the context in which she found herself; namely, school and class lessons. The irony of her earlier training is displaced; Carol has to act. The way she does act is constituted by who she is, where she is coming from, and the demands placed on her in this particular context: time and site. Her actions are not immediately successful in terms of any ideally desirable outcome. However, the results of her actions set up further demands, that she is now aware of and on which she must again act in the contexts in which they present themselves. She becomes more aware of the possible roles she can play; the negative effects of entertaining lessons; the limitations of explicit grammar explanations. In other words, she begins to learn to teach. Why and how the dichotomies present themselves for individual trainees, therefore, provide a basis for understanding how they respond to them. These responses can be viewed as the motor, the generating force, behind further dichotomies and future ways of dealing with them. It is by

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responding in this way that trainees move forward in their thinking about teaching and the way they intend to act in lessons. The process of teacher training thus becomes a sort of dialectic between present problems and possible solutions to them projected into the future as present intentions. Many of the problems confronting trainees explicitly involve methodology and communicative language teaching. Such principles never stand alone, but, as is clear from the case stories, are intricately bound up with other pedagogic issues both from within the classroom and outside it. We cannot see issues of modern language teaching in isolation, as purely linguistic concerns, rather methodology is just one part of the pedagogic context in which trainees are attempting to operate, which also involves personal relations. People The picture of training to emerge from the case stories is not a cosy or unproblematic one. Could it have been otherwise? School departments are generally welcoming to trainees. Yet, there is more than a feeling that neither Janet, Jill or Marie really seem to be integrated into theirs. In Jackie's case, she seems oblivious of them, so strongwilled and self-contained she has become in school experience. In her case, referring a problem pupil to the head of department was seen by her as a major failure. Carol worked on relationships within her school and department; although this focus seemed more concerned with general professional attitudes than classroom language teaching methodology. She too at one point refers to the problem as being 'transitory'. The trainees find themselves in fields within fields; that is structurally positioned with regard to managerial and organisational structures and spheres of influence. Their positioning is not simply concrete. They all experience training in terms of specific relationships: to ideas and the people who represent those ideas. Not only are they in school or the training institution, but within each of these they come under different influences. At the university, many of them are eager to learn and qualify as teachers, but they are unsure of the mixture of academic and practical content on the course. In the school department, it is as if they are on loanthey are not students but they are not yet teachers either. Departments do have a positive or negative effect on them. For Jackie and Carol, there are no fundamental incongruities of method between the school and the university; which does not mean training is then unproblematic for them. Carol, in particular, has various dichotomies to work with in terms of method and approach, because of her own personal dispositions. Both Marie and Janet experience certain degrees of negative departmental influence in terms of

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the method they are trying to implement. For Janet, she has problems in that the department itself is experiencing difficulties as a unit in terms of the way it views language teaching. Their dissatisfaction with language teaching mirrors her own. In Marie's case, the department state that she is too much of a perfectionist, and also are critical of the amount of target language she employs in the classroom, the linchpin to the method she is developing for herself. Finally, she gives in to their method. Jill is caught in the ambiguity of accepting the department's approach, whilst increasingly questioning it, even from her own traditional position. At the same time, however, she is unable to put an alternative into place. If dichotomies are the stuff of training, therefore, they arise from relations with people within departments. Sometimes, it must seem to trainees that they are nowhere because neither the university nor their school experience department provides an anchor for them. There is the impression that they are sometimes out on their own. They are unsure when support is really assessment and vice versa. In short, the nature of experiences and influence depends not only on theory and practice in abstract terms but on how this is represented by certain key individuals in the training field. We have seen that the outcome of training depends on the individual personalities, backgrounds and dispositions of trainees. However, training is a social activity, and must also depend on those groups involved in it. Both departments and training institutions, and the people who work there, have similar differing characteristics with regard to teaching in general and modern language teaching in particular. Outside of the classroom in extended school experience, the closest structural context is going to have the biggest influence. Consequently, the predominant views of departmental colleagues towards language teaching are likely to have profound effects on the extent to which the dichotomies listed above are experienced by trainees, and what happens next when they are. School departments also have a number of practical and pragmatic preoccupations, which often may override questions of pedagogy. Indeed, pragmatism is often cited as a restraint on what is and is not possible in the classroom. This is clearly relevant; although it is a thin line between working within the limits of what is possible and being wedded to routines that are narrow and constraining. Yet, working with the real and possible is an important part of training and the most painful part of reading these case stories is seeing the death of ideas; of the acceptance by trainees that they are not, initially at least, going to be able to be the sort of teacher they had intended to be. The departments in which trainees are placed have a role in mediating these sorts of realisations, disappointments and acceptances. They may help or hinder their processes in terms of the degree and type of support they offer at key

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critical moments. Such help or hindrance may occur in ways which support or undermine questions of communicative language teaching and general pedagogic approaches as presented in materials, documents and subject method courses at the training institutions. The training institution itself exists as representatives or tutors charged with the teaching, organisation and assessment of the training course. Trainees' relations with tutors are sometimes even more ambiguous than those with pupils, colleagues and fellow trainees. That authority and positional power are involved is clear. Can there be an educational relationship which does not include some aspect of authority? Surely, a defining principle of any teaching context is that one or more in the relationship holds more knowledge, practical or otherwise, of the relevant subject. Such differential knowledge carries with it a hierarchy of power relations to a greater or lesser extent. Clearly, there is sometimes the feeling that the given methodology is a new orthodoxy for some trainees and it is being imposed on them. Yet, acceptance of such positional power is a prerequisite to joining the training course. Compliance to go along with the given method, at least in the first instance, is assumed. There is a sense in which this compliance wanes as training progresses. We might even say it is a condition of trainees gaining greater autonomy as professionals and being able to develop their own personally based pedagogic skills. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, to see patterns of rejection, and then readoption over the course of training. The method offered becomes adapted to personal needs. But the way trainees feel about training itself also is altered. Trainees are more critical of the training they have received as the course progresses, and more ready to give suggestions for modifications and alternative practices. By the end of the course, and now mostly removed from active classroom service, trainees have the time and space to objectify the processes they have undergone. Jackie gives a positive appraisal of the changing foci of training and the tutor's role in bringing that about: 'You've set yourself upyou've allowed things to be questioned . . . you've moved on again. You're allowing people to question the communicative approach . . . you've even hinted that it's in question in your own mind as well.' Marie and Carol, drawing from their own personal experience, are more ready to offer ideas on how it should have been done. Jill and Janet also have time now to reflect on what training has meant for them and draw conclusions from it on particular issues, both personal and professional. In this, the role of the tutor is central. The tutor plays various roles; and various roles at different times. The tutor is the most obvious source of the orthodox methodology given, is the official pedagogy the trainees have to obey. But how trainees respond to this will

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depend on who they are and what their approach to teaching amounts to from a personal perspective. For Jackie, having responded to the training course method in such a positive way, the role of the tutor seems almost perfunctory. She is sometimes hermetically sealed to others' influence. For the four other trainees, the principles and practice of communicative language teaching offer a medium of dialogue. Points are presented and issues raised: what works, what can work, and what certainly does not. This dialogue is more or less explicit with individual trainees according to their own positions regarding various issues and their particular preoccupations. Jill, for example, seems to want almost to prove the approach wrong. In her case, the method is connected with authority; it is therefore a question not only of proving something wrong but proving someone wrong. An opposite position may be acquiescence to the method in a formulaic way. Janet did this to a certain extent. Can the course be described as theoretical and can the person presenting it be considered to be theoretical rather than practical in outlook? The course does not offer much by way of underlying background and research to the communicative methodology. There is no coverage of second language acquisition theory or the parent disciplines to communicative language teaching. Still, the principles are presented in ideal forms, and the practical demonstrations cannot be in situ classroom teaching. They too then are somewhat idealised. Trainees focus on key notions such as the use of target language or the way grammar is dealt with as defining characteristics of the approach. The message given sometimes seems to be taken as that English and grammar explanations are proscribed. Such a seemingly explicit proscription does remove two of the major ways in which trainees can express themselves as teachers according to their own ideal of what it is to teach. It is not surprising if this proscription is reacted against, as well as the person who is identified with it. Both might be regarded in a sceptical and suspicious light. The ideal is detached from reality rather than being a means of working with it. This working with it could be a mechanical even formulaic approach to lessons in the first instance, or an acceptance that teaching can only be as communicative as is possible at any one time and with any particular group of learners. Without adopting this type of attitude to teaching modern languages communicatively, the orthodox method itself becomes an all-or-nothing approach. If it cannot be used in its entirety, it is rejected, and the trainee reverts to a personal or context dependent way of teaching through personal choice or under the influence of those working closest to them. The tutor is seen, therefore, as authoritative and as representing specific requirements of ways of acting and being in the modern language

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classroom. The other side of this coin is that the tutor may also be blamed when things go wrong. It is the tutor who is at fault in what they demand; not trainees' or departmental practice. In its extreme form, this attitude can lead to such statements as 'flashcards do not work'. In other words, lack of success in utilising them must be due to their inherent nature, not the particular way they have been used by the trainee in a classroom. Or, trainees may adopt a 'tell-me-what-I-should-have-done' attitude; as if success or failure at a particular moment in a lesson is dependent on a correct solution at a given time, rather than as the degree to which potential is exploited. This type of approach to teaching languages reduces it to a series of specific methodological choices that are either right or wrong, rather than seeing the nature and quality of a particular pedagogic relationship between pupils and the teacher. Such an approach also has the advantage of being protective in that it deflects responsibility away from the trainee, and the quality of teaching relationships they have formed, to the tutor and the methodology they are advocating as the source of the problems. In short, the tutor seems to play a catalytic role for the generation of practice, but also a focus for anxiety and blame when things go wrong. The school-based mentor, on the other hand, is often identified with practice. As such, a certain amount of credibility is given to them by trainees for their hands-on experience and the practical authenticity of their professional activity. What is probably less appreciated is that mentors, when they talk about teaching, are being theoretical in a personal, fundamental way. However, because of the school context, they are seen as being above all practical. But, this practical emphasis can lead to trainees attempting to copy what the teacher-mentor does and does not do. Regarding what teachers say as being in some ways theoretical, allows trainees to be explicit about what they think, and in so doing, objectifying it. It is not possible to see teachers theorise: therefore, they seem to operate only according to practical demands. However, teachers do theorise about what they do. It is misleading to underestimate this and simply try to replicate their action. Without some understanding of theory in this way, there is no means of changing or discussing change. Trainees also need to learn to theorise in this fashion, not copy others' practice, in order to develop ways of thinking and acting which allow them to become competent as a teacher in a range of contexts. Summary Overall, then, the field of training appears to be highly structured but fluid in a way that moves trainees around from one site to the next. Such changes of experience are often highly disruptive, especially when each has

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different demands, contexts and personal outcomes. Trainees often appear to be 'nowhere', and the experience of training can seem isolatory in many ways. Furthermore, there may be resistance, and for a number of reasonsdispositions, professional background, linguistic competencefor trainees to move developmentally to the central issues of the school and university sites; namely, actual lessons and group sessions. This resistance is often expressed in ideas, which are heightened as contradictions or dichotomies. These have consequential effects on what is thought and achieved in practice. The links between the various levels of training are critical points where problems may occur; for example, an over-reliance on a formulaic approach to lessons, or a rejection of the prescribed pedagogic approach. Various relationships in training are identifiableschool/department, school/university, student/department, student/tutor, etc. The nature and quality of these relations have consequences for trainees and what they do and think. In particular, how trainees respond to the content and events of training must be understood in terms of both who they are and the way their personality interacts with the components of the course. These components should also be understood in terms of their relations to one another. Training itself gives rise to a series of dichotomies within which trainees locate themselves at any one place and time. How these dichotomies are expressed for particular trainees depends on the relative weighting of their background and present dispositions and the characteristics of sites on the course. A good example of the former is linguistic ability, which has consequences not only in terms of knowledge about language but trainees' relationship with it. Whether or not a trainee has spent a year abroad as part of their undergraduate studies is highly significant and has an impact on how they are able to think about and operationalise language in the classroom through particular pedagogic methods. What is found at various points on the course is also extremely important to how dichotomies are manifested; for example, the make-up of the department, the predominant views of colleagues, or relationships with the tutor. This is the field of training in terms of place, time and people. Place is the positional contexts of training and their organisational relationship to each other. Time is the point that trainees are at any one particular period of training: what is happening there at that moment and why? People are those involved, embodied method if you like, and the individual and combined influence this is likely to have on someone's training. As a result, what can we see as the important features of modern language teacher training? To express them succinctly:

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(1) The importance of trainees' transference from one site of training to another; and the problems that can arise in this. When this transfer is problematic, and why, is also characteristically significant for individual trainees; for example, linguistic ability, or their 'fit' within the school/department. (2) The layers or levels involved in the sites of training and the importance for trainees of a move to the 'core' of the structure; and not only to be 'concretely' located but to be engaged with the ideas. (3) The significance of lesson rigidity. Applied formulas to lessons leave little room for adaptation and development of techniques. (4) The relational aspect of training and its tendency to isolate trainees. This can be expressed both in terms of concrete situations, social relations and the predominant thoughts and ideas about teaching languages that surround trainees. (5) The relative weight of significant components in trainees' present and past lives; both professional, pedagogic and personal. (6) The structure of the school department; its position within the school and the position it takes towards approaches to language teaching. Again, these are concrete and ideational relations. (7) The importance of positive experience for trainees. (8) The significance of trainees spending (or not) a year abroad as an indicator of their personal relationship to language. (9) The implications the course structure has for trainees' opinions and practice; especially how these change over site and time. (10) The element of disruption trainees experience, both in terms of moving between sites and the effects of opinions and influences they encounter in resolving dilemmas about teaching languages. Theory and practice is therefore a complex business. What of our triangle of training or professional development now? Much of the the above can be interpreted in its terms. For Practice we have trainees trying things out. In criticising and listening to advice from teachers and mentors they are developing their own practical theories, or Fundamental Educational Theory. Talk in this way and in relation to their own practice forms trainees' own Tacit Knowledge about how to act in the modern language classroom. Arguing with the tutor and the formal presentation of communicative methodology is a way of interpreting Educational Principles. Each trainee must interpret principled theory from their tutor and practical advice from their mentor in their own way in order to develop and operationalise their own unique teaching style. The result of all this is the development of an individual's professional knowledge and competence, but the process is hardly unproblematic. Engaging with the struggle, however, is part of the

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process of learning to teach. This is why it is important to look at the problems of training rather than create policy to smooth them out. It is a theme I return to in the next chapter, where I also look again at predominant models of teacher education and reassess them in the terms discussed above.

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Chapter 6 Developing Professional Competence Much of this book can be read as a longitudinal account of the experiences of five modern language teacher trainees together with an exposition of different modes of theorising appropriate for teachers. The context for the case stories was a one-year post-graduate training course. The PGCE is an example where subject knowledgein this case modern languagesis a given, as the trainees are all graduates and therefore do not learn a foreign language at the same time as undertaking professional training. Much of the case stories shows a group of people trying to operationalise this previously acquired subject knowledge, and we have seen the importance of linguistic competence, in the context of practical teaching experience, in determining how they feel and act throughout their training. A number of issues particular to modern languages have arisen. However, the processes involved in developing professional knowledge in teaching modern languages can well be seen as being applicable to various other professional knowledges. These training processes (in other words, the actuality of what trainees bring with them, their previous knowledge and experience, and the operational effect of these in their teaching contexts) are potentially representative of the formation of a range of practical skills and knowledge necessary for becoming effective teachers. Therefore, it is possible to read the case stories as accounts of the individual difficulties of five particular modern language trainees, whilst at the same time, noticing the more general generative structures of place, time and people within them; in other words, the general in the particular. This and the next chapter look at the character and operation of these processes in more detail and draw out policy implications for teacher education. The present chapter consists of the following: (1) Placing trainees' experience on the 'training triangle' I discussed earlier. (2) Discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various strands of literature on professional knowledge.

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(3) Exploring how prior experiences and resulting dispositions can shape trainees' ability to develop and understand both practical and theoretical ideas presented to them in the course of the their training, and considering the role of pedagogical subject knowledge in this. To take up point (1), various metaphors have been used to describe the processes and outcomes of training: theory, practice, socialisation, reflective practitioner, craft knowledge. I want to begin by revisiting these in the light of the case stories and subsequent discussion. Theory and Practice In different parts of this book I have referred to a 'triangle of training' in order to show how theory and practice might be understood in terms of their relationship to each other (see Figure 9).

Figure 9 Communicative language teaching here exists as a formal representation of principles of practice, which have been derived from research and enquiry, and now, in various ways, embodied in curricula and syllabuses. The strength of the diagram is that it shows how pedagogy, communicative language teaching, only exists in practice by going through someone. CLT

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can be applied only indirectly to language teaching practice through a practitioner's tacit knowledge; for example, formula-type models of lesson plans can demonstrate the characteristics of communicative teaching to trainees, but they must operationalise this knowledge for themselves. In the other direction, CLT connects with trainees' own objective reflections on language teaching, which I previously called 'fundamental theory' because of the coherence implied in such statements. These statements are about practice, both past and future, and again only connect with such by going through someone. Moreover, the knowledge applied to practice will be, at least, partly tacit. And, just as practice involves particular context features, so 'going through someone' involves their particular personal dispositions towards language teaching. A trainee's own individual pedagogic personality is developed in this process. The activities described in the case stories make up the concrete training practice of five trainees, which is articulated by them, 'fundamentally', in the course of interviews with them, questionnaire replies and in their diary writings. To regard such utterances as 'theoretical' is to believe in their inherent rationality, which does not mean they are not often also unstable, contradictory, rigid and inconsistent. For example, both Marie and Janet hold 'theories' about how they should teach. These theories are partly formed, but also threatened by the views on language teaching they encounter in various aspects of the training course. As a result, trainees often say one thing in one time and place, and another somewhere else, as in Jackie's thoughts on autonomy, and what this requires in terms of her methodological input and language use: 'It hit me then that it was far easier, and far more beneficial if they do all the work rather than me'. In school, she does not 'hear the message', or at least recognise and implement it: away from school, however, she does, and articulates what amounts to a new plan for the future. In order to understand the processes of teacher training, then, it is necessary to appreciate the nature of relationships between the present and the past, theory and practice, the site of training activity and the various orders of knowledge involved in these. These relationships were earlier expressed as the arrows in the training triangle, 'travelling' from one time and place to another. What does it mean for there to be travelling between one point and another? How might communication be restricted? Or facilitated? By what mechanism does one area influence another? Which aspects are most critical? What effect does the 'triangle' of other people involved in training have? What are the positive and negative determining factors involved? Answer these questions, and we have a description of the processes rather than the products of training. Both the concrete structure

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of the training field and its ideas can be regarded as inter-relating, but made up of discrete elements. What this means in real terms, for example, is that at any one time or place, trainees are involved in a proximal relationship to one or other influences, and these are expressed with degrees of formality about teaching in theory and practice. This is evident in the trainees' own discussion about issues involving both of them. All their statements are made in relation to the various types of knowledge and practice available in training. For example (Figure 10):

Figure 10 At point (1), there is Jill speaking of her own tacit knowledge on the basis of her practice: 'Flashcards don't work'. Here, she is staying close to practice and being unreflective and therefore not very theoretical.

Figure 11

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At point (2) (Figure 11), Jill is responding enthusiastically to discussion of formal theory on her training course: 'I really enjoyed getting back to the academic environment'. It is a point almost diametrically opposed to point (1). Hence, she is close to communicative language teaching in theory but not making connections with practice.

Figure 12 At point (3) (Figure 12), Marie and Janet talk and write about the difficulty of planning lessons. Marie: 'I plan too many things and rush to get through them all . . . lesson plans are a constraint.' They are being introspective and reflective, here, but not dealing with a clear formal principle or a particular classroom-based activity. Connections with more general practical principles are not being made at this time. What does this dialogic understanding of the development of professional competence look like in the light of other approaches? Professional Knowledge: Craft Knowledge How might we represent professional knowledge? What does it look like from the perspective of modern language teaching? In Chapter 3, I offered two responses to the first of these questions: professional knowledge as craft knowledge and teachers' professionalisation as socialisation. The main thrust of the former has been to describe 'teachers' thinking'. What do we know about the way teachers think and act? The main conclusions seem to be that teachers develop simple routines, they work with stereotypical characterisations and they proceed by filtering out a lot of what goes on around them. In other words, they focus on what they see as the essential. But what is being described here is characteristic of any

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human activity. It is precisely these sorts of measuresfiltering and developing routinesthat are at the core of our ways of dealing with any complex experience. Surely, familiar areas of activity have set routines, characterisations and filtering procedures. This tendency to generalise cognitively, it seems, is basic to human nature. Whenever we meet new contexts, it follows that such strategic measures are not yet routinised or proceduralised. Teaching is an intensive activity. Moreover, it is undertaken on an individual basis, not within a group. The possibility of simply sitting back and slowly being inducted into the activity is strictly limited. Whatever the preparations, teaching normally involves an individual and a class of pupils. Routines have to be developed quickly or standard formulaic actions put in place. Our case story trainees have been doing both: they clearly start with prescriptions and formulae, according to which they work, and they develop others as time goes on. Jackie and Janet achieve this less securely than the others, but both could be described as making significant steps towards what Brown and McIntyre (1993) would call a 'normal desirable state'. Detailing the content of such states, Brown and McIntyre claim, offers us the possibility of making information on these available from which trainee teachers can learn. Such reflection still leaves the onus on trainees, together with trainers to a lesser extent, to make what they will of such 'discoveries'. In other words, what we have here is another conceptual metaphor, another way of coping with the complexity of training. It may be that teachers and trainers do indeed work towards something called a 'normal desirable state', but detailing this still does not explain how individuals might develop to achieve it. It is as if such a state spontaneously comes into being, or not, or comes into being and then stops, without a view of the other factors involved in its progression. Learning to teach is not seen as a continuing process of change, but is 'familiarised' as a sequence of discrete states. The formulation of practical strategies is left largely unexplored. What we found in the case stories, is that in their attempts to develop and normalise their own routines, for example in lesson planning, trainees responded differently. Jackie and Janet both applied preset models to begin with, but Jackie adapted these and started to use them in different ways at different times, whilst Janet stayed with the approach in a formulaic fashion. What was at stake for her, besides usual dichotomies such as pedagogic approach, target language and the use of English and grammar, was her own linguistic competence. Her relationship to the foreign language, and her inability to find her personality in it, meant that she could not use it as a way of developing her teaching skills through an approach which very much pre-supposed high linguistic

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skills. But, even here, we have seen that it is not correct to see linguistic competence in either/or terms and as the governing factor for eventual success in training. This success also depends on individual background and context. The problem with the 'teacher thinking' approach is that it underestimates the complexities of the processes involved in the development of teachers' professional knowledge and identity formation. Even some writers in this tradition admit that they may be discussing an invention, something that can only exist by supposition: Although we started with the assumption that there was such a thing as teachers' professional craft knowledge, we knew that for the most part this knowledge is not articulated. (Brown & McIntyre, 1986: 38) So what?, it may be asked. Is this not just another obvious example of words being imperfect reflections of those aspects of reality they pretend to represent? Up to a point, this is, of course, true. However, the problems begin when the concepts are taken on their own terms. In this case, they become almost more real than the processes they are intended to represent. So, in the case of 'craft knowledge', or normal desirable states, no sooner is the term invented, than the preoccupation of researchers is to detail its content. This involves lists of ways of thinking and acting, which largely get reported in a contextually neutral way. Moreover, such lists are then turned into competencies, according to which trainees are assessed. It becomes possible to proceed as if there is a construct called a 'teacher', whose competence can be defined as professional skills rather than professional understanding in realist rather than procedural terms. Professional Knowledge: Socialisation A similar critique might be offered of the socialisation approach to teacher training. There is no doubt that much in the trainees' stories can be read as accounts of individuals' 'socialisation' into teaching. It would be unfair to claim that writers in this tradition see teachers' socialisation as a linear movement. Lacey (1977) recognises that it is a process which is never really complete and always involves a large degree of self-socialisation. According to this model, an individual trainee will be socialised into professional practices; will be a teacher to a greater or lesser extent. This process, and its degree of success for any one individual, appear to be treated as pre-determined and is accounted for in terms of the sets of strategies which trainees adopt. There are clearly, within this theory, configurations of strategies which are seen as more successful than others,

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but trainees will meet and/or adopt these in a happenstance manner, in a utilitarian manner. What gets passed over is a view of these strategies in terms of an individual's cognition, of a particular context. For example, the way Janet did not successfully socialise: not only because of the character of her school's placement but also because of her own relationship to teaching, to the course and, ultimately, to language itself. Similarly, Carol socialised successfully within the school and the department, but less so in the classroom, again, because of her own professional background, her prior professional dispositions and her linguistic skills. The goal preoccupations for writers in the socialisation tradition most often concern questions of class, gender, race and role. Such concerns appear to transcend the particularity of individual experience and the messiness of classroom pedagogy. It is not surprising that some writers believe that teacherseven training teacherscan be inducted into the content of the constitutive components of the social construct that is being a teacher in a way that is formative (cf. Beyer & Zeichner, 1987; Van Manen, 1977; Zeichner & Teitelbaum, 1982). The link with the social and historical is offered by these writers as a way of transcending the immediate exigencies of practical contexts. However, such transcendence amounts to a split personality for teachers who are supposed to remain practically committed, all the whilst being aware of the macro causes and effects of their actions. It is doubtful that teachers in training, with all that entails in terms of personal and public demands, can do this in a way that is successful and enhances their development as a classroom practitioner. The five trainees, whose stories are told here, do not appear to be able to do this to any great extent, so concerned as they are with fitting in and being effective at a practical level. The socialisation approach to teacher education is often critical of the processes of training, rather than seeing in practical terms the meaning of individuals' attempts to gain professional competence and therefore employment. There is sometimes the picture of individuals confronting the enormity of teaching and schools and finally giving in to their socialising power. This is true up to a point, and it seems unlikely that the development of pedagogic competence will be successful without some degree of movement to fit in. All the trainees did this to some extent, except one, Janet, and in her case, an inability to join in with the professional ethos of her school or the training institution led to her rejecting teaching as a career. Carol fitted, perhaps, too well, but did so in a way that compensated for her lack of language involvement and success in the classroom. In the case of Marie, we have her own graphic account of how she saw herself as 'sinking and becoming like all the rest'. This giving in to the surrounding

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totality may, however, by implication, involve issues of power in the authority structures organising schools and their functional role in society at large. Giving in, becoming like all the rest, has more impact and immediate effects when it concerns basic issues of classroom pedagogy. Marie's story makes this clear. Both teacher craft knowledge and socialisation metaphors address themselves to what is meant by professional competence and ways of describing and identifying it. This is undertaken at a high level of generality so that statements can be made about 'teachers' as a single group and about professional competence as a consistently definable attribute. What both metaphors underestimate is the significance of an individual's positions, dispositions and contexts, and the interaction between these for their particular developmental story. Moreover, the metaphors operate at an abstract level rather than, as in my discussion and more particularly in the case stories, looking at the operation of any one particular feature of pedagogic competence; in this case, linguistic competence as part of subject knowledge. My account suggests that an individual's complex and, possibly inconsistent, relationship to subject knowledge plays a major part in shaping the outcomes of training, and yet, as mentioned in Chapter 3, it is an area that has received little coverage in the literature on teacher education. It is time to give it more consideration. Professional Knowledge: Pedagogic Action and Thought Recent developments in teacher thinking research start from the premise that the way teachers and those training to be teachers act and think involves knowledge about different things at different times. In other words, priority is given to an individual's experience and to the way that this can vary between contexts. Does this address the problematic issues aired in the previous section? Shulman (1990) describes the topography of teachers' thinking according to various knowledge bases: (1) Content Knowledge (2) General Pedagogic Knowledge (3) Curriculum Knowledge (4) Pedagogical Content Knowledge (5) Knowledge of Learners and their Characteristics (6) Knowledge of Educational Contexts (7) Knowledge of Educational Ends These are the types of knowledge trainees are seen as wanting to acquire, and indeed do acquire in varying degrees in the course of their training. Many of the knowledge bases listed by Shulman relate quite closely to my

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own map of the training field given in the previous chapter and to the five trainees' experiences: (1) Content Knowledge refers to the actual subject taught and the way it is organised, established and represented. This knowledge will be acquired from individual trainee's lives. (2) General Pedagogic Knowledge is concerned with general classroom management and strategies which are more global than particular subject knowledge. Trainees develop this knowledge with classes in classrooms as well as from instruction on the training course. (3) Curriculum Knowledge involves specific programmes of study and the materials suggested by them. This knowledge covers a wide variety of aspects of training: the education profession, modern language departments, the modern languages training programme. (4) Pedagogical Content Knowledge is, in a way, the interaction between the first three knowledges above and the best way to put it over to learners. It is the product of individual trainees' lives, classes, lessons, teacher/pupil interaction, the modern language programme, individual course sessions, trainee/trainer interaction. (5) Knowledge of Learners and their Characteristics self-evidently concerns familiarity with individual pupils and typical types of pupils, and the characteristic ways they respond and behave. Classes, classrooms, and individual pupil/teacher interaction are important here. (6) Knowledge of Educational Contexts covers the various operational sites of teaching, including classrooms, departments, schools and the university department of education. Within this, it is possible to include cross-site groupings such as working groups and professional organisations. (7) Knowledge of Educational Ends covers familiarity with the values and purposes of teaching, as well as their historical and philosophical antecedents; thus, significant features from society, and the education profession. This taxonomy is indeed a useful way of recalling the range of knowledge competent teachers must possess in their professional capacity. It is possible to see our five trainees' work in terms of this list. For example, their linguistic competence, general classroom management concerns, and their comments on pupil behaviour. In fact, this fresh conceptualisation of professional knowledge seems to take account of an increased range of the trainees' experiences; in other words, to expand the tools of description available for any one individual's pedagogical understanding. The trainee's awareness of the responsibilities of teaching, of curriculum demands and of the broader aims of education can all be highlighted within the notion

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of knowledge bases for professional competencies. All these knowledge bases form part of teachers' training to varying degrees. The strength of Shulman's model here is the account it gives of different types of knowledge for different purposes and contexts. Whilst there is, in effect, close agreement between the theoretical organisation I have used in my 'map of the training field' and the multifaceted structure of Shulman's model, I wish to go further and consider the variety of sources from which these different knowledge bases are derived. Moreover, I want to note the extent to which these 'knowledges' are embedded in management structures, materials, curricular prescriptions, and, ultimately, individuals. We have seen that there is not necessarily a close fit between information coming from these sites; indeed some may well be in conflict, and trainees often have to work with the ambiguities of these mixed messages. All these influences bear down on classroom practice. There is sometimes the sense of trainees buckling under the sheer weight of them. In each area, school or the training institution, transformation does take place and trainees do begin to alter their views and develop others in the light of their experiences. For example, Carol's developing knowledge of pupil characteristics is partly a shock and partly a disappointment for her. All trainees' knowledge of educational contexts is hit by the cold blasts of school reality. But in terms of modern language teaching per se, trainees' competence comes to the fore in the classroom. Both Jackie and Janet are aware of the limitation of their linguistic skills; although these two respond to this in vastly different ways. For all trainees, linguistic competence obviously does delimit what is possible, and, when there are other problems, it seems as if lack of confidence in their language exacerbates these still further. We see the trainees' struggles to develop their own pedagogical content knowledge in the light of their existing language skills, the limitations of the curriculum, and the context within which they are working. Language teaching pedagogy is continually challenged by them: in theory and in practice. Shulman attempts to show the cycle by which this occurs, as a result of experience and reasoning about teaching in pedagogic terms: Comprehension, Transformation, Instruction, Evaluation, Reflection, and New Comprehension. This cycle is clearly orientated to practice in a self-referential way, much in the manner of the 'reflective practitioner'. Understanding leads to a transformation of methods of instruction, which are evaluated and reflected upon and used to develop newer and deeper understandings, which in turn give rise to more developed methods. The whole process is seen as being continuous, and pedagogical content knowledge is an ever-increasing product of teaching. But, herein lies the problem with the model. It does seem to regard pedagogic competence as an accumulating

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product rather than a process. It underestimates the role of existing theory about, in this case, language teaching, when it assumes that pedagogic knowledge met on the course will be compatible with what is already known in such a way that it can merely be added to it. The dichotomies discussed in Chapter 5 offer real-life examples of when this is not the case and of the resulting tensions and struggles for the trainees. Jackie, for example, was fortunate that what she already knew about teaching and about language classrooms allowed her straightforwardly to assimilate new pedagogic strategies. The compatibility of her prior knowledge with ideas she met on the course is clearly demonstrated when she describes the 'communicative approach' as the one she would have invented herself. Carol's previous experiences in sales led her to prioritise classroom presentation and materials production in such a way that it shaped what new pedagogical knowledge she could take on board. Marie, also experienced difficulties. Her previous experience as a language assistant allowed her to engage in a strong language-based relationship with her pupils, but made it problematic for her to assimilate strategies about planning, about using a textbook and about 'teaching for the test'. The notion of Pedagogical Content Knowledge is an attempt to explain the processes of subject-based professional development. However, unlike the model coming from the 'triangle of training', it does not take account of theories from books, materials, the knowledge input of others, or of educational principles. And the case stories are full of trainees engaging with each of these in the process of learning to be teachers. As part of a training process, a formal, generalised example of commonly used 'pedagogical content knowledge' is presented to would-be teachers. The five case examples show the extent to which this formal representation, in this case as communicative language teaching, is a help and a hindrance to their development of this professional competence. In most cases, unsurprisingly, it was a mixed response. Marie, for example, felt that a communicative approach was not quite right yet, but along the right lines because the children were engaged and responding. She could see it as better than the methods used in her own experience as a learner and it did allow her to be herself in the classroom. However, she also saw that it could be repetitive and lead to parrot-like learning. In her criticisms, she felt she had destroyed it; although, she admitted, her breaking one idealised model was a good way of developing a newer, personal, and possibly more successful one. Her own pedagogical competence, therefore, was formed from a modification of the formally prescribed approach, her past views, and practical experience. In each case, we are talking about personal relations. As Marie wrote: 'If you are given a methodthis is the way you

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have to do itand I am here and I can't see the relation with me to that, I have to build up a different one as necessary.' Little wonder, therefore, if such breaking and forming new relations proves to be personally involving and hence effortful and potentially painful. This relational view of language teaching in terms of various modes of theorising is evident in other trainees' comments about communicative language teaching. For Janet, it is not quite right but in the right direction. Jackie sees it as offering different possibilities and opportunities. In later quotes, she is critical of her earlier work in the name of the approach and sees it as not at that stage being really very refined. The trainees have different relationships to the approach. For Janet, it is still something outside of her, something imposed, whilst for Jackie it begins to be the 'language' through which she articulates her practice. Modern languages do offer a particular context for developing pedagogic subject knowledge. In other cases, for example mathematics, subject knowledge does not exist for the pupils in its empirical, naive form; such acquired knowledge comes mostly from pedagogic instruction. In learning such a subject, students have it presented to them in a pedagogic frame, and, as they gain competence in it, develop their own framings to guide how the subject works. Up to a point, the same is true for modern languages. Whilst learners do develop their own personal routines and strategies for managing the subjectin short, how it works for themthey also have an empirical relationship with linguistic systems in terms of their first language. Moreover, this first language is available in the classroom as a medium for pedagogic discourse. There is evidence from the case examples that trainees attempt to re-apply what they already know about their subject, both in its empirical and pedagogic forms, to the practical contexts in which they find themselves. And, as I have argued, communicative language teaching is itself a formal representation of one form of pedagogical content knowledge. The question is: to what extent does it help trainees to integrate both past and present reactions to language learning in a pedagogic context? There is evidence that the answer is that the formal and personal representations of pedagogical content knowledge react with each other, but sometimes in dissonant or hostile ways; hence the dilemmas discussed earlier. The issue then is whether both negative and positive reactions can be considered to be effective in forming pedagogic competence? If nothing else, communicative language teaching represents the most explicit representation of methodology on the training course. It is the nearest thing to theory that exists for trainees in an overt form. It does become a 'language' through which to articulate practice, both in a real and

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a hypothetical sense. In a memorable phrase towards the end of the training course, Marie talks about the way she felt that at school there was her, the book and the pupil. In other words, the teaching materials were the medium through which she and her pupils communicated with each other. And in training, she felt that the corresponding position was that there were the trainees, the trainer and the communicative approach. Again, there is the sense that communicative language teaching, in its various concrete and ideal representations, was a kind of medium for communication. It is the integrating link between theory and practice. In Chapter 2, I discussed Hirst's seminal work in laying the foundations for the theory/practice debate by defining educational theory in terms of supplying the principles of practice for education. But the grounding disciplines of educational theory were not for him the applied sciences related to particular subject areasfor example, research in applied linguistics to modern language teachingbut the foundational subjects of a socio-cultural view of what it is to be a teacher; sociology, psychology, philosophy and history. The consequences of this view for teacher training were that these disciplines were often taught as 'pure' subjects, leaving students to make their own connections to pedagogy and practice. This approach continued well into the 1980s in some training establishments. Theory, ever since, has been associated with this approach and repeatedly attacked. As I previously mentioned, major surveys of teacher training in the 1980s have reported trainees as being consistently negative about the 'theoretical' nature of their courses and hungry for maximum practical experience. If the issue of organising training is framed in such terms theoryand/or practiceit is perhaps not surprising that general trends have moved in the opposite direction; to the other of the binary pairpractice. This has been true of both academic discussion and national policy. During this time, Hirst reversed his previously held view: 'It now seems to me we must start with a consideration of current practice (in) deciding what ought to be done' (Hirst, 1983: 16). Walker, who claims to have considered the philosophical relationship between theory and practice in training, also concludes that practice must be the 'grounding for theory', which henceforth should be 'presented in school' (Walker, 1985: 185). The trend in organising courses has been to increase the participation of schools in administering training and the amount of time trainees are based in school (cf. DES, 1992; Shaw, 1992). It is as if the binary pair of theory and practice, having captured the discourse on training, continue to set the parameters and position of the debate. The stories I have offered suggest it is possible to understand theory in other terms. For modern language teachers/trainees, theory exists in

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various forms in different times and places, is partly articulated by them, and is the basis of their development as teachers. Context is all, and there is a time and a place where a methodological idea has one particular meaning, but a different sense in another time and place. The character of time and place in training implies proximity or distance, not only to people and places, but to the ideas found there. Trainees respond to these, as best they can, according to who they are. It does matter where trainees are located, and when. It is not surprising, therefore, that the dichotomies referred to in the previous chapter are expressed by the trainees more hypothetically at first, and then personally and strongly as they are experienced alongside the consequences arising from them. Theory, or different forms of theorising, can be understood as being 'closer' in some contexts than others; at the training institution when practice is distant, and in schools when it is closer. I have argued that trainees work with these dichotomies according to their own dispositions which set up relationships to ideas. The potential for the development of pedagogic competence is dependent on these relationships. They have consequences for alternative forms of action. How the trainees act is never random, although some choices of action may be poorly understood by tutor, school mentor and perhaps the trainees themselves and appear to be random. In this way, both theory and practice must be understood as relatively distributed across the field of training, and have different causes and effects as they do so. The coherence of ideas represented by forms of theorytacit, fundamental, educationalis, however, also dependent on individual trainees: who they are; how they act; how they can act. That is to say that their practice as teachers is as much an act of condition as one of volition. Teachers are created, but they also create themselves. This view recalls the trait theory approach to professionalisation; that certain characteristics make a good teacher. Certainly, this approach can be crude and deterministic. Yet, there do indeed seem to exist personal traits which facilitate or mitigate against developing as a teacher; for example, linguistic ability, strength and openness of personality, previous professional experience, adaptability. However, trait theory is a static construct: the application of innate characteristics to practice. The real creation of a pedagogic personality seems rather to come about through a dialogic relationship between a developing pedagogic understanding (theory) and continuing classroom action (practice). Theory, whatever its form, will always be a personal relationship with pedagogic knowledge in its various forms and with its effects on practice. At these initial stages of a teacher's professional development, this relationship is fraught with contradictions and dichotomies about what to

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believe and how to act. Trainees work through these; indeed, their development literally comes about as a direct result. Success or otherwise depends on how the trainees deal with such disruptions: this is the theme of my concluding chapter.

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Chapter 7 Managing Disruption We have seen how disruptive the experiences of training to be a modern language teacher can be. We have also seen how this disruption goes to the very heart of how we understand the processes of teacher training and discussion of how it should be organised. In terms of policy, theory has been heavily criticised for the idealised version of reality it represents; and its role in the training of teachers has been undermined. Moreover, there is a tendency to see the stresses and strains of training as a bad thing; and to advocate that policy should be changed, therefore, to limit its problematisations. But these tensions come from every direction and appear to be an essential part of the generative structures of training. Trainees are not wholly students because they do not just depend on academic success. However, they are not wholly teachers either because they do not depend entirely on practical success. It is perhaps unsurprising if, when faced with ambiguities implicit in the dichotomies of trainingfor example, with Jill and the use of grammar in lessonsthe only way of asserting themselves and their own authority is through previous positions with regard to their own language learning and teaching and the experiences from which these ideas arose. For them, apparent certainty about this personal knowing contrasts with the seemingly fragmented, contradictory demands of the training methodology. This methodology is also embedded in materials, syllabuses, curricular structures, etc. and represented by colleagues, tutors and mentors working with the trainees. Training therefore implies authority. We have seen that there are three basic important aspects of training: the structured contexts in which trainees find themselves over time; their individual personalities and hence dispositions to think and act in certain ways; the methodological approach given to them and through which they think and act. Again, all of these are a potential source of disruption for trainees. That there are misunderstandings is inevitable; for example, in the way that Carol states that she had the impression at the beginning of the course that communicative language teaching was geared towards the

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lowest common denominator. This belief itself is bound to cause dissonance in a trainee's commitment to operating in a certain fashion. Only later, and in the light of experience, does she realise that for her the approach is 'more to do with covering the same work but organising it differently'. This realisation is clearly ongoing; she still expresses the approach in terms of 'intelligence to cope with it' rather than as an opportunity for more effective language learning for all. The traditional approach is still seen as the best if learners can cope with it. For Carol, the way the approach was dealt with on the training course exacerbated this 'misunderstanding'. Towards the end, she suggests that a better way may have been to create a hypothetical situation, criticise it, and then put in the suggestion that it would be nice if we had a certain kind of alternative, and then present just that. Trainees might then better appreciate how good communicative language teaching was. This 'sales' technique clearly originates in her commercial background and reflects how she is now able to place CLT within her own structured knowledge. However, insight into the training processes, and making suggestions about how things might have been organised differently, is certainly a way with which trainees cope with the stresses and strains of trying to become a teacher. Marie, for example, thinks that they might have developed a method for themselves; after all they are all good linguists with potential knowledge that might be drawn upon. This reflective, autonomous account is in keeping with her general approach to training. Janet has a more functional understanding, in keeping with her compliant approach to training, and sees the methodology as a prescription: 'You are trying to tell us that, not because it's the way you want us to teach but how someone higher up is thinking . . . this is a method that is geared to the GCSE.' Jackie is more flexible, seeing the approach to training in procedural terms and the methodology as a medium to work with: 'I could see the point of your introducing the approach to us when you did . . . although for some it might come across as an instruction which gives rise to a conflict situation . . . you have to have an approach that is presented to you, and for some it is going to fit into the way they work, and for others it is not. But we do need the original approach.' At the end of training, therefore, each of them had incorporated a specific theoretical construct of what communicative language teaching was into their operationalised understanding of teaching. Individual responses themselves are linked to the trainees' background. Jackie, for example, came from a teaching family and was doing what she had 'always wanted to do'. Janet had a similar background: both her sisters were modern language teachers. Most of the people she knew had done

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languages and had given her lots of reasons why and explained what they had gained from them. She did understand the relevance and importance of learning modern languages, but did not feel her skills and qualities lay in this direction. Such a rejection of language teaching can be understood on a personal level, as coming about as a consequence of modest linguistic skills and her inability to form the sort of relationships she had previously experienced in the classroom when teaching EFL. The consequences of this rejection are apparent in her personal understanding of what she understood communicative language teaching to be, and her interpretations of the training experience. Training clearly does challenge pre-suppositions, beliefs and current forms of practice. However, it will only be effective if the quality of these challenges ultimately leads to trainees developing their own pedagogic personality and consequent teaching competence. Trainees all engage with such challenges to a greater or lesser extent, and in explicit and implicit ways. In some cases, and for a variety of reasons, the effect is negative and the outcome is not developing a professional persona nor an active commitment to the classroom teaching process. In most of the case examples, however, there is the sense that they are indeed all moving forward. There are then structured incongruities, both relational and ideational, between the trainees themselves and the field of training, which are inherent in the training process. What I did with the trainees in terms of theory and practice at the university and what they did in schools were experienced by the trainees as two separate things. On the surface, trainees do actually see only different people saying different things at different times and the immediate exigencies of practiceof being in schools and teaching classes. The trainees do try to reconcile these incongruities in a variety of ways. However, It may well be appropriate that the school and the university should be distinct. Schools, after all, take care of getting things done from their own functional perspectives, as do teachers. This is a proper and efficient strategy, as there are particular context issues that characterise the form of response appropriate to that context. But to claim, as many have recently done, that the school site is authentic, and therefore the only place where trainees need to go to learn to teach is to claim that induction into a particular context can be the basis for developing the generalised skills and knowledge necessary to professional competence. In an extreme case, such an approach would require teachers to be retrained each time they went to another school. The point of training, both in-service and pre-service, is, however, to develop general pedagogic skills and knowledge that are applicable to any teaching context. This involves the ability to work with

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the processes of education across sites. In the initial stages of training, it is the tutor and the institution-based training course which can represent such a holistic view in lieu of students having it themselves. Trainees will always react to the experiences they see; indeed, schools will always say different things to the university; and the consequent interpretations imply contradictions. This 'space in between' is the very location in which the process of training takes place. Trainees react in this space, and, by reacting, knowledge develops. By having school and university as two, distinct sites, two different purposes are served. Trainees engage in the training process by experiencing these sites, and the different issues that arise within them, and make choices about where they stand with regard to the various theoretical and practical questions involved. The word 'choice' needs to be treated with some caution, as issues rarely express themselves in an either/or form; but through working with the range of dichotomies previously described. By operating a double structure training site, trainees are located between the two. I earlier called this 'nowhere'; but it is also a space that avoids overt induction into one system or the other. If what happened at the university exactly mirrored what is happening in schools, and vice versa, their views on language teaching would be identical. The lack of identity has been used in recent times to argue for a school-based approach to training, competencybased teacher education and the authenticity of practice over theory. These trends are apparent in both policy innovation and research. Yet, faced with only school training or synchronicity between schools and universities, all that trainees would be able to do is to agree or disagree. By having both schools and institutions of higher education involved in training, there is a space called 'nowhere' where trainees have to decide for themselves. There are inherent problematisations for trainees to tackle. These 'problems' demand a response from trainees; they have to act, practically, intellectually and emotionally. The 'space' is located at a crucial position at the interface where classroom action and research, both theoretical and empirical, meet and thus interact. Recent reform towards school-based training in England is an example of the way the structural form of this space can be radically altered: relationally and thus experientially. In this case, the nature of this autonomous space that is 'nowhere' has hence been altered. The result has been that schools take on a closer inductive role into their form of teaching, and institutions attempt to mirror this as a claim to authenticity. This symmetrical relationship has now become an inspected necessity with the quality of training courses assessed in terms of the practical focus and match between schools and training institutions. Furthermore, what

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schools and modern language departments are engaged in, in terms of curriculum and thus classroom practice, is also inspected according to the implementation of the statutory orders of the English MFL National Curriculum (DES, 1995). Such an organisational set-up leaves the motor force for language teaching located in the processes of drafting and implementation of the National Curriculum, and relegates anything else to a peripheral position; and this in the name of a 'common-sense' view of training. In this type of arrangement, theory, enquiry and research are therefore weakened. A more balanced view of training, with all its tensions, dichotomies and misunderstandings, is that it protects the autonomous space of professionalism within which trainees can operate in their early months. Such a space offers a certain amount of care and protection for trainees, and a structure that enables trainees to be mediated into becoming a teacher. It does this, not by telling students what to do and what not to do, and how it should be done, but by providing areas in which they can engage with the contradictory elements of teachingspecifically language teaching in this caseand make their own 'choices' about how to respond. In one sense, it does not matter what answers they come up with; these are mostly partial and temporary, anyway. As long as they are reacting, they are moving forward by accumulating pedagogical experience. 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. It is noticeable that the one trainee in the group who 'failed' Janet), or at least training failed her, already had significantly developed views on teaching when she started the course, but these did not progress. There were a number of reasons for this, but the contradictions she herself saw and experienced led to her positioning herself outside of the process of modern language teaching and thus ceased to engage in it. Once this happenedand it seems that it can happen very quickly and once and for allthe rest of her training amounted to a 'going-throughthe-motions', a formulaic response to the various demands the course put upon her. The other trainees did engage, each in their own ways. What Marie describes as her collapse, her 'becoming like all the rest', allowed her to reassess what was possible for her and to re-formulate a different, more balanced view of modern trends in language teaching. Jackie held on to a strong view of herself as language teacher and what the methodology was meant to be, but, once removed from school, was able to modify her evaluation of methodological objectives and her role in the classroom. Both Carol and Jill held strong views about language teaching and suffered the

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consequences of these, both theoretically and practically. However, Jill began to question these views in the light of experiences. She also developed a different balance of methods as a consequence, and gained some insight into her own personality and the implications it had for her practical approach. Carol was another problematic trainee. She experienced theoretical preoccupations and methodological reservations similar to Jill's but seems less able to engage with them in practice. In fact, her lessons were characterised by their amorphous nature, neither traditional nor modern. Her weakness in linguistic ability was a significant component in this aspect of her work. Her difficulty in adopting a 'teacher approach' was another. Both affected her engaging in the space between theory and practice, and the links between school and university. Her strong inhibition to involving herself resulted in her not developing further as a teacher during the course; indeed, she explicitly saw 'teacher behaviour' as something to be avoided. When she was forced to adopt a more traditionally teacher role, she felt disappointed. What is clear from the discussion above is that teacher training is a highly complex process; one where simple metaphors and explanations hardly apply. To become a teacher is obviously a long and involving experience, one which calls into question the various contexts of its occurrence and the individual characters of those wishing to train. It is a demanding experience, and perhaps not always enjoyable because of that. It is probably better to accept that training is problematic rather than to believe it can be otherwise, but this is not to say that it cannot be managed in better ways or be more effective. We have seen how the sort of travelling I advocated around the 'triangle of training' is fraught with tensions for trainees. In other words, the relations between different modes of theorising is necessarily problematic; and is so, not only because of the changing nature of different forms of practice and theory, but also because of individual dispositions in a range of contexts. This is true for trainees. But what of others involved in the training process: trainers and school-based colleagues and mentors. They too have their own 'triangles of training', their own professional development, their own theories and practices. For trainers, it may sometimes seem that discussion and research about initial teacher training takes place in fields of discourse and dialogue where the very terms of the debate are contested. Bipolar opposites are created theory and practice, school and higher education, research and teaching and then positions defended from one or other perspective. As discussed in Chapter 3, recent years have seen a disavowal of formal theoretical

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instruction of pedagogy. It has become fashionable to believe that practice is best. It follows that schools are seen as the natural places of training and 'sitting in on the job', as in former times, is seen to be sufficient for gaining pedagogic competence. This obviously challenges trainers' own professional competence to link theory and practice in a way that is relevant to the development of trainees' professional competence. The position of trainers in the academic field is another 'nowhere'. In teacher education, research and theory currently have a bad name: and it is true that very often its claims and findings seem obtuse, idealistic and obscure, or all of these at one and the same time. How educational research is conducted and theory discussed is part of the problem. Educational research does not occur out of altruism, or disconnected from political issues. University educational departments are themselves located within their own academic spaces with their own competing factions and associated ideas. Research and publications are not neutral, value-free activities produced for the betterment of educational practice. Rather, they are the source of competition and the consequent grading of individuals and individual department's worth in terms of quality and status. Research and publications therefore have functions other than that of the improving classroom practice. Indeed, practitioner-orientated research can be, academically speaking, a pejorative term. Education departments themselves are in an ambiguous position within their higher education institutions. The vocational training they provide is sometimes seen as not central to the business of academic establishments at all, which are still attached to ideals of scholarship and learning. There is then a divide between education departments and the rest of the academic institution. And within education departments there is a divide between subject specialists charged with delivering courses in pedagogy and researchers within the so-called 'foundation subjects', who, in many cases, see themselves as first and foremost sociologists, psychologists, philosophers and the like. The first group usually originate from schools, where they have acquired considerable experience in teaching and, often, managing departments. They have practical expertise and are still very much school-focused; for example, in their contacts with trainees during their school experience, mentor training and developing the necessary links between the two primary sites of training. The second group may not ever set foot in a school at all, and have no extensive practical teaching experience at this level. The inequity of the situation is exacerbated by the fact that the two groups join higher education at different career stages: the subject specialists in mid-career with practical experience but little research expertise; the foundationalists often after doctorate studies but no subject

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teaching in schools. The rules of the academic game mean that promotion and recognition depend on high status research and publications which are the very antithesis of the subject specialist. Thus, there is no incentive to stay practice focused. There is here another form of socialsation involved as teachers become trainers by acquiring the necessary academic attributes for a successful career path. This in turn leads them to theory and research which has its own field of reception that is quite distinct from classroom and schools. The product, if acceptable to this field, is exactly the type and style of work which teachers and schools are hardly going to consider as being of direct relevance to them. This puts trainers themselves in a difficult position; they too are 'nowhere'. For schools and teachers they may appear too theoretical, abstract and ideal. For academia, they appear too practical, schoolfocused and lacking in scholarship. Trainers then are spread uneasily across the training triangle. Status and promotion depend on their activity at the bottom left-hand side of the triangle: on the discussion of education principles and conducting the underlying research to back it up (see Figure 13).

Figure 13 Teachers in schools judge them by their practical involvement; trainees often seek practical formulae from them to survive in the classroom. It is as if activity in one area is a betrayal of an activity in another. A similar argument might be mounted for the teachers in schools who are involved in training. Most of their activity is based around the top of

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the triangle: Practice. They have a lot of professional knowledge, much of it tacit, but do not have the time or the habit of talking about it in explicit terms. They are not trained either explicitly or implicitly to talk or teach about teaching. Their teaching styles and habits are often highly developed but personalised in a way that does not easily provide general educational principles for trainees, who might then be left to observe and mimic. It might be thought that contact with the bottom left-hand side of the triangle is one way for teachers to develop their explicit thinking about teaching; to kick against what others have said and to re-assess their own thoughts, habits, techniques. However, as I previously stated, 'theory' is often seen as undermining rather than enhancing their own practical skills, and a political and academic climate that enthuses about practical relevance and theoretical irrelevance does little to question this belief. It is as if teaching becomes merely carrying out curricular prescriptions to the best of one's ability, not developing a thinking, sensitive approach to individual pupils and classes. In England at least, this has not always been the case. The foundational approach I described earlier gave rise to a number of in-service training courses based specifically on an enquiry-based model of professional development. In these, experienced teachers were indeed asked to rethink their practice in terms of underlying principles and research. This led them to develop clearer ways of articulating their own fundamental theories about teaching and to connect with formal principles arising from research and enquiry. The undermining of theory and research in the English educational culture has largely destroyed this type of professional development. Very often, now, in-service training is focused on particular school demands, rather than the professional needs of the individual, and is instrumentally based. Expertise in teaching one's subject area is seen in terms of curricular application and technique, rather than personal professional competence. Promotion, for example, for a modern language teacher, is unlikely to come about from enhancing personal pedagogic understanding, still less from an involvement with working with training teachers. In the new policy on school-based teacher training in England, finances are transferred to schools in recognition of the time they now give to trainees. However, funds are regularly kept in central reserves and are often not dedicated to professional development of teachers let alone initial trainees. The rewards for developing a relationship with each of the areas of the training triangle are not immediately evident to practising teachers. They are themselves caught in their own 'nowhere' where seeking promotion, mentoring trainees and developing professionally are all in conflict. However, I am not trying to parochialise the discussion here, or to argue for or against the particular national policy of training in England. Training,

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in England at least, does take place in a culture which in some ways exacerbates the bipolar opposites I wrote of above. Traditional dichotomies are embedded between those involved in it, and the links between research and educational principles and practice are fraught with ambiguity and tension. This situation can be found in any country in the world, where similar trends are apparent. But is there the impetus to change? It is fair to question what research, theory and academic literature can offer teachers in training, or for that matter teachers' continuing professional development. Yet, there are dangers of abandoning this side of the equation and adopting a common-sense, atheoretical, view of teachers' developing professional competence. It is difficult to draw up a profile of a successful teacher without being so broad as to be meaningless or so detailed as to be fragmented. In the English case, for example, competencies have been itemised and then used as the basis of teacher assessmentthe famous ticks in boxes. This type of fragmentation can lead to detail that is meaningless to all concerned; in other words, can the whole be regarded as the sum of the individual parts? On the other hand, a statement such as to 'maintain pupils' interest and motivation' taken from the English teacher training orders can only be interpreted in wide relativistic and/or subjective terms. These lists are drawn up, however, and used to guide and assess both trainee teachers and experienced practising teachers. Because they come with official backing the picture they present has a validity it does not necessarily warrant. It is really sanctioned mostly on the basis of its official provenance. Moreover, the model of the good teacher thus presented soon reflects the official curricula according to which teachers are obliged to teach. This creates a circle of compliance: curricula are officially prescribed; teachers must teach according to its methodologies and purposes; so entrants must be inducted in the same; so training courses follow the prescriptions of the official pedagogy. This would be fine if we were sure that the pedagogic frameworks we had were indeed the best. The fact is that this is not the case, and some two decades after its public appearance, communicative language teaching still continues to give rise to more questions than answers. The point I am making is not that theory is needed in order to challenge government policy on teacher training in England. It is rather that such policy is not based on an understanding of the processes of training, which are, as my discussion has shown, inherently prone to tensions and problematisations. But these latter are needed, and are the generating energy of professional development. Theory has a role in this in that it offers trainees, and indeed practising teachers, a way of handling material that is abstract, generalisable and principled. Engaging with theory is by its nature

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challenging and, therefore, liable to lead to a problematic relationship with it. However, because it generates thoughts about practice and on practice, it is an important part of developing as a teacher. Working with theory mirrors two aspects of the contemporary educational climate: its complexity and its rate of change. Teachers who work with and against theory, work with and against the complexity of teaching as an activity. As we have seen, a multitude of senses, knowledges and ways of acting are required in schools and in classrooms. The way to deal with these is by a developed synthetic sense of the learning process not by political prescription which is imposed through a series of inspections and assessments. Moreover, education and learning are in constant states of flux; and this is true from a European or worldwide perspective as much as a national view. Much of this change is now coming from the new revolution in information technology; in particular, the opening up of world contacts and data bases through the Internet. This rate of change cannot be met by teachers who are simply told what to do and what not to do. Rather, it is made the most of by teachers who have a developed sense of their practice from an engagement with the multifaceted aspects of teaching and learning, including theory. In this respect, teacher training policy should be less about reducing the problems that arise from its processes as working with them. There would seem to be two basic approaches to teacher training. Either, the process of teaching is acknowledged as being problematic, and then trainees and trainers work on the problems together and find ways of using them advantageously for pedagogy. Or, a basic method is given for trainees to operationalise in the classroom. The type of training demonstrated on the training course of the five case stories was clearly of the latter kind. A limited method was offered to trainees for them to apply in lessons, in the full knowledge that the model was limited and problematic. However, in this approach, trainees become active in the classroom with pupils, and learning takes place. Trainees work with the consequent problems which arise as they occur to them; either through their own reflections on practice in the light of theory and discussion, or prompted by input from those around them such as tutors, colleagues and mentors. There is ample evidence of this happening in all five case stories on such matters as lesson planning, use of target language, grammar, the potential of various techniques and activities, and the relationship between modern language teaching and learning and other aspects of teacher-pupil relations. The point, however, is that these moves are very person and context dependent. I have the feeling that just as a grammar explanation goes unheard if the learner is not at the right stage to hear it, so points about teaching are only

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heard by trainees when they are ready to hear them. But this readiness only comes from extensive experience, and practical and intellectual involvement with the relevant issues. It certainly does not come by telling the trainees what to do; this is impossible practically all of the time. Neither does it come from trainees closing themselves off from personal involvement and thinking, that teaching is about applying a preset formula or finding the answer to teaching. This discussion leads to a process-based, procedural view of professional development. In other words, what teachers can and cannot cope with methodologically is different at an initial training stage and after several years of teaching experience. There is not someone, a construct, called a teacher who comes into being ex nihilo and then stops developing. Rather it is a gradual process of accumulation, adjustment and development which never stops, or should never stop. It is not sufficient therefore to lay down criteria for training and inspection and assess individuals' performance according to them. Such criteria will always be a help in objectifying aspects of the work of teachers and providing food for thought in professional development. However, improvement in competence comes from teachers who are positively critical and involved with their activities. This implies a dialogue at various levels at different career stages. For the initial trainees, principles and rationales are required as well as competencies and techniques. Then, as newly qualified teachers, it requires schools, departments and colleagues who are committed and enquiring, not compliant whilst silently rebellious towards prescribed approaches. It also requires formal and lasting links between school departments and institutions of higher education: and this, not simply for political niceties or conventions, but as a real source of dialogue and debate between theory and practice and their relationship to what goes on in classroom as successful teaching. The active involvement of mentors from schools in teaching the institution-based course is one way to facilitate this partnership, as would research conducted within school departments. We need 'expert teachers', but they must be recognised as such within schools and given the appropriate status and salary. For too long, such pedagogues and specialists have been the 'also rans' of education careers. Whilst aspiring teachers have moved into senior management and pastoral work, those who have stayed with their curriculum subject and developed expertise in it have reached a career plateau as departmental head. This gives subject teaching a second-class status in career terms. In recent years, there has been hot debate about the apparent limitations of the one-year training course in countries of the world who employ it. A one-year training course can only be a beginning; it is a relatively short

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period of time. If trainees' professional development is not going to stop or slip back to personal idiosyncrasies, then they need to be placed in the sort of departments I describe above. For further professional development, two more years are needed where newly qualified teachers are monitored and supported in their classroom practice. This additional training, for such it is, is at its best when it is ongoing within the school, but supported by contributions from local authorities and training institutions in order to feed in and develop current thinking in modern language teaching and give a broader perspective to related classroom experiences. Continuing professional development also needs to be standardised and formally recognised in ways which give public accreditation for what has been achieved by an individual in their teaching competence. This does not mean academic courses which relate to the research field only. Yet, neither does it mean school-based in-service training that is limited to a host of latest practical exercises, which often promise more by their colour and razzmatazz than they can deliver in terms of productive language learning, or organisational matters of the local context. Good teachers teach through the activities and techniques at their disposal rather than with them. Such professional competence does indeed take a long time to develop, and is more than the accumulation of a repertoire of involving activities. These take learners so far. However, in order to be able to develop genuine communicative competence with their pupils, teachers' own relationship to language must be implicated not only in terms of specific knowledge of its formal representations but also its complex processes and sophisticated forms of expression. If teachers fail to do this, then so will their pupils. Such an acquaintance with language does indeed come through using it, but this needs to be complemented by an exploration of what others have concluded on similar themes. Anything else is an impoverishment of what it is to be a linguist and a modern language teacher. To paraphrase Bourdieu; it is not possible to learn a language without also developing a relation to language. The task which is now before all involved with would-be teachers is to ensure that this relation is strong, active and, above all, pedagogic.

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Elliott, J. (1993b) Professional education and the idea of a practical educational science. In J. Elliott (ed), 65-86. Elvoque, M. and Salters, M. (1992) Models of Competence and Teacher Training. Paper presented at UCET. Eraut, M. (1990) Identifying the knowledge which underpins performance. In H. Black, and A. Wolf (eds) Knowledge and Competence. Careers and Occupational Centre: HMSO. Evans, C. (1988) Language People. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Fox, D. (1983) Personal theories about teaching. Studies in Higher Education 8,151-63. Fuller, F. and Bown, O.H. (1975) Becoming a teacher. In K. Ryan (ed), 25-52. Giddens, A. (1979) Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradictions in Social Theory. Berkley: University of California Press. Ginsburg, M.B. (1988) Contradictions in Teacher Education: A Critical Analysis. Lewes: Falmer Press. Goodson, I.F. (1992) Studying Teachers' Lives. London: Routledge. Grenfell, M. (1995) The initial training of modern language teachers: A social theoretical approach. Unpublished PhD Thesis: Southampton University. Halliday, M.A.K. (1978) Language as a Social Semiotic. London: Edward Arnold. Hargreaves, D (1993) A commonsense model of professional development of teachers. In J. Elliott (ed), 86-92. Hanson, D. and Herrington, M. (1976) From College to Classroom. Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Harding, A. Page, B. and Rowell, S. (1980) Graded Objectives in Modern Languages. London: CILT. Hatch, E. (ed.) (1978) Second Language Acquisition: A Book of Readings. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. Hatch, E. (1992) Discourse and Language Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hirst, P.H. (1966) Educational theory. In J.W. Tibble (ed), 29-58. Hirst, P.H. (1974) Knowledge and the Curriculum: A Collection of Philosophical Papers. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Hirst, P.H. (1983) Educational theory. In P.H. Hirst (ed.) Educational Theory and its Foundation Disciplines. London: Routledge. Huberman, M. (1993) The Lives of Teachers. Translated by J. Neufeld. London: Cassell. Hyland, T. (1993) Competence, knowledge and education. Journal of the Philosophy of Education 7, 57-68. Hymes, D. (1972) On communicative competence. In J.B. Pride and J. Holmes (eds) Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Kagan, D.M. (1992) Professional growth among pre-service and beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research 62, 129-69. Koster, B. (1993) Between entry and exit: How student teachers change their educational values under the influence of teacher education. Paper presented at the 1993 Conference of ATEE, Lisbon, Portugal. Krashen, S. (1981) Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Krashen, S. (1982) Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press Lacey, C. (1977) The Socialisation of Teachers. London: Methuen.

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Lantolf, J. and Frawley, W. (1983) Second language performance and Vygotskyan psycholinguistics: Implications for L2 acquisition. 10th LACUS Forum. Lantolf, J. and Frawley, W. (1985) Second language discourse: A Vygotskyan perspective. Applied Linguistics 6, 19-44. Lieberman, A. and Miller, L. (1992) Teachers: Their World and Their Work. New York: Teachers College Press. Liston, D.P. and Zeichner, K.M. (1991) Teacher Education and the Social Conditions of Schooling. New York: Routledge. Littlewood, W. (1981) Communicative Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Macleod, G. and McIntyre, D. (1978) Towards a model for microteaching. In D. McIntyre, G. Macleod, and R. Griffiths (eds) Investigating Micro-teaching. London: Croom Helm. McGarvey, B. and Swallows, D. (1986) Microteaching in Teacher Education and Training. London: Croom Helm. McIntyre, D. (1991) Theory, theorising and reflection in initial teacher education. Paper presented at a conference on conceptualising reflection in teacher development. University of Bath. McWilliams, E. (1992) Towards advocacy: Post-positivist directions for progressive teacher educators. British Journal of the Sociology of Education 13, 3-17. Ofsted/TTA (1996) Framework for the Assessment of Quality and Standards in Initial Teacher Training. London: HMSO Page, B. (1979) Notions, functions and threshold levels: A review of the significance for teachers of the work of the council of Europe. Audio-Visual Language Journal 17, 115-21. Popkewitz, T.S. (ed.) (1987) Critical Studies in Teacher Education. Lewes: Falmer Press Saussure, F. de (1916, 1974) Course in General Linguistics, tr. W. Baskin. Glasgow: Collins. Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. London: Temple Smith. Schön, D. (1987) Educating the Reflective Practitioner. Toward a New Design for Teaching and Learning in the Professions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Shaw, R. (1992) Teacher Training in Secondary Schools. London: Kogan Page. Shulman, L.S. (1990) Knowledge and teaching: foundations of the new reform. Journal of Teacher Education 41, 1-22. Tibble, J.W. (1966) The Study of Education. London: Routledge. Trim, J.L.M. (1978) Some Possible Lines of Development of an Overall Structure for a European Unit/Credit Scheme for Foreign Language Learning by Adults. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. TTA (1997) Training Curriculum and Standards for New Teachers: Consultation Document. London: HMSO. Van Ek, J. (1975) The Threshold Level. Strasbourg: Council of Europe. Vandenberg, D. (1974) Phenomenology and educational research. In D. Denton (ed.) Existentialism and Phenomenology in Education. Columbia: Teachers College Press. Van Manen, M. (1977) Linking ways of knowing with ways of being practical. Curriculum Inquiry 6, 205-28. de Villiers, J. and de Villiers, P. (1973) A cross-sectional study of the acquisition of grammatical morphemes in child speech. Journal of Psychological Research 2, 267-78. Vygotsky, L.S. (1962) Thought and Language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Vygotsky, L.S. (1978) Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walker, B. (1985) A philosophical inquiry into the relationship between theory and practice with particular reference to initial teacher training. Unpublished M. Phil thesis: University of Southampton. Wallace, M.J. (1991) Training Foreign Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waller, W. (1967) The Sociology of Teaching. New York: John Wiley. Wertsch, J.V. (1979) The regulation of human action and the given-new organisation of private speech. In G. Zivin (ed.) The Development of Self-Regulation Through Private Speech. New York: John Wiley. Whitty, G. and Wilmott, E. (1991) Competence-based teacher education: Approaches and issues. Cambridge Journal of Education 21, 309-18. Widdowson, H.G. (1978) Teaching Language as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, S.M., Shulman, L.S. and Richert, A.E. (1987) 150 different ways of knowing: Representations in teaching. In J. Calderhead (ed.), 104-24. Wittrock, M.C. (ed.) (1986) Handbook of Research on Teaching (3rd edn). New York: Macmillan. Zeichner, K., Tabachnick, B. and Densmore, K. (1987) Individual, institutional and cultural influences on the development of teachers' craft knowledge. In J. Calderhead (ed.), 21-59. Zeichner, K. and Teitelbaum, K. (1982) Personalised enquiry-orientated teacher education. Journal of Education for Teaching 8, 95-117.

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INDEX A Adler, S. 16 Althusser, L. 29 Anderson, J.R. 42 Anthony, E.M. 39 Applied Science 8, 15, 17, 22 Audio-visual/Audio-lingual 8, 26 B Barrett, E. 14 Becker, H.S. 29 Bellig, M. 131 Bennett, N. 13, 35 Beyer, L.E. 159 Bird, E. 43 Bourdieu, P. 29, 33, 180 Bowles, S. 29 Bown 12, 13 British Educational Research Association (BERA) 34 Brown, S. 30, 31, 157, 158 Brumfit, C.J. 27, 40, 42 Burt, M. 41 C Calderhead, J. 11 Carter, K. 13, 31 Career Cycles 12-14 Chomsky, N. 41 Clark, C.M. 30 Communicative Language Teaching 20-21, 38, 42, 43, 45-46, 153-154 Competence-based Teacher Education 31-35 Cornbleth, C. 16 Course Structure 45-47 Craft Knowledge 30-31, 156-158 Craft Model 7-8, 15, 22 D Day, C. 16 Dennison, M. 43 Department for Education (DFE) 43 Department of Education and Science (DES) 11, 27, 31, 33, 40, 165, 172

Diamond, C.T.P. 30 Dulay, H. 41 Doyle, W. 13, 31 E Educational Theory 17, 19 Elliott, J. 10, 13, 34 Elvoque, M. 34 Epistemology of Practice 14 Eraut, M. 34 Evans, C. 30, 126 F Foundational Model 9, 11 Fox, D. 12 Frawley, W. 42 Fuller, F. 12, 13 Fundamental Educational Theory 18, 19 G General Certificate of Education (GCSE) 43, 45 Giddens, A. 29 Ginsburg, M.B. 29, 29 Gintis, H. 29 Goodson, I.F. 12 Graded Objective in Modern Languages (GOML) 43 Grenfell, M. 51 H Halliday, M.A.K. 41 Hanson, D. 10, 13 Harding, A. 43 Hatch, E. 41 Herrington, M. 10, 13 Hirst, P.H. 8, 20, 26, 165 Huberman, M. 13 Human Sciences 19, 20 Hyland, T. 34 Hymes, D. 41 I Individual Differences 23 J Johnson, K. 42

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K Kagan, D.M. 13 Knowledge in Action 14 Koster, B. 11 Krashen, S. 41 L Lacey, C. 10, 29, 158 Language Acquisition Device 41 Lantolf, J. 42 Lesson Planning 16 Lieberman, A. 11 Liston, D.P. 15 Littlewood, W. 42 M MacCleod, G. 18 McIntyre, D. 17, 18, 30, 31, 35, 157, 158 McGarvey, B. 31 McWilliams, E. 12 Mentors 148 Miller, L. 11 N National Curriculum 43, 172 Natural Approach 41 O Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) 33 P Page, B. 43 Passeron, J.C. 29, 33 Pedagogic Action 160-167 Pedagogical Content Knowledge 35, 38 Pedagogic Personality 123-131 Personnel 11-12, 144-148 Peterson, P.L. 30 Policy 25-28 Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) 26-27, 36-37 Practice 19 R Reflection on Action 14 Reflective Practitioner 14-17, 22 Robson, M. 11

S Salters, M. 34 Saussure, F. de 40 Schön, D. 14 Shaw, R. 165 Shulman, L.S. 160 Site 9-10, 119-122 Socialisation 10, 28-30, 158-160 Subject Knowledge 35 Swallows, D. 31 Symbolic Interaction 29 T Tacit Knowledge 18 Teachers 175-176 Teacher Training Agency (TTA) 28, 33 Teitelbaum, K. 159 Theory and Practice 10-11, 18-22, 119, 153-156 Threshold Level 43 Trainers 173-175 Training Dichotomies 131-144 Training Field 119-123 Training Triangle 19, 20, 37, 124, 150, 153 Traits 29 Trim, J.L.M. 43 Turner-Bissett, R. 35 Tutors 146-148 V Vandenberg, D. 19 Van Ek, J. 43 Van Manen, M. 159 de Villiers, J. 41 Vygotsky, L.S. 42 W Walker, B. 165 Wallace, M.J. 7 Wertsch, J.V. 42, Whitty, G. 34 Widdowson, H.G. 42 Wilmott, E. 34 Wilson, S.M. 35 Z Zeichner, K. 15, 159 Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) 42