How programmes are devised

It is a common practice in Argentina that English language teacher training programmes tend to be the product of top-down decisions since they are designed by the Ministries of Education of each province according to the general guidelines established by the national authorities.

           In praxis, it works as follows. The Ministry of Education of Argentina organises a special commission formed by specialists and some trainers, heads of teacher education institutions, and subsequently releases a document which sets the conceptual framework and general guidelines to design teacher training programmes regardless of their special subject matter knowledge. These guidelines are applicable to all teacher education institutions. Following this foundational document, new commissions are established to apply these general principles to each subject, such as a Mathematics teacher training programme or, as in our interest, an English teacher training programme.

         In the province of Chubut, the Ministry of Education chooses a selected number of professionals to design in detail the contents inside the training programmes. Sometimes, only one professional is responsible for designing the complete programme for a particular subject area. In that case, the project receives feedback from higher authorities leaving outside the process the opinions and views of the trainers who will actually implement the programme in the classrooms.

In the 1970’s and 80’s, this detailed design of English language teacher education programmes would consist of the number of teaching hours distributed in the four years the programme lasted together with the subjects and contents taught in each year. A typical programme to become a teacher of English as a foreign language used to be framed as follows:

1st year

2nd year

3rd year

4th year

In English:

English I

English Grammar I

Phonetics I

Laboratory I

Geography of the British Isles

In Spanish:

Philosophy

In English:

English II

English Grammar II

Phonetics II

Laboratory II

English History I

English Literature I

In Spanish:

Theory of Education

In English:

English III

Laboratory III

English Literature II

English History II

ELT Methodology

In Spanish:

Psychology

In English:

English IV

Laboratory IV

English Literature III

American Literature

Professional Practice (Practicum)

In Spanish:

Deontology and Ethics

There was no explicit concept of different types of knowledge which could be understood in terms of strands. Nonetheless, from this structure (figure 2), it is clear that the main goal of the programme was subject knowledge, that is, the proficient command of the English language in the belief that being a good model would entail being a good teacher.

Let us describe briefly the content of those subjects linked to subject-matter knowledge. A subject such as English, present in the four years of the programme, hence the Roman numbers, would focus on language improvement following the four macro-skills, reading, speaking, listening, and writing following mainstream upper-intermediate to proficiency textbooks published by Oxford University Press or Longman among others.

English Grammar I, for instance, would explain how sentence patterns work and prescribe the behaviour of word classes followed by practice of contents covered to help language improvement. English Grammar II, on the other hand, was mainly interested in syntax and morphology, especially in parsing and other types of analyses.

While Phonetics I’s focus was on description and production of sounds, Phonetics II would concentrate on intonation. These contents were further explored in Laboratory as its main goal was pronunciation and fluency throughout the programme.

Other subjects which also contributed to language development, but whose interest was content related to knowledge of culture, a vital component within subject matter knowledge, were Geography of the British Isles and History. While Geography would present a picture of physical and economic aspects of the Isles, History I would cover historical process from the first inhabitants of Britain to The War of the Roses. History II, in turn, would continue with these events and culminate with World War II. In addition, Literature would take a historical stance and devote each year to two centuries for the reading and analysis of we might call the canon. All in all it could be seen that the main concern of this programme was to educate teachers in the English language as good models for their learners. This should be understood in the context this programme took place, a country where English holds the status of a foreign language.

As for those subjects which we might associate with pedagogical knowledge, we find subjects which were taught in Spanish and English. Philosophy, Theory of Education and Psychology would offer a foundational framework in general pedagogical knowledge; whereas, ELT Methodology would focus on second language acquisition and how to teach English through the four skills, grammar, and vocabulary. Last, Professional Practice would devote half the school term to classroom management, lesson planning, classroom observation, and micro teaching, focusing on a two-month practicum on the second half of the term. What this structure informs is that only one subject in the last year of the programme offered trainees to explore observation and field practice. However, this practice was not mere practice as each class given was assessed by trainers and school-based mentors.

            As regards theory and practice as a whole, it was thought that practice was solely associated with observations and the practicum itself in the last year of the programme. Moreover, it should be added that subjects such as English, English Grammar and Phonetics had a practice component though associated with practising their contents rather than connected with how to teach English Grammar or Phonetics.

            In terms of conceptions of teaching, the programme above could be seen as a representation of science-research and theory-philosophy conceptions which resulted in a model of teaching closely linked to an applied science model of teaching.

More to come in my next post...

Darío