What makes a good English teacher:

Language proficiency or teaching methodology?

Dr Ting Su HieMahanita Mahadhir

Centre for Language StudiesUniversiti Malaysia Sarawak

94300 Kota SamarahanSarawakMalaysia

shting@cls.unimas.mymmahani@cls.unimas.my+6-082-672281 (Fax)

Abstract

A well-planned language teacher education programmes usually include courses on language pedagogy, knowledge of the language system and proficiency in English. However, do teacher trainees believe that such knowledgeand skills are necessary for them to be good English teachers? If they do not, they may not be willing to internalise what is taught. This study aims to find out (1) the pre-service and in-service teacher trainees’ perspective on the importance of language proficiency and TESL training in making them good English teachers, and (2) whether there is a relationship between mastery of language and methodology. Correlation of these two factors for 283 teacher trainees was found to be moderate. Interviews (n = 41) revealed that the pre-service and in-service teachers differ in their views, but in both cases there is the belief that both methodology and language proficiency can be acquired on the job. Implications of these findings on quality language teacher preparation programmes are discussed.

1

Background of the study

The interest in teacher quality stems from the awareness

that “teacher effectiveness accounts for the largest

variation in student achievement, more so than what the

schools do (e.g. schools might introduce smaller classes

or more reading programmes)” (Darling-Hammond cited in

Ornstein, 2003, p. 138; see also Rice, 2003), excluding

the composition of the school body (Goldhaber, 2002).

Darling-Hammond points out that “teachers who are fully

prepared and certified are more effective with students

than teachers without full preparation” (cited in

Ornstein, 2003, p. 138). In other words, teacher

preparation programmes do play a role in ensuring

teacher quality.

The requirements and emphasis of teacher preparation

programmes has varied through the years but two

essential components in teacher training are subject

matter knowledge (content) and pedagogical skills, that

is, understanding and implementing methods and basic

2

principles of teaching and learning. According to

Ornstein (2003), the trend in the United States is

towards a reduction of education courses in favour of an

increase in the academic content courses. This speaks of

the recognition that teachers cannot do a good job of

teaching if they merely know the methodology but do not

have the academic substance.

In the context of language teaching, teacher education

programmes include: (1) subject matter courses that

build up knowledge of the language system (e.g.

phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and writing

conventions); (2) general methodology courses (e.g.

learning styles, classroom management, and syllabus

design); and (3) specialised language teaching

methodology courses (e.g. a broad understanding of

language and first and second language development,

awareness of cultural and linguistic diversity,

principles in adapting grade-level materials to the

needs of students, as well as having the skills to teach

English to achieve specified language learning

3

outcomes). According to Goldhaber (2002), the view that

teachers must simply know the language to teach it is

reflective of the perspective of “language as a content

area, much like mathematics or science” (p. 5).

Goldhaber explains that teachers with this view believe

that second-language teaching is teaching about language

rather than teaching with language. Goldhaber also noted

that “second-language education has become paralysed by

its focus on effective teaching methods” and neglects

the contexts of when or where to use the strategies (p.

5).

In addition to knowledge of the language system and

language pedagogy, another factor relevant to the

discussion of what makes good language teachers is

language proficiency. In the past language teaching was

based on the structural view of language whereby the

language is taught in parts. In this view, a teacher

needs to be knowledgeable about the language but do not

necessarily have to be fluent because the focus is on

accuracy. Language is taught very much like how History

4

or Geography is taught. In place of historical and

geographical facts and concepts, language facts are

transmitted to students via memorisation and drills.

Nowadays, the functional view of language prevails

whereby language is viewed as a system of signs to make

meanings in context. In this view, “we do not transfer

meanings through words but construct meanings in words”,

contrary to the commonly-held view that meanings pre-

exist in our minds and language is a conduit to transfer

those meanings (Cullip, 2003). When we learn a language,

we learn to use the words and grammatical structures of

the language to make meanings, taking into consideration

the context and communicative purpose. The functional

view of language underlies the Communicative Approach

which advocates that students learn the language through

using it for real-life communicative purposes. The

present trend in ESL environments is to explicitly teach

language content (i.e. grammar and vocabulary) but in

context. This is more difficult than teaching parts of

the language through pre-determined drills. It takes a

5

teacher who is proficient in the language, knowledgeable

about the language system, and trained in the current

acceptable language pedagogy to do a good job of

teaching English.

Do teacher trainees in the Teaching of English as a

Second Language (TESL) programme believe that they need

these kinds of knowledge and skills for them to be good

English teachers? If they do not, then it is likely that

they may not be willing to engage with courses in the

TESL degree programme and internalise what is taught.

The teacher education programme would merely be a

certification process.

This study was conducted to find out a) the pre-service

and in-service teacher trainees’ perspective on the

importance of language proficiency and TESL training in

making them good English teachers, and b) to find out

whether there is a relationship between mastery of

language and methodology. In this study, TESL training

includes both subject matter knowledge and pedagogy.

6

Method

The participants were teacher trainees enrolled in a

TESL degree programme in a Malaysian tertiary

institution. They comprised the pre-service teachers who

entered the programme after their Form 6 or

matriculation and the in-service teachers who previously

had been teaching in primary schools, some up to 10

years. At the time of the data collection, the teacher

trainees were in the third year of their programme and

have taken most of the pedagogy courses, and would have

developed views on the qualities that they needed to

have to make them good English teachers.

In this study, we used a mix of quantitative and

qualitative research techniques. To explore teacher

trainees’ perceptions of the importance of language

proficiency and pedagogical knowledge and skills in

relation to good English language teaching, focus group

interviews were conducted. This was chosen over

7

traditional one-to-one interviews where participants

respond to the researcher’s list of questions because we

felt that participants may not feel free to voice their

views on the discussion issue since we were their

lecturers and they might feel compelled to express views

that we wanted to hear. Although the participants were

aware that we would eventually listen to what they said,

using focus group interviews removed our immediate

presence.

Based on the given discussion prompt, the teacher

trainees asked one another questions, exchanged

anecdotes and commented on each other’s experiences and

points of view. According to Kitzinger (1995), focus

group interview technique is “particularly useful for

exploring people's knowledge and experiences and can be

used to examine not only what people think but how they

think and why they think that way.” In our study,

participants talked to one another on a given issue in

pairs. There was one group of three. Small groups were

8

used in this study to minimise the tendency for dominant

group members to silence the voice of the minority.

A total of 41 teacher trainees (16 in-service referred

to as E1 to E16 and 25 pre-service referred to as P1 to

P25) participated in the focus group interviews on the

issue, “Should teachers who are not trained in TESL but

can speak English well be assigned to teach English?”

The prompts for discussion included “Is it ok for

English teachers to have not-so-high proficiency in

English?” and “Which is more important – training or

language proficiency?” Before the audio recording, the

teacher trainees were also reminded to be frank about

their views and not to give opinions that they thought

the researcher wanted to hear. They were asked to

provide reasons for their stance on the issue. There was

no limit on the discussion time but most interviews

lasted about 15 to 20 minutes. The interview database

amounted to 19,000 words.

9

The transcripts were analysed using the constant

comparison process outlined by LeCompte and Preissle

(1993). Initially each teacher trainee’s transcript was

analysed separately from the others. Tentative themes

were developed for each individual participant via

multiple readings of the transcripts, and confirmed by

checking with the original data. Those not supported by

data were eliminated, for example, shortage of teachers

and use of temporary teachers because this dealt with

existing practices and are not related to the main

themes of whether training or proficiency is important.

The same cyclical process was then used to identify

themes across teacher trainee groups. A second coder

checked the themes to ensure trustworthiness of the

data. Negative cases were not eliminated but were

examined to see how they could provide alternative

perspectives on key issues.

The quantitative analysis in this study took the form of

correlation between the criterion-referenced MUET band

scores and the latest cumulative grade point average

10

(CGPA) for 283 teacher trainees. In effect, we wanted to

find out whether language proficiency influences the

ability to master pedagogical knowledge and skills. We

are aware that MUET may not offer the best measure of

overall language proficiency as it is biased towards

reading (135/300 points) but tertiary education relies

greatly upon academic reading and writing skills. CGPA,

on the other hand, can be argued to be not reflective of

the teacher trainees’ mastery of pedagogy as some

courses are not related to language teaching or the

language system. However, we considered all the courses

to be important in making them holistic teachers.

Results and Discussion

The interview results show that more teacher trainees

viewed TESL training as a necessary condition to be a

good English teacher (9 pre-service and 8 in-service)

than language proficiency (5 pre-service and 3 in-

service). A fair number (11 pre-service and 2 in-

service) expressed the view that both are important

11

criteria. However, two in-service teacher trainees

claimed that teacher initiative is more important. This

categorisation offers a general feel of the stance of

the teacher trainees on this issue. They are grouped

based on views that they repeatedly assert throughout

the focus group interview and views for which they

justify. Mere mention in passing is disregarded in this

categorisation. The complexity of their views is

presented next.

1. How important is it for English teachers to be

proficient in the language?

The necessity for language competency was most

frequently explained in terms of teachers being role

models of good English usage, two examples are given

below:

So, if the trained teacher is not good in English but they maybe some of them when they can’t speak fluently. If this happen, I think the students hardly can improve their, their, their level of proficiency. […] Maybe, they can memorize certain words but to comeup with their own ideas, it’s very hard for them. So, if the teacher always communicate with the students inEnglish using accurate language, the students will

12

notice, they will learn it unconsciously, the technique in using language properly. (E9)

Although they know how to teach, how to carry out all the lessons, but the problem is the student will view the teacher as the role model, so when students view the teacher they say that, “Teacher also cannot teach…teacher herself also cannot speak very good language, so how to teach? So how are we going to trust her as ateacher? (P25)

Indeed for students who do not use much English at home

or in their daily lives, the English class could be the

only place where they are in an English-speaking

environment and the English teacher could be the only

role model for the use of English. If the teacher is not

proficient in English, isn’t it like a case of macam

ketam mengajar anaknya berjalan (just like the crab teaching

the crab babies how to walk straight)?

If the English proficiency of the teacher is wanting, we

may have cases of teachers finding fault with correct

and appropriate use of the language. If there are

students in the class with better command of the

language, then the students would lose confidence in the

teacher:

13

Teachers should have certain strategies and methodologies but then again when we consider teachingEnglish as a profession, students have preconceived ideas that teachers should be professional – able to speak the language proficiently. I think if teachers don’t have the proficiency, I think students themselves would look down on this teacher. (P5)

This perspective is linked to the teacher being a role

model of the language. The teacher trainees are not

receptive towards the idea of English teachers having

problems with the language themselves.

Proficiency in English is also seen as important for an

English teacher to do a good job of teaching, for

example, giving clear explanations and detecting

students’ problems in English:

Some teachers with training but language proficiency is somehow not so good in the sense that delivery of the instructional materials is not so effective in a way. (P6)

I mean that for a language teacher who lacks proficiency – they could cover their proficiency with let’s say with audio materials and stuff. But then there is always the problem when the teacher wants to explain things. And this cannot be covered with prepared materials. Let’s say that you find that your students have problems in certain areas and you [the teacher] want to explain it – but then you cannot prepare that material beforehand. You have to describeit to the student personally – and that where your

14

proficiency comes in. In that sense, proficiency does have its role. (P3)

However, from what was said during the interviews the

teacher trainees focussed less on the effectiveness of

teaching and were more concerned that English teachers

should be role models of the language. If the English

teachers are not proficient in the language, all is not

lost as they could develop the proficiency over time:

I think but I think education or learning…language learning is something of life long learning. Even though maybe at this time, teachers may not have high level of proficiency but when the time goes by like gradually I think the teachers will develop his or herown language proficiency. (P2)

In the meantime, would they do a good job of teaching

English? Apparently not, based on what the teacher

trainees said. Would having TESL training make up for

the lack of proficiency?

2. How important is it for English teachers to have

TESL training?

15

Many of the teacher trainees acknowledged the importance

of methodology but they do not see how training could

make up for the lack of proficiency. As P23 puts it,

Here, you have teachers who with low proficiency and then they go for training…and yet when they go out, they still speak like the students and then they expect the students to be better than them.

Training can equip teachers with the theoretical

knowledge and practical skills of language teaching but

they still fail as English teachers because they do not

personify effective use of the language. But when

teachers with a good command of the language are

trained, they learn how to teach the language:

Because if you say that language proficiency is more important than training – what if a person with a highEnglish proficiency goes in to the classroom and if that person is not actually equipped with the teachingmethods – it may end up like a…just like the normal existing classrooms that we have right now. The teacher goes in and ok class open the book. And she orhe can speak perfect English, she or he can have a lotof knowledge about English but the problem is that he or she doesn’t know how to teach the students to learnEnglish. That’s the point of having training. (P12)

The pre-service trainees talked about general principles

of teaching and learning, and how having such knowledge

would help them to remedy students’ problems. It is the

16

in-service teacher trainees who stressed the importance

of pedagogical knowledge and skills specific to the

teaching of language:

I think I agree with you because for sure that to teach languages it’s very difficult not like you teachthe technical subjects or content subjects like Geography, Mathematics and Science. But this is language, we deal with language. The ability of teachers to deliver, its methods and approaches to thestudents to teach the language. Not, not to teach contents or to teach technical ideas like Mathematics and Science. (E5)

Teacher trainees with this view are aware that there are

acceptable and unacceptable practices in the teaching of

English as a Second Language. To this end, the TESL

training has succeeded in creating the awareness the

language should not be taught like a content subject.

However, some teacher trainees assert that methodology

is secondary to language proficiency:

I have different opinion about this. I look at this … concerning teachers, veteran teachers and veteran teachers, most of them were in MCE. And they were doing their MCE many, many, many years ago. I know that these teachers, they can speak English very well.Unfortunately, not all of them are teaching English inschool. So, I guess this veteran teachers, they can gofor a short training, can go for short training just to, to teach them the methodology how to teach

17

English, so that, that they can teach English properlyin school. (E14)

The teacher trainees are of the opinion that language

teaching methodology can be acquired through short

courses, tips from colleagues or through trial and error

during the course of their teaching career. The point is

brought home by E1 who said, “Teach English song or

riddles, one doesn’t need to be trained or not trained,

right?” Is it really so? Food for thought.

The importance of having both language proficiency and

TESL training in making good English teachers is aptly

put by P4:

I think for a language teacher, the most important thing is to be able to get the meaning across – that is the most basic thing – and for that proficiency andtraining is needed. If you have no proficiency, the meaning gets distorted along the process of transferring the information to students. But at the same time without the proper methodology, without proper knowledge of how to teach - then the teacher won’t be able to transfer the content effectively to the students.

P4 talked about transferring information and content,

still reflective of the traditional concept of teaching

18

knowledge about the language. It is not easy to change

the traditional mindset. One of the ways is to ensure

that language teacher education courses that emphasize

only the form-based features of a language (e.g.,

phonology, syntax) have a component that stresses the

applications of such knowledge of the language in real-

life contexts to help English teacher trainees develop a

communicative understanding (e.g., pragmatics, socio-

cultural competency) of language (Téllez & Waxman,

2006).

Having read the teacher trainees’ views of why it is

important for English teachers to be proficient and to

be trained, we now listen to some trainees who question

the necessity of both:

Ya, she knows everything, the methodology and, and then she’s well trained but she’s not really apply to the students like no initiative in helping the students. … Sometimes like err if, if the teacher is trained in English but never speak English in class, then I would think that, well, if compared with the person never trained in English but alwaysspeak English. I would think that, never take TESL,so what? But the most important thing is that she try her best to, to carry out the teaching. … TeachEnglish song or riddles, it doesn’t need to be trained or not trained, right? (E1)

19

But I think not, not, I guess some teachers even though they have the knowledge in terms of methodology and they are well versed in, in Englishbut in terms of work commitment, dedicated to theirwork. I guess some teachers… they, they knew the subjects and they know the methodologies but they are not dedicated to their work. (E6)

These teacher trainees were driving home the point that

it is pointless having the proficiency or the training

if the teachers are not concerned about their students’

learning. Some claimed that what they learnt during the

teacher training programme is not applicable in the

classroom:

E1: Ya, I do agree but there is a process, I mean maybe a hard way to, to be a fluent English teacher. I mean in terms of learning all the new skills, technology, maybe what she has learned quite different with what she has to teach now.  E2: Ya, sometimes the methodology that we learn inuniversity or any training institution is not applicable in the classroom.

Hearing these views from the in-service teacher trainees

made us wonder whether if the teacher education

programme is merely a certification process. Does

language proficiency influence how well the teacher

trainees master pedagogical knowledge?

20

3. Correlation between language proficiency and

pedagogical knowledge

Out of the total of 283 teacher trainees enrolled in

Years 1 to 4 of the TESL programme in the tertiary

institution under study, the majority had MUET Band 4

(67.49%), followed by Band 5 (23.67%). A small number

had Band 6 (7.42%) and Band 3 (1.41%). Most of the TESL

teacher trainees are academic users of English. Their

CGPA ranges from 1.86 to 3.84 (out of 4.0), with the

average of 2.79. Ten were excluded from the analysis

because their MUET band scores were not available at the

time of the study.

Pearson Correlation of MUET band score and the latest

CGPA showed that there is a significant moderate

relationship between trainees’ language proficiency and

their pedagogical knowledge and skills (r = .40, p

< .001). We had expected stronger correlations from our

experience of teaching the teacher trainees and from

21

grading their assignments and examination papers but the

correlation results did not concur with our general

observations. We are inclined to believe that the CGPA

may be measuring other variables like group effort, and

writing and presentation skills.

Conclusions

We had hoped that all the teacher trainees would express

views in support of the important roles of both

methodology and language proficiency in good language

teaching. However, only a third of them believe in the

value of both. In dire circumstances when there is a

shortage of English teachers, those who view training as

more important rationalised that lack of training can be

fixed with in-house training and short courses. Those

who equate good English teachers to being good users of

the language reasoned that proficiency could be

developed over time provided they are intrinsically

motivated. In view of these results, we question the

necessity of TESL degree programmes.

22

Considering the small proportion of teacher trainees who

believe in the importance of TESL training and language

proficiency, we postulate that student engagement with

pedagogy courses and subject matter courses is less than

desirable. Given this, what is taught may not be

internalised and these teacher trainees may graduate

with the beliefs and views they held of what effective

English language teaching before the TESL training. If

indeed the views of teacher trainees in this study are

representative of the population, then the TESL training

has not achieved an important goal to make the trainees

realise why they need to be trained and why they need to

be good in the language. You can lead a horse to water

but you can’t make it drink.

However, as providers of the language teacher

preparation programme, we offer several suggestions for

benchmarking quality practices:

1. Putting the issue of what makes good English

teachers for open discussion in TESL courses;

23

2. Ensuring better quality courses through preparation

of course portfolio and review of courses by peers

and external board of study;

3. Changing existing practices of lecturers such as

high tolerance towards poor mastery of language

teaching methodology and the language itself; and

4. Putting in place policy and administrative

practices that recognise the value of TESL training

and language proficiency.

And of course, there is an inexpensive and quick way to

raise teacher quality in English language teaching, that

is, by raising the so-called quality of those who enter

the field (see Memory, Coleman, & Watkins, 2003).

References

Cullip, P. F. (2003, July). Language and learning in Malaysia: unlearning common-sense. Paper presented at the 21st World Congress of the World Federation of Modern Languages, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2001). The right to learn. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Goldhaber, D. (March 10, 2002). The mystery of good teaching. Education Next.

24

http://www.educationnext.org/20021/50.html/ Accessed 31 March 2006.

Kitzinger, J. (1995). Qualitative research: introducing focus groups. British Medical Journal, 311, 299-302. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/311/7000/299 Accessed 2 May 2006.

LeCompte, M. D., & Preissle, J. (1993). Analysis and interpretation of qualitative data. In J. P. Goetz & M. D. LeCompte (Eds.) Ethnography and qualitative design in educational research. San Francisco, CA: Academic Press.

Memory, K., Coleman, C. L., & Watkins, S. D. (2003). Possible tradeoffs in raising basic skills cutoff scores for teacher licensure: a study with implications for participation of African Americans inteaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 54(3), 217-227.

Orstein, A. C. (2003). Pushing the envelope: critical issues in education. New Jersey: Merrill Prentice-Hall.

Rice, J. K. (2006). Teacher quality: understanding the effectiveness of teacher attributes. The Economic Policy Institute. http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=1500 Accessed 31 March 2006.

Téllez, K., & Waxman, H. C. (2006). Quality teachers forEnglish language learners. http://www.temple.edu/Lss/pdf/ReviewOfTheResearchTellezWaxman.pdf Accessed 2 May 2006.

Biodata

Dr. Ting Su Hie graduated with a Ph.D in Applied

Linguistics from the University of Queensland. Her

25

research expertise is in language choice and has

published in this field.

Mahanita Mahadhir graduated with a M.A. in TESOL from

University of Leicester, and B. Ed. (TESL) from UPM. Her

current research is on language use among the Malays in

Sarawak.

26