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
[email protected]@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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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(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
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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
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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:
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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
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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?
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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
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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
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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
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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)
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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?
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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
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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.
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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;
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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
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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.
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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
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