- Email: [email protected]
Language and development: Teachers in a changing world
SYSTEM PERGAMON
System 26 (1998) 261-271
REVIEWS Scholars who would like to publish in this section of System are requested to contact the Review'Editor before submitting a paper. As a rule, all contributions should be made in English~ French and German will, however, be considered. The Review Editor may be contacted at the following address: Centre for Language and Communication Studies Trinity College Dublin 2 Ireland
PIl: s0346-251 x(98)00009-8 KENNY, B. and SAVAGE, W., Language and Development: Teachers in a Changing WorM. London and New York: Longman, 1997, 362 pp. In order to review this latest addition to the series Applied Linguistics and Language Study, I had to design a map for myself, detailing who the authors were, which projects they were writing about, where these projects were situated, which countries or agencies were funding them, which institutions were hosting them, what was the status of the author, what was the focus of each account. For this is a multifaceted book, written by people with different roles working in a wide variety of situations. It contains an introduction by the two editors, 21 papers and a conclusion by one of the editors. The 21 papers deal with the following countries: Indonesia (6 papers), Cambodia (4), Lao PDR (3), Vietnam (2), China, India, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Singapore (1 each). Many, but not all, are concerned with projects funded by other countries. The projects dealt with were located in different types of institutions (e.g. in agricultural colleges or university departments) and were for different types of people with different learning purposes, for example, for technicians preparing to work on a hydropower project (in Lao PDR), for ordinary people seeking to develop business skills (in Cambodia), for future trainee pilots (for Indonesia). Many of the papers may be likened to "short stories of teachers' professional lives in a changing world", as the editors suggest (p. 4), but others do not fit into this category; for example, Tickoo's discussion of the 0346-251X/98/$19.00 © 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
262
Book Reviews~System 26 (1998) 261-271
Bangalore project is not a short story, and Denham's "short story" is not that of a teacher, but of an administrator of an annually renewed training programme for English language teachers from Vietnam in the University of Canberra. Neither is the description "short story" appropriate for a number of papers which deal much more with the role of the players in development projects than with an individual project (e.g. Hollingworth and Spencer, Smith, Murni and Spencer, Shaw, Hall). Not all of them deal with language-related programmes (see especially Storer). The 35 writers of the papers have different statuses. Many are consultants, foreign nationals working at the interface between the programme administrators and the recipients. Counterparts, the local people most closely involved in the delivery of the programme, are authors or co-authors of several papers. Other papers have been written by administrators, bureaucrats, local or foreign "experts", or, where no foreign programme is involved, by local teachers or expatriate lecturers. This, therefore, is a book that is problematic to review. It is a book that is different in its contents and in its discourse from what one might expect in a series on Applied Linguistics. This is specifically noted in the editors' introduction, "Setting the scene". The book needs to be judged by different criteria. I shall, therefore, take each section in turn, editors' introduction, the 21 accounts and then the conclusion by one of the editors, Savage. The introduction discusses the four elements of the book's title in turn (language, development, teachers, changing world) and relates them to the papers in the rest of the volume. The discussion is stimulating and thought-provoking, and serves to set the papers in context as contributions from some of those most centrally involved in language-oriented development programmes to the debate on development aid in general. This is followed by a thumbnail sketch of each of the papers, which have been subdivided into three broad categories--coping with change, teaching and learning different worlds, responding to the players. I found the introduction valuable as a guide and kept coming back to it to situate the various papers in their context. As mentioned earlier, I had to make out a sort of map or grid for myself detailing author, country, agency, status of author, focus of paper, while preparing this review. I wonder whether the provision of such a chart in the introduction would have helped readers to make more sense of the mass of information contained in the accounts. I believe it would, although I have to admit that I found the actual process of preparing my own chart much more useful than if it had been given. The 21 papers which form the core of the book are disparate in kind and quality. This is to be expected in any collection of papers. Some were purely descriptive, others were reflective, others were theoretical discussions. Whatever the type, the quality is uneven. Depending on how one approaches the book, this may turn out to be off-putting. I began by taking three articles at random. I noted my reaction at the time; it was as follows: "Much more editorial direction and focus needed; very few issues raised or discussed in these three articles. The authors need to get a broad view, to see the issues. This book may be helpful to these writers in getting them to express
Book Reviews~System 26 (1998) 261 271
263
themselves in a public forum, but of no real value to readers in understanding the issues. It is not fair to some of the writers." What arrogance on my part! Fortunately, in a further brief comment I ask myself the question "Do I lack intercultural awareness, seeing everything through 'western' eyes?" Later still, as my understanding developed and I reflected on my earlier reaction "Maybe what I was expecting was quite different--an academic structure to the paper, a clear predictable framework. This was not the purpose of this set of papers." I asked myself if these papers did have a common structure. As I read further I found a pattern and began to realize what it was about many of the papers that was so stimulating and exciting. They were case studies, applications of general principles (sometimes given in "potted" versions) to this particular context in which the authors are working, providing interesting, and to me often unexpected, insights into various aspects of the reality on the ground. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this. Byomantara and Mace give an engagingly open account of a staff development day in a Hotel and Tourism Training Institute in Bali. The account includes flashbacks to earlier stages of the programme and an account of the planning that was being carried out so as to be able to sustain the development in the future without outside support. The fears and doubts of the participants are highlighted and serve to bring the general principles into critical focus. Murni and Spencer, again in an Indonesi "n context, deal with aspects of the consultants' status and role in development projects, in particular in relation to counterparts, using an adaptation of Wright's (1987) conceptual framework. Interesting and unexpected insights into certain aspects of the role of the consultant are given; they note, for example, that the power and rights of the consultant may be minimal in a development context and his/her position can be very ambiguous. Features of the status and role of the consultant can affect the tasks to be completed. The importance of counterparts is stressed; they are there for the long haul, and need to be empowered for this. Learner autonomy (particularly following the Talkbase model of the Asian Institute of Technology, elaborated by Hall and Kenny, 1988--see Kenny and Laszewski for a description) was the guiding principle of a number of projects. Storer's account of the application of Talkbase principles to a project in Cambodia designed to help local people develop business skills was particularly interesting. Language teaching or learning did not come into this project; learning English would have distracted from the main focus. Khmer was used as the language of instruction; most of the consultants could not speak Khmer. Therefore, some of the trainees with competence in English were selected to act as co-trainers and "to work alongside the expatriate staff on the design and delivery of the program" (p. 149). This is real autonomy. The concluding chapter of the book, written by one of the editors, Savage, draws together the different strands of the papers and places them in a theoretical context in a way that is often quite revealing. The accounts, he says, are descriptions of, not prescriptions for, practice (p. 283). He stresses the role of these writers at the interface between donor and recipient. Many of his comments about the different papers in the theoretical framework he presents allow the reader to accept the limitations of
264
Book Reviews~System 26 (1998) 261-271
the papers but also challenge him/her to go back and reexamine the papers themselves in a new light. From them, Savage derives five guiding principles: "language education in development contexts is change-oriented, experiential, proautonomy, collaborative and communicative" (p. 283). His discussion of autonomy is particularly stimulating; it is this topic which more than any other caused me to reflect anew on the different accounts I had read. Learner autonomy here goes far beyond language development. Kershaw's paper, for example, shows that learner autonomy and collaborative learning are "endemic" in the culture and traditions of Papua New Guinea. Papuans have been learning in this way since time immemorial. The notion of ownership of the programmes by local people is also stressed throughout the conclusion. Savage comments (p. 306) that none of the accounts of projects mention a crosscultural training component. In view of the vast literature on intercultural communication and the problems associated with it, this is indeed surprising. Savage suggests that the fact of working collaboratively on the job in hand allowed consultants and counterparts to develop interpersonal understanding; cultural differences seem to have been simply accepted as fact. It must surely have been the case, however, that the expatriate contributors to this volume were people who had learned over years the importance of respecting and accepting cultural differences. Not all development projects would be so lucky. My reactions to this book are probably fairly clear from the tone of this review. I have learned a lot from it. I have gathered information about a wide range of countries I have not had the privilege of visiting. I have been fascinated by the accounts of horrendous practical difficulties faced by consultants and counterparts on the ground (see especially Kenny and Laszewski's account of the starting conditions of their project). I have had to admire the examples of creativity in the face of seemingly impossible difficulties. I have, most of all, found the book challenging; it has forced me to re-examine accepted ideas about training, about autonomy, about ownership of training programmes, about collaborative learning. I have noted down from it many ideas for consideration on the language teacher training programmes I am involved in. Despite its obvious limitations, it should be recommended reading for all those involved in teacher development at whatever level.
References
Hall, D., Kenny, B., 1988. An approach to a truly communicativemethodology:the AIT pre-sessional course. Englishfor SpecificPurposes 7, 19 32. Wright, T., 1987. Roles of Teachers and Learners.Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford. Sefin Devitt Department of Education, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
System 26 (1998) 261-271
REVIEWS Scholars who would like to publish in this section of System are requested to contact the Review'Editor before submitting a paper. As a rule, all contributions should be made in English~ French and German will, however, be considered. The Review Editor may be contacted at the following address: Centre for Language and Communication Studies Trinity College Dublin 2 Ireland
PIl: s0346-251 x(98)00009-8 KENNY, B. and SAVAGE, W., Language and Development: Teachers in a Changing WorM. London and New York: Longman, 1997, 362 pp. In order to review this latest addition to the series Applied Linguistics and Language Study, I had to design a map for myself, detailing who the authors were, which projects they were writing about, where these projects were situated, which countries or agencies were funding them, which institutions were hosting them, what was the status of the author, what was the focus of each account. For this is a multifaceted book, written by people with different roles working in a wide variety of situations. It contains an introduction by the two editors, 21 papers and a conclusion by one of the editors. The 21 papers deal with the following countries: Indonesia (6 papers), Cambodia (4), Lao PDR (3), Vietnam (2), China, India, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Singapore (1 each). Many, but not all, are concerned with projects funded by other countries. The projects dealt with were located in different types of institutions (e.g. in agricultural colleges or university departments) and were for different types of people with different learning purposes, for example, for technicians preparing to work on a hydropower project (in Lao PDR), for ordinary people seeking to develop business skills (in Cambodia), for future trainee pilots (for Indonesia). Many of the papers may be likened to "short stories of teachers' professional lives in a changing world", as the editors suggest (p. 4), but others do not fit into this category; for example, Tickoo's discussion of the 0346-251X/98/$19.00 © 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
262
Book Reviews~System 26 (1998) 261-271
Bangalore project is not a short story, and Denham's "short story" is not that of a teacher, but of an administrator of an annually renewed training programme for English language teachers from Vietnam in the University of Canberra. Neither is the description "short story" appropriate for a number of papers which deal much more with the role of the players in development projects than with an individual project (e.g. Hollingworth and Spencer, Smith, Murni and Spencer, Shaw, Hall). Not all of them deal with language-related programmes (see especially Storer). The 35 writers of the papers have different statuses. Many are consultants, foreign nationals working at the interface between the programme administrators and the recipients. Counterparts, the local people most closely involved in the delivery of the programme, are authors or co-authors of several papers. Other papers have been written by administrators, bureaucrats, local or foreign "experts", or, where no foreign programme is involved, by local teachers or expatriate lecturers. This, therefore, is a book that is problematic to review. It is a book that is different in its contents and in its discourse from what one might expect in a series on Applied Linguistics. This is specifically noted in the editors' introduction, "Setting the scene". The book needs to be judged by different criteria. I shall, therefore, take each section in turn, editors' introduction, the 21 accounts and then the conclusion by one of the editors, Savage. The introduction discusses the four elements of the book's title in turn (language, development, teachers, changing world) and relates them to the papers in the rest of the volume. The discussion is stimulating and thought-provoking, and serves to set the papers in context as contributions from some of those most centrally involved in language-oriented development programmes to the debate on development aid in general. This is followed by a thumbnail sketch of each of the papers, which have been subdivided into three broad categories--coping with change, teaching and learning different worlds, responding to the players. I found the introduction valuable as a guide and kept coming back to it to situate the various papers in their context. As mentioned earlier, I had to make out a sort of map or grid for myself detailing author, country, agency, status of author, focus of paper, while preparing this review. I wonder whether the provision of such a chart in the introduction would have helped readers to make more sense of the mass of information contained in the accounts. I believe it would, although I have to admit that I found the actual process of preparing my own chart much more useful than if it had been given. The 21 papers which form the core of the book are disparate in kind and quality. This is to be expected in any collection of papers. Some were purely descriptive, others were reflective, others were theoretical discussions. Whatever the type, the quality is uneven. Depending on how one approaches the book, this may turn out to be off-putting. I began by taking three articles at random. I noted my reaction at the time; it was as follows: "Much more editorial direction and focus needed; very few issues raised or discussed in these three articles. The authors need to get a broad view, to see the issues. This book may be helpful to these writers in getting them to express
Book Reviews~System 26 (1998) 261 271
263
themselves in a public forum, but of no real value to readers in understanding the issues. It is not fair to some of the writers." What arrogance on my part! Fortunately, in a further brief comment I ask myself the question "Do I lack intercultural awareness, seeing everything through 'western' eyes?" Later still, as my understanding developed and I reflected on my earlier reaction "Maybe what I was expecting was quite different--an academic structure to the paper, a clear predictable framework. This was not the purpose of this set of papers." I asked myself if these papers did have a common structure. As I read further I found a pattern and began to realize what it was about many of the papers that was so stimulating and exciting. They were case studies, applications of general principles (sometimes given in "potted" versions) to this particular context in which the authors are working, providing interesting, and to me often unexpected, insights into various aspects of the reality on the ground. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this. Byomantara and Mace give an engagingly open account of a staff development day in a Hotel and Tourism Training Institute in Bali. The account includes flashbacks to earlier stages of the programme and an account of the planning that was being carried out so as to be able to sustain the development in the future without outside support. The fears and doubts of the participants are highlighted and serve to bring the general principles into critical focus. Murni and Spencer, again in an Indonesi "n context, deal with aspects of the consultants' status and role in development projects, in particular in relation to counterparts, using an adaptation of Wright's (1987) conceptual framework. Interesting and unexpected insights into certain aspects of the role of the consultant are given; they note, for example, that the power and rights of the consultant may be minimal in a development context and his/her position can be very ambiguous. Features of the status and role of the consultant can affect the tasks to be completed. The importance of counterparts is stressed; they are there for the long haul, and need to be empowered for this. Learner autonomy (particularly following the Talkbase model of the Asian Institute of Technology, elaborated by Hall and Kenny, 1988--see Kenny and Laszewski for a description) was the guiding principle of a number of projects. Storer's account of the application of Talkbase principles to a project in Cambodia designed to help local people develop business skills was particularly interesting. Language teaching or learning did not come into this project; learning English would have distracted from the main focus. Khmer was used as the language of instruction; most of the consultants could not speak Khmer. Therefore, some of the trainees with competence in English were selected to act as co-trainers and "to work alongside the expatriate staff on the design and delivery of the program" (p. 149). This is real autonomy. The concluding chapter of the book, written by one of the editors, Savage, draws together the different strands of the papers and places them in a theoretical context in a way that is often quite revealing. The accounts, he says, are descriptions of, not prescriptions for, practice (p. 283). He stresses the role of these writers at the interface between donor and recipient. Many of his comments about the different papers in the theoretical framework he presents allow the reader to accept the limitations of
264
Book Reviews~System 26 (1998) 261-271
the papers but also challenge him/her to go back and reexamine the papers themselves in a new light. From them, Savage derives five guiding principles: "language education in development contexts is change-oriented, experiential, proautonomy, collaborative and communicative" (p. 283). His discussion of autonomy is particularly stimulating; it is this topic which more than any other caused me to reflect anew on the different accounts I had read. Learner autonomy here goes far beyond language development. Kershaw's paper, for example, shows that learner autonomy and collaborative learning are "endemic" in the culture and traditions of Papua New Guinea. Papuans have been learning in this way since time immemorial. The notion of ownership of the programmes by local people is also stressed throughout the conclusion. Savage comments (p. 306) that none of the accounts of projects mention a crosscultural training component. In view of the vast literature on intercultural communication and the problems associated with it, this is indeed surprising. Savage suggests that the fact of working collaboratively on the job in hand allowed consultants and counterparts to develop interpersonal understanding; cultural differences seem to have been simply accepted as fact. It must surely have been the case, however, that the expatriate contributors to this volume were people who had learned over years the importance of respecting and accepting cultural differences. Not all development projects would be so lucky. My reactions to this book are probably fairly clear from the tone of this review. I have learned a lot from it. I have gathered information about a wide range of countries I have not had the privilege of visiting. I have been fascinated by the accounts of horrendous practical difficulties faced by consultants and counterparts on the ground (see especially Kenny and Laszewski's account of the starting conditions of their project). I have had to admire the examples of creativity in the face of seemingly impossible difficulties. I have, most of all, found the book challenging; it has forced me to re-examine accepted ideas about training, about autonomy, about ownership of training programmes, about collaborative learning. I have noted down from it many ideas for consideration on the language teacher training programmes I am involved in. Despite its obvious limitations, it should be recommended reading for all those involved in teacher development at whatever level.
References
Hall, D., Kenny, B., 1988. An approach to a truly communicativemethodology:the AIT pre-sessional course. Englishfor SpecificPurposes 7, 19 32. Wright, T., 1987. Roles of Teachers and Learners.Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford. Sefin Devitt Department of Education, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland