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What makes a language teacher a professional?
The ESP Journal, Vol. 2, pp. 64-65, 1983 Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in the USA.
0272 2380/83/010064-02503.00/0 Copyright © 1983 The American University
What M a k e s a L a n g u a g e T e a c h e r a Professional? Ewer's report on problems and methods in EST teacher training reminds me of one of the themes of Robert Pirsig's novel Zen and theArt of Motorcycle Maintenance, which, I feel, should be required reading for everyone in the field of language teaching. This theme is an examination of the nature of intellectual maturity: only by carefully and thoroughly examining the physical, substantial parts of the machine is it possible to apprehend the formal relationships that allow it to function as well as it can. When a complete understanding of substance, form and function has been achieved, one can then forget all this intellection and get on with the business at hand. That is, what you have to do is to know what you are doing and why you are doing it so well that you don't have to think about it. The program at the University of Chile appears to be masterfully constructed to lead to such ends. It should lead students to thoughtful observations on getting away from the expensive, wasteful practices and assumptions of general English teaching, and then lead them on to professionalism. A truly professional language teacher, it seems to me, is one who practices the principles that I find underlying the program that Ewer describes. These principles are explained at length in Martin Phillips' paper "Toward a Theory of LSP Methodology" (1981). They are the principles of Reality Control, Nontriviality, Authenticity, and Tolerance of Error. The basic problem in training professional teachers is to get the trainees to the stage of intellectual development where they have enough ability and confidence to be able to concentrate their attention on their students' needs rather than on their own lack of understanding, or on a display of pride in their own knowledge. They must attain the stage where these methodological principles are implicit in all that they do in the classroom. Then they are professionals. There is a paradox here. It may be the case that, as it is in Chile, the trainees will teach a language that is foreign to them. In this case teacher training seems necessary. On the other hand, many perfectly professional LSP teachers have had no, or very little, training as language teachers. The paradox lies in the fact that teacher training is not necessary to the professional teacher. As we all know, it certainly is not sufficient, either. Two cases in point: I know the director of a large ESP program, which must make a profit as part of a commercial language school, who has a very difficult and expensive time finding trained EFL teachers who can do adequate ESP work. The teacher training that his recruits have had seems not to correlate with their professional success. I know the director of a small ESP program, which is subsidized by a foundation, who can afford to spend thousands of dollars recruiting each teacher. These teachers are typically M B As, M As in Creative Writing, PhDs in Literature, etc. They produce excellent humane teaching. The teacher training that his recruits have had seems not to correlate with their professional success. It appears evident to me that the sort of program Ewer describes could 64
Responses to "Teacher Training for EST"
65
go a long way toward resolving this paradox. All language teaching must become special-purpose language teaching if foreign-language teaching is not to remain dead-language teaching. Joe D. Palmer TESL Centre Concordia University Montreal, Quebec REFERENCES
Phillips, Martin. 1981. Toward a Theory of LSP Methodology. Languages for Specific Purposes: Program Design and Evaluation, 92-105. R. Mackay and J. D. Palmer (Eds.). Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers. Pirsig, Robert. 1974. Zen and the Art of MotorcycleMaintenance:An Enquiry into Values. New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc.
0272 2380/83/010064-02503.00/0 Copyright © 1983 The American University
What M a k e s a L a n g u a g e T e a c h e r a Professional? Ewer's report on problems and methods in EST teacher training reminds me of one of the themes of Robert Pirsig's novel Zen and theArt of Motorcycle Maintenance, which, I feel, should be required reading for everyone in the field of language teaching. This theme is an examination of the nature of intellectual maturity: only by carefully and thoroughly examining the physical, substantial parts of the machine is it possible to apprehend the formal relationships that allow it to function as well as it can. When a complete understanding of substance, form and function has been achieved, one can then forget all this intellection and get on with the business at hand. That is, what you have to do is to know what you are doing and why you are doing it so well that you don't have to think about it. The program at the University of Chile appears to be masterfully constructed to lead to such ends. It should lead students to thoughtful observations on getting away from the expensive, wasteful practices and assumptions of general English teaching, and then lead them on to professionalism. A truly professional language teacher, it seems to me, is one who practices the principles that I find underlying the program that Ewer describes. These principles are explained at length in Martin Phillips' paper "Toward a Theory of LSP Methodology" (1981). They are the principles of Reality Control, Nontriviality, Authenticity, and Tolerance of Error. The basic problem in training professional teachers is to get the trainees to the stage of intellectual development where they have enough ability and confidence to be able to concentrate their attention on their students' needs rather than on their own lack of understanding, or on a display of pride in their own knowledge. They must attain the stage where these methodological principles are implicit in all that they do in the classroom. Then they are professionals. There is a paradox here. It may be the case that, as it is in Chile, the trainees will teach a language that is foreign to them. In this case teacher training seems necessary. On the other hand, many perfectly professional LSP teachers have had no, or very little, training as language teachers. The paradox lies in the fact that teacher training is not necessary to the professional teacher. As we all know, it certainly is not sufficient, either. Two cases in point: I know the director of a large ESP program, which must make a profit as part of a commercial language school, who has a very difficult and expensive time finding trained EFL teachers who can do adequate ESP work. The teacher training that his recruits have had seems not to correlate with their professional success. I know the director of a small ESP program, which is subsidized by a foundation, who can afford to spend thousands of dollars recruiting each teacher. These teachers are typically M B As, M As in Creative Writing, PhDs in Literature, etc. They produce excellent humane teaching. The teacher training that his recruits have had seems not to correlate with their professional success. It appears evident to me that the sort of program Ewer describes could 64
Responses to "Teacher Training for EST"
65
go a long way toward resolving this paradox. All language teaching must become special-purpose language teaching if foreign-language teaching is not to remain dead-language teaching. Joe D. Palmer TESL Centre Concordia University Montreal, Quebec REFERENCES
Phillips, Martin. 1981. Toward a Theory of LSP Methodology. Languages for Specific Purposes: Program Design and Evaluation, 92-105. R. Mackay and J. D. Palmer (Eds.). Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House Publishers. Pirsig, Robert. 1974. Zen and the Art of MotorcycleMaintenance:An Enquiry into Values. New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc.