edgeblog 02
Ooooooooooh! A little competition is now heating up among you Neo-Griceans! Nice to see. I think we’ll leave the competition open till the next edgeblog in mid-February and then, as politicians like to say, ‘Some difficult decisions will have to be made.’
Well, this time, I promised revealing insights into that outstanding new teachers’ handbook:
Edge, J. & Garton, S. 2009. From Experience to Knowledge in ELT. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
One that springs immediately to mind is that, as I presented a spanking new copy to my colleagues here, Richard took a quick look, commented, “No entry for ‘intercultural’ in the index,” and passed it on.
He’s quite right, of course. I mean, right that there isn’t, and right that there should have been. The intercultural nature of all that we do in TESOL has been, for me, so built into the warp and the weft of a whole working life that I have rarely thought to feature it as a topic to explore in its own right. And what that means, in turn, of course, is that I have never brought to bear on the contribution of intercultural issues the level of focussed awareness that I might have. It’s been contingent, left to be mentioned when it made itself noticed in some other context. Good, then, that Richard makes intercultural study such an important part of what we do here in the Language Teacher Education Group. Have a look at his stuff while you’re here.
Other than that, what is in the book then, you might ask. Well, what Sue and I are most pleased about is the attempt, as indicated by the title, to help people move from experience to knowledge. It’s not an easy trick to turn, because this is, after all, a book, and a book to read, not a workbook, as such. Nevertheless, we hope that it might encourage the right kind of reader, whether on in-service or pre-service courses, not to be put off by the misconception that teacher education concerns lots of abstract theories that they have to learn. We want them to recognise that they have a great deal of experience to draw on, whether as language learners, or teachers, or both, and that that experience is a sound basis from which they can create knowledge, in interaction with what we are telling them, using the terminology that we are giving them.
Funny how writing that book now seems like something from history and it only came out six months ago. So much to do, so little time! Stirring in the underbrush of the future at the moment is the TESOL Convention in Boston in March. I’ll be presenting a paper on reflexivity in teacher education.
Heavens (if you’ll excuse my saying so), I’m already coming up to my 500 words (self-imposed limit), so I’ll tell you more on that next time. And then, I haven’t said a word yet about Luddism, which is very much on my mind and what I actually wanted to talk to you about. It is a very misunderstood concept and one with which I find myself developing ever more affinity. It’ll have to be an edgeblog of the future. If you have any thoughts on the topic in the meantime, or about interculturality, or experiential knowledge, or reflexivity, (Myohmy, we do cover some ground, don’t we??), do send them in.
I’ll be back in a fortnight.
Best,
Julian
Now that’s why I like following your threads (Ask Garry if that’s the right term) Interculturality hey ?? and I have just put my dictionary back to the shelf….
but for now let me take this opportunity and use your space to promote my work!
‘Well.. eerhhmm dear collegues you will find plenty of those interesting thoughts Julian is talking about eerhhmm on reflexivity and interculturality (and CD) in my eerhhmm forthcoming TESOL article!’ (how was that for an advert?)
I’ll try and come up with some more serious comments to contribute to edgeblog 2 –
I promise!
Hi Julian,
Looking forward to reading the book, and also curious to hear what you want to tell us about Luddism. Any sort of parallelism with teacher development and technology?
, though I definitely have to thank him for everything I have learned on the topic!
I do have some thoughts on the issues you suggest – in fact, all of them are very meaningful to me. I wouldn’t dare go into Interculturality with Richard being around
One other thing I’d like to say is that I have discovered Cooperative Development is a fantastic tool to make reflexivity an explicit part of my research. It has really helped me move forward and discover things about myself as an individual who does research that I don’t think I would have seen so easily otherwise. Although one might say that ‘private’ reflections such as journal writing could also enhance reflexivity, I think the Understander’s non-judgemental contributions are key, and that’s why CD is so powerful.
Look fwd to hearing other people’s thoughts on this or any of the other topics
Best,
Magdalena
I guess it is a ‘cheap trick’ to skip to the index rather consider the warp and weft of the thinking in the whole work, mea culpa etc. In my ‘defence’, I too think the cultural and intercultural aspects of language (teacher) education are warpy and weftlike
But, sometimes, perhaps, the cultural / intercultural can be taken for granted, and the ways in which we think about them may not always keep pace with the changing world(s) we live in, the changing ways in which people from different places and cultural backgrounds interact (in English) with technology, transnationalism, and cosmopolitanism etc influencing the ways in which we live, etc etc. So, the ways in which the ‘intercultural’ is understood merits, I would argue, some new attention as we as language (teacher) educators move from experience to knowledge vis-a-vis the intercultural character of our practice.
Anyway, many thanks Julian for the plug for the IC parts of this blog
R
See.. nobody talks about intercultural stuff with Richard around!!
I have a question though.. I remember reading… that, dedicated effort is required if we, as teachers, are to escape the influence of our own expectations. (Julian was talking about professional development/reflexivity/experiential learning in one of his articles/books). Now.. isn’t this pretty much the same idea behind the process of becoming interculturally sensitive (Richard’s call again) in the sense that we begin to question the authority of the ‘threads’ supporting and holding together our expectations, beliefs and so on? or have I missed something out? Answers please… I’ ll be checking the blog twice a day !!
Well, yes, Lula, I think that those two are very much the same thing. Hey, I think that ‘escaping the influence of our own expectations’ is a cracking phrase! Did I write that? I do hope so. Otherwise, I just wish I had, and congratulate you on a stunning piece of concise paraphrase.
I congratulate you anyway on the upcoming publication! Well done! As you know, seeing CD taken further is always a spectal boost for me. Can you let us have the precise reference? C’mon, girl, you must have learned something on that so-called MA you did.
And thanks, Magdalena, for another boost on Cooperative Development. We are just getting into it on the MA TESOL at the moment. The first session was really good, I thought, with a kind of quiet buzz at the end of the class and nobody wanting to leave. Still, you’re only as good as your last class, so we’ll just have to see what tomorrow brings. Sorry about the Luddite piece not being ready yet. We are a bit slow on these old handlooms, but I hope you’ll like the pattern when it gets done.
Bye for now.
Julian