English in Inclusive Multilingual Preschools. Kirsten Birsak de Jersey
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they are therefore considered to be professionals who cooperatively work with the teacher educator and develop their additional competences to teach English in the process. What they do is based on the experiences and knowledge that they have accumulated over the years (e.g., the rapport they have established with their children and the routines they have developed in their classroom management). It is therefore assumed that they will not lapse into the role of novice teachers who are largely dependent on the teacher educator. The teacher educator (→ # 4) supports the teachers to develop their English teaching competences and to implement the project in their preschool. S/he guides the teachers by taking on the role of a counsellor to build up a rapport that is best described as ‘collegial’, in order to avoid a hierarchical teacher-student relationship, which would be inappropriate given preschool teachers’ experiences. They will be encouraged to actively participate in teaching English to their groups. In the process of implementing the model the teacher educator has various responsibilities: s/he gives participatory demonstration lessons once a week to teach both the teachers and the children in their respective groups (→ chapter 5.7.1); s/he supports the preschool teachers in their independent practical work (→ chapter 5.7.3); s/he makes provision for teachers to develop their communicative English language competence (→ chapter 5.7.4); s/he familiarizes the teachers with and encourage them to engage in reflective approaches for professional development (→ chapter 5.7.5) and s/he integrates relevant theory which is related to teaching English to young learners (→ chapters 5.7.5.4).
Stage 2 of the model covers the reflective practice process during which the teachers reflect on their various practical experiences and develop experiential knowledge relating their experiences to their theoretical knowledge to make informed decisions about their teaching.
The core of the practice element of the reflective practice cycle of stage 2 is teaching the children cooperatively through participatory demonstration lessons followed by teachers’ independent practical work (→ # 5). These components are a fundamental support system for the teachers to develop their English teaching competences because they provide opportunities to gain experiences that may prompt reflective practice. The teacher educator and the preschool teachers share the responsibility of teaching the children cooperatively (→ chapter 5.7.2). The preschool teachers join in and teach in the lessons given by the teacher educator (participatory demonstration lessons → chapter 5.7.1) and continue teaching the children independently during the week (independent practical work → chapter 5.7.3). Through this cooperative work, the teacher educator enables participating teachers’ development to be centred on their practice and s/he provides opportunities for the teachers to observe the learning process and progress of their children, which they can subsequently build upon. This is expected to be much more credible and effective than if teachers would accumulate knowledge that they have obtained independently of their workplace, which they would need to try and transfer to their situation without any immediate support. It is expected that through this procedure a dynamic teaching / learning situation is created that gives momentum in the teaching / learning processes and keeps the education centred on practice. From the aspect of accommodating contextual factors, the teacher educator’s role of teaching the children her/himself and continuously assisting the preschool teachers in the process provides a powerful support structure in trying to introduce English into the preschool routine.
The reflection part of stage 2 covers the components that have been included to encourage preschool teachers’ engagement in reflective approaches for professional development (→ # 6). They include materials development and journal writing (→ chapter 5.7.5.1 & 5.7.5.2). The process is also stimulated through interviews that explicitly relate to participating teachers’ perspectives on the research questions. It is important that teachers reflect on their experiential knowledge and relate it to relevant theory that Wallace terms received knowledge to describe an established source of knowledge that has been published and / or is research-based. In my model I use the term relevant theory as it is integrated in reflecting on teachers’ development whenever it seems appropriate for teachers to understand the reasons for demonstrated or experienced practices or to develop them further. The reflective cycle that is connecting # 5 and # 6 indicates that reflection has neither a beginning nor an end. It signifies the continuous process of teachers’ professional development which the education hopes to achieve (→ # 7).
The next chapter will describe the three central features of the teacher education model in detail.
5.4 The central features of the preschool English teacher education model
5.4.1 Teacher education organised as in situ
A central feature of action research is that teachers’ development processes are organised in situ. This means that the entire project is situated within the sample preschool in which all the participating teachers work. This feature is based on an understanding of teacher development that has been suggested by a sociocultural theoretical perspective: researchers who subscribe to this view argue that
human cognition is understood as originating in and fundamentally shaped by engagement in social activities. … Cognition cannot be removed from activity since it originates in and is framed by the very nature of that activity. … It takes prolonged and sustained participation in social activities that have a clear purpose … within specific social contexts. (Johnson & Golombek, p. 2011, p. 3)
Meanwhile a large body of research literature reports on the effectiveness of organising teacher education as participation in situ. Through this approach, teachers are supported to develop “the essential procedural knowledge to confront the realities of the classroom”. It also helps to avoid the “separation of subject matter knowledge (what to teach) from pedagogical knowledge (how to teach)” (p. 2; italics in original) but instead simultaneously develops the two closely related dimensions of the activity of teaching in an integrated way. This central role of the context has recently been confirmed by an action research study conducted with secondary English teachers in Germany:
… Contexts [in which teachers work] shape how and why teachers do what they do. Knowledge does not just develop by accumulating information, but is shared, negotiated and co-constructed through experience in the communities of practice in which the individual participates. Therefore, teacher education needs to create opportunities for teachers to reflect on the appropriateness of their theories of learning in their local contexts. (Müller Hartmann & Schocker, 2018a, p. 107)
The preschool teachers will experience in what ways English can be taught to young learners through being exposed to examples of ‘how it can be done’. Teachers may reflect on the appropriateness of what is happening in their classrooms, rather than just being exposed to a transmission-oriented approach in which “teachers learn about language, second language acquisition, and language use … separate from the pedagogical concepts, procedures, and activities that constitute the activity of actual teaching” (Johnson & Golombek, 2011, p. 2).
By locating the teacher education in an established teaching environment, an authentic situation is used for teachers to “connect the input to their own knowledge, experience and ongoing practice” (Freeman, 2001, p. 76). Poehner notes that it is not sufficient to
merely [expose] teachers to the latest theories and initiatives without providing the conditions (e.g., time, opportunities to practice, and feedback) required for them to be linked to – and to potentially improve – actual classroom practice, which is at the very heart of professional development. (Poehner, 2011, p. 189)
A further reason to organise teacher education in situ is that it is strategically important for teachers to experience how to overcome contextual constraints that may severely obstruct the implementation process. As my survey demonstrated, teachers experience their contexts of work as challenging and demanding (→ chapter 3). It affects their motivation, their available time and energy considerably when they attempt to meet a new challenge, as is the introduction of English in their groups. Situating the teacher education in the workplace of participating preschool teachers puts no undue extra demands on the teachers. Instead,