The impact of a discourse-based teacher-counselling model in training language teachers for outcomes-based education

[摘要] As outcomes-based education (OBE) is an approach to learning that fosters usable knowledgeand skills in learners, with attitudes and values that are aligned with the ideals of the SouthAfrican Constitution, it was a cause for concern when evidence presented by the Curriculum2005 Review Committee suggested that the new approach to education was not beingimplemented successfully. The Committee stated that a lack of appropriate teacher-training andin-service support was one of the primary causes. It was thus decided to attempt to address thisissue in a South African context in this research study.The study recruited teacher-trainees using semi-random sampling methods and subjected a finalsample of eleven teacher-trainees to a two-year study in which they received counselling on themost effective ways of adapting their teaching styles to an OBE mode. Baseline data wasgathered from pre-intervention recordings of their teaching styles in real classroom situations,after which these recordings were viewed and assessed by the trainees themselves, and by peerand counsellor assessment, using standardised assessment forms. Areas in which teaching stylesmight undergo improvement were identified by the clients themselves, while the counsellorshared theoretical perspectives with the trainees concerning the value of developing their ownand the learners' autonomy, establishing low-anxiety classrooms in which learners could feelfree to express themselves and could practise uninterrupted speech in a second language, thevalue of designing their own materials, the strengths of including group work in lessons andways of enhancing the effectiveness of group work. The relationship between the counsellor and her trainees was of a consistently supportive andempathic nature. Collaboration between the trainees was emphasised, as they were expected tosupport one another in becoming more effective facilitators. Any judgment on possibleimprovements had to be phrased in considerate and empathic terms, yet retaining objectivity. Itwas felt that trainees would be able to replicate the modes they had been taught in their ownclassrooms, so it was essential that their own development was modelled on critical crossfieldand specific outcomes derived from OBE terminology.After much reflection, asd a number of interventions that followed the guidelines posited byBowers (1987) in his teacher-counselling model within the research framework of an actionresearch spiral (Middiewood, Coleman and Lumby 1999), final video recording were made oftrainee-teachers in order to determine if they had indeed succeeded in effecting positive changesto their teaching styles. After each of these recordings had been analysed by the counsellor andthe trainees themselves, it was found that major improvements had indeed been effected in themajority of cases. Learners in trainee lessons had been encouraged to speak for much greaterperiods of time, showing greater initiative. Group work was included in their improved lessons.After discourse had been studied and categorised according to Van Lier's (1996) discourseanalysis model, it was found that the quality of classroom Initiation-Response-Feedback haddeveloped from lower-order to higher-order IRF along the Van Lier IRF sub-continuum (1996),indicating that teachers were dominating the structure of classroom discourse to a far lesserextent in their second lessons, opening the classroom interactions to a conversational mode inwhich the course of the lessons could be determined by learners and thus be more unpredictable.This learner-centeredness was a positive outcome in the study and was further proof thatteachers were beginning to apply themselves in an OBE mode.After a year of reflection trainees provided data in a focus interview which showed evidence thatthey were much more comfortable with OBE and were eager to use the outcomes-orientation intheir lessons, as they now understood it as a more effective way to educate learners.

[发布机构] University of the Free State