1. ELT in Difficult Circumstances: Challenges, possibilities and future directions Harry Kuchah Kuchah University of Bath/CAMELTA

2. This is a story about… My early teaching experiences… …leading into my research… …leading into our research (TA)

3. ELT in the changing world…  “…a huge amount of ELT in the world today takes place in situations that are far from the ideal world of pedagogical excitement and innovatory teaching that western ELT researchers and practitioners would like to think they inhabit.”  (Maley, 2001)

4. ‘…a class consisting of over 30 pupils (more usually 40 or even 50), congested on benches (not sitting at individual or dual desks), accommodated in an unsuitably shaped room, ill-graded, with a teacher who perhaps does not speak English very well or very fluently, working in a hot climate.’ (West 1960, p. 1) A Definition of difficulty… from history

6. ‘Contrasting Classrooms’ Tamale, Ghana Coventry, UK

9. Blame it on…  The emergence of English as a global language  The demand for quality and teacher training  The promotion of (forms of) CLT  The movement for Education for All (EFA)

10. Cameroon: Some contextual realities…  Large classes…  Multi-grade classes especially in rural areas  Lack of prescribed textbooks and other teaching/learning resources  Multiple L1 influences  ‘Francophones’ in English Medium schools.  Multiple pedagogic innovations  Multiple summative assessments  High stakes end-of-primary exams  A ‘deficit’ approach to INSET

11.  In the light of this, it seems likely that even excellent teachers placed under pressure to ‘enhance’ their teaching with ever changing pedagogical ideas and consequently battered by the endless demand by ministry officials for novelty may come under severe risk of ‘burn-out’, of becoming ‘cosmetically tired’ of the job they are doing so well’  (Allwright, 2003, p. 199)

12. Kuchah & Smith (2011) Welcome to my classroom…

13. A Son to be proud of

15. My early practical experiences of dealing with Difficult circumstances taught me these things...  Learners are partners  Learners have a variety of talents  Learners are resources and resource providers  Encourage Learners to seek answers to the following: Who am I? What do I want to achieve? How do I achieve what I want to achieve? What are the challenges involved? How do I overcome these challenges? How much support do I need?

16. Using materials students have created…  Brings authenticity to the learning experience  Provides opportunity for more learner-learner collaboration  Enhances negotiation of meaning  Motivates learners  Develops & takes into account learner agency  Provides a diagnostics for accuracy ‘therapy’

17. My chance to follow up formally what I had begun to learn in practice

18. What got me started…  Numerous and conflicting methodological recommendations imported from western contexts and imposed on teachers by ministry officials. BUT ….  Teachers face challenges of large under- resourced multi-grade and multilingual classes and employ survival teaching strategies, some of which do not respect ministry recommendations.

19. What ‘Context’, what pedagogy?

20. What I wanted to find out 1. What do teachers think are good and appropriate teaching practices within their working context, given the many difficulties? 2. How do learners see the practice of their teachers? What type of teaching do they see as ‘good’

21. Finding the right people  Recommended teachers from EM schools in Anglophone and Francophone regions  Children from the classes of these teachers  Other teachers to watch videos of classes and respond in focus group style.

22. Getting into the mix…

23. Finding the right information… Classroom observation & Videos of English lessons Workshop group discussions with 30 teachers Stimulated recall interviews with each ‘Teacher’ Stimulated recall interviews with each ‘Teacher’ Child- group interviews Pre- observation Interviews with teachers

24.  …a combination of three main factors: 1. that a particular aspect of practice is good 2. that it is do-able 3. that it is worth doing How teachers saw appropriate Methodology…

25. What I found out…

26. Who can give us 10 examples of irregular verbs?

27. Who can tell us a short story?

28.  Teachers and their learners possess shared, but also - in some respects - divergent notions of appropriate pedagogy  Some of these notions are largely different from MoE policies.  It is these notions (not what the MoE says) that have the biggest impact on their practices. What I found out…

29. Rejecting MoE Policy…  T2: What I think is that we write these [lesson plans] but when we are presenting lessons in class, we do not follow the lesson plan; we follow the introduction-presentation-evaluation model.  Harry: So why then do you write lesson plans that you will not follow?  T4: We write all of that to satisfy the head teachers and inspectors who check our lesson plans because they insist on seeing those stages.

30. ‘Unintended’ Outcome… Teacher Development & Dissemination of good practice…

31. What the teachers really thought… ‘The lesson on irregular verbs; I just told my colleague that when I go back to my school, I will teach that lesson again and analyse it the way the teacher did it; I feel that I was unjust to my children’ From Harry’s report of what children said concerning group work, I really agree with them, that is, the children. […] I think it is wrong for us to presume that the children are not able to work in groups; we have seen a good example of how well they can develop very good ideas and even good English when they work together. That class is even bigger than most of our classes so I don’t think we have any excuse for not doing group work. ‘...watching the lessons of my colleagues has made me much more aware of some of the key aspects that I don’t implement in my class [...] for example group work [...] I used to underestimate my pupils and thus keep them away from some tasks, but from here I believe my pupils will do a much more greater [sic] part of the job than before.’

32. Teacher learning…

33. CAMELTA Research…

34. What is TA Research?  ‘…research initiated and carried out collectively by a TA into priority issues in members’ working lives – classroom concerns, working conditions, and so on. Smith & Kuchah (under review)

35. CAMELTA Research Questions 1. How can you make students interact actively in English during English language lessons? 2. What strategies can be used to engage students in English lessons in a multilingual society? 3. How can teachers cope with the lack of textbooks on the part of learners? 4. How can teachers produce materials to bridge the gap created by inadequate materials? 5. What methods of teaching are appropriate in teaching a multi-grade class? 6. How can students in a large class be managed, motivated, taught and assessed effectively? Research Priorities…

36. What teachers had to do… 1. Please tell the story of a recent successful experience in your teaching - what was successful and what made it successful, do you think? 2. What are the major problems you face in your teaching situation - what is problematic and why? 3. Please describe anything you have done to address (some of) the problems in (2) above. Was this successful? Why / Why not?

37. Respondents’ comments…  I really feel proud to be part of this initiative by our association. I wish we had more time to respond to this questionnaire because it is meant to address issues with our own teaching as identified by us, rather than dealing with issues that are not part of our own experience.  It has helped me explain the difficulties I face in my work and to reflect on my responses to these difficulties. This will help me improve my teaching and thus help my students.

38. A bottom up…  Creating the right enabling environment for teachers “This is the first time in my career that I attended a workshop for two full days and was not reminded that I have to follow instructions. I did not even feel at any point that there was a national inspector in this room; everything happened as if I was talking with my friends who share the same experiences like me.” “...the facilitator, though a national inspector, brought down himself to a primary school teacher that I am; he was indeed like an inexperienced primary school teacher learning from us. This made my own learning very simple and interesting.” …enhancement approach…

39. A bottom up…  Creating the right enabling environment for teachers Incorporating students’ & teachers’ perspectives Consolidating (and enriching) convergence Negotiating divergence through (critical) reflection Focusing on the positive …enhancement approach…

41. The way forward…  Systematic procedures for sharing and reflecting on contextually appropriate/effective pedagogies  Research priorities and processes determined by or at least co-constructed with teachers  Reflective practice that takes into account student and teacher agency

42. h.k.Kuchah@bath.ac.uk