The TEFL Times

The role of teacher educators is to develop the capacity in pre-service teachers for complex teaching that will prepare them to create and teach in “learning communities [that are] humane, intellectually challenging, and pluralistic” (Darling-Hammond, 1997, p. 33). To establish and maintain such learning communities, however, requires knowledge of intellectual and social-emotional processes that are not explicitly taught in teacher preparation programs (Ashton, 1996; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Dill, 1991; Goodlad, 1990; Hill, 2000; Tom, 1997). This article explores the theoretical foundations and practical application of Teaching for Intellectual and Emotional Learning (TIEL[R]), a pedagogical model that codifies a powerful way of thinking about the intellectual and social-emotional processes that underlie teaching and learning.

TIEL draws from the theory of psychologist J. P. Guilford (1977) and the writings of educational philosopher John Dewey (1964). The TIEL framework connects the five thinking operations described in Guilford’s Structure of Intellect (SI) model and the five qualities of character described by Dewey. Guilford’s thinking operations include cognition, memory, evaluation, convergent production, and divergent production; Dewey’s qualities of character include appreciation, mastery, ethical reasoning, empathy, and reflection. Each of these components and their connections will be discussed later in the article within the theoretical foundations section.

TIEL is a tool that makes practical contributions to the knowledge base of teaching in four important ways. The TIEL model codifies fundamental thinking and social-emotional processes; facilitates communication about thinking, feeling, and learning in the classroom; provides a guideline for curriculum design and implementation that supports complex teaching and learning; and forges connections among the teacher educators, the teacher candidate, and P-12 students.

This article is organized in three sections. I begin by offering a rationale for a new pedagogy, and then discuss the theoretical foundations of the TIEL model. Finally I look at contributions to the knowledge base of teaching that includes examples of implementation of the TIEL model. The rationale contextualizes the discussion in the broad sweep of education in the last century and provides a short review of literature that supports the preparation of teachers in the areas of intellectual and social-emotional processes. The theoretical section includes an analysis of the conceptual foundations of the TIEL framework. The final section explains four ways in which TIEL contributes to the knowledge base of teaching and includes examples of how implementation of the TIEL framework affects the roles of teacher educators, teachers, and P-12 students. Rationale for a New Pedagogy

Historical Perspective

Today’s complex educational conditions require a complex pedagogy. An explicit emphasis, however, on thinking skills or social-emotional characteristics that lie at the foundation of complex teaching and learning has rarely been emphasized in American education. The system of education in the United States was designed at the turn of the 20th century to prepare poor citizens and immigrants for socialization and factory work. Notwithstanding notable pockets of progressive innovation initiated by Dewey and others in the 1930s and 1940s, education methodologies relied largely on text-based rote learning. The progressive methods of project work espoused by Dewey that incorporated independent thinking, self-management, and creativity all but disappeared during the Second World War.

After 1950, almost all trace of progressivism was erased, only to be revived in a flurry of educational reform following the launching of Sputnik. During that time, there were significant changes in the development of curriculum that included rigorous content and critical and creative thinking. Yet, these elements of complex teaching and learning disappeared once again in the back-to-basics movement of the 1970s. Thereafter, three waves of school reform swept through the late 1980s and 1990s. The first wave included new emphasis on coursework and testing mandates; the second addressed improvements in teaching and teacher education; and the third focused on the development and use of more challenging standards (Darling-Hammond, 1997).

During the third phase of the current reform movement, standards were developed at national and state levels that included an emphasis on the teaching and learning of thinking skills. Standards for assessing the effectiveness of teacher education programs developed by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) require that “[teacher] candidates understand and use a variety of teaching strategies that encourage elementary students’ development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills” (NCATE, 2000, p.8). The intention of this NCATE standard is to assure that teachers will be prepared to design curriculum and instruction that includes the teaching of thinking based on state standards for P-12 students.

The New York State Standards are an example of P-12 standards that include an emphasis on thinking. The New York State Social Studies Standards include five content categories: History of the United States and New York, World History, Geography, Economics, and Civics. Each begins, “Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of [each content area]” (New York State Education Department [NYSED], 1996). Standards in math, science, and technology are similarly explicit about the teaching of thinking. The standard for Interdisciplinary Problem Solving states, “Students will apply the knowledge and thinking skills of mathematics, science, and technology to address real-life problems and make informed decisions” (NYSED, 1996). The descriptions of each of these standards make clear the importance of teaching thinking. Yet, despite extensive reforms and the best efforts of teacher educators, large numbers of teachers are still not adequately prepared to use “empowering” (Darling-Hammond, 1997, p. 33) methodologies that facilitate thinking and result in complex learning.

The Teaching of Thinking

Effective teaching that empowers students and promotes complex learning requires that teachers deeply understand both the intellectual and emotional factors of learning (Ashton, 1996; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Folsom, 2004; Hargreaves, 1997; Hill, 2000). How does one recognize a classroom that evidences understandings of explicit intellectual processes that facilitate thinking and understanding? French and Rhoder (1992) cite explicit characteristics they expect to see in a thinking classroom: active involvement of the learner in constructing meaning; risk taking rather than conformity; pride in thinking; respect for opinions of others; and curiosity.

Sarason (1982) noted the lack of discussion about thinking and learning among teachers and students. During his visits to hundreds of classrooms, teachers reported that they had not received adequate preparation to discuss or teach thinking within the context of a given curriculum. Others concur that teachers do not have the knowledge needed to consciously and explicitly incorporate intellectual and social-emotional processes into their curriculum and instruction (Ashton, 1996; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Hill, 2000; Marzano, 1993).

While many recognize the importance of thinking, the actual teaching of thinking in the classroom has proven problematic (Goodlad, 1990; Lewis & Smith, 1993; Marzano, 1993; Tomlinson & Callahan, 1992). One difficulty is the confusion that exists about the concept of thinking and the terminology by which it is described. Higher- and lower-order thinking, critical and creative thinking, and problem solving are terms that have a variety of meanings and interpretations (Lewis & Smith, 1993; Resnick, 1987).

Ennis (as cited in Lewis & Smith, 1993), an educator who pioneered the field of critical thinking in the 1950s, emphasized judgment among multiple options in his definition of critical thinking, yet he later combined the concepts of critical thinking, problem-solving and creative thinking to form a new definition: “formulating hypotheses, considering alternative ways of viewing a problem, posing questions, considering possible solutions, and making plans for investigating” (p. 134).

Ultimately, Lewis and Smith (1993) abandoned the use of the overworked and unclear term critical thinking, preferring to use higher-order thinking. They include “problem solving, critical thinking, creative thinking, and decision making” (p. 136) in their definition. Confusing the situation further is the converse of the term higher-order thinking, namely lower-order thinking (Resnick, 1987). What requires higher-order thinking for one person may indeed be accomplished by lower-order thinking for someone else who has long since mastered the task (Marzano, 1993). Lewis and Smith (1993) quote Maier’s definition of lower-order thinking as “learned behavior or reproductive thinking” in contrast with “reasoning or productive behavior” (p. 132, emphasis in the original).

While the confusion surrounding the terminology and teaching of thinking has been referred to as a “conceptual swamp” (Cuban, as cited in Lewis & Smith, 1993, p. 131), teacher educators, despite the difficulty, need to understand thinking in order to appropriately address educational standards with their teacher candidates. Without a clear understanding of the fundamental thinking processes that underlie many of the skills specified in standards, teachers are at a disadvantage in planning curriculum and instruction that teach these skills.

Social-Emotional Aspects of Learning and Teaching

While a great deal has been written about the need to teach thinking, focused attention on the social-emotional aspect of learning and teaching is more recent. Goleman (1995) points out that “unlike IQ, with its nearly one-hundred-year history of research with hundreds of thousands of people, emotional intelligence is a new concept” (p. 34). Even though the subject of emotion was being approached scientifically by Darwin, James, and Freud in the latter part of the 19th century, 20th century cognitive scientists preferred to separate intellect from emotion described as “subjective … elusive and vague” (Damasio, 1999, pp. 38-39). Recently, however, cognitive scientists are recognizing the interconnectedness between thinking and emotion. Damasio’s research shows that “emotion is integral to the processes of reasoning and decision making” (p. 41).

Neuroscience is catching up to what educators have intuitively known about thinking and emotional connections. In the 1950s and 1960s, Taba and Elkins (1966) developed curriculum strategies to help “culturally disadvantaged” students with limited educational opportunities “to reshape their mental and emotional functioning and to establish a process for learning to learn” (p. v). In our multicultural world the term “culturally disadvantaged” is no longer used to describe students at risk of failure in an educational setting. The concept of the at-risk learner now includes a wide range of intellectual, social-emotional, socioeconomic, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity.

Yet, regardless of the circumstances that place a student at risk educationally, there is evidence that the quality of intellectual engagement is closely connected to emotional responses. In their research with underachieving gifted high school students, Kanevsky and Keighley (2003) found that the students wanted choice, challenge, and intellectual complexity in their learning, as well as teachers who cared “about their teaching and their students” (p. 25). The absence of these essential intellectual and social-emotional qualities in their educational experience resulted in academic underachievement, suspension, and dropping out of school.

Levin (as cited in Sanacore, 1994) states that students “are caught in an at-risk context” that includes not only the context from which they come, but the context of a school structure that “does not accommodate their needs” (p. 3). These needs must include, as Kessler (2000) points out, attention to students’ “inner lives” (p. xviii) involving connection, compassion, and character. Teachers need a pedagogical model that helps teachers meet both the intellectual and the social-emotional needs of their students.

Theoretical Foundations of the TIEL Model

The TIEL model helps teachers understand the intellectual and social-emotional components that underlie the complex teaching and learning proposed by Dewey, described in many of the standards followed by teacher educators and P-12 teachers, and recognized by educators and scientists interested in the connection between intellect and emotional characteristics. Derived from the work of both Guilford and Dewey, the TIEL model is depicted graphically by a color-coded wheel that includes thinking operations from Guilford’s Structure of Intellect Theory and corresponding social-emotional characteristics described by Dewey as qualities of character. The remainder of this section includes a definition of each component of the TIEL model and an explanation of the relationship between each thinking operation and the corresponding social-emotional characteristic.

Thinking Operations

The Structure of Intellect Theory developed by psychologist Guilford during the 1940s and 1950s is useful in clarifying the terminology of thinking. Guilford’s theory greatly expanded the limited view of intelligence at the time to include creativity and a broadened concept of evaluation. The Structure of Intellect is a three-part theory that includes contents, operations, and products (Guilford, 1977).

The TIEL model makes use of the operations component of Guilford’s theory which describes the various ways in which information is processed. The operations component is defined as “the alternative ways in which the organism can process any kind of informational content and develop out of it products that take any form” (Tannenbaum, 1986, p. 126). The five operations described by Guilford form the lower half of the TIEL Design Wheel: cognition, memory, evaluation, convergent production, and divergent production. The definitions of these five operations are instructive in helping teachers understand the terminology of the thinking processes they want students to develop.

Cognition is defined as “discovering, knowing, and understanding” (Guilford, 1977, p. 48). Meeker (1969) defines cognition as “immediate discovery, awareness, rediscovery, or recognition of information in various forms; comprehension or understanding” (p. 14). Memory is defined as “retention or storage” of information (p. 16). Sternberg (1984) adds to this definition by pointing out the role of memory in making connections between new and old information. Evaluation includes “comparing and judging” information (Guilford, 1977, p. 128) or “reaching decisions or making judgments concerning criterion satisfaction” (Meeker, 1969, p. 17). Convergent Production is the focused production of information. Convergent Production is a kind of productive thinking in which “only one answer is considered correct” (Guilford, 1977, p. 109) as well as logical and deductive thinking. Divergent Production, on the other hand, refers to creative thinking that involves broad production of information, producing “alternative ideas … which satisfy a somewhat general requirement” (p. 92). Divergent production generates information with an “emphasis on variety and quality of output” (Meeker, 1969, p. 20).

Qualities of Character

Similar to Guilford, Dewey also devoted a great deal of time to thinking about thinking. Throughout Dewey’s (1938, 1964, 1991) writings, he emphasizes the importance of thinking and intellectual organization. Yet, Dewey found difficulty in the fact that the “different modes of thinking blend insensibly into one another” (Dewey, 1991, p. 6). Dewey was nearing the end of his life when Guilford was developing his theory of intelligence in the early 1950s. Therefore, Dewey was unable to take advantage of Guilford’s theory that organized “modes of thinking” into more manageable categories.

Though he did not have access to Guilford’s work, Dewey nevertheless describes a variety of thinking processes that have much in common with the basic definitions found in the operations component of the Structure of Intellect Theory. Dewey mentions the intellectual process of observation (Dewey, 1964) that Guilford included in the thinking operation, Cognition. Among the factors essential to thinking, Dewey includes “store of experience and facts” (Dewey, 1991, p.30) that corresponds to Guilford’s operation, Memory. In addition, Dewey was a strong advocate of project-based learning that included the teaching of the self-management skills that Guilford included in the operation Evaluation. Believing strongly in the initiative of the learner, Dewey advocated project work that allowed students to experience the self-management skills of decision making, planning, and self-evaluation (Dewey, 1938, 1991; Folsom, 2004; Kilpatrick, 1938). Dewey (1991) also considered the ability to suspend evaluation just as essential to skillful thinking as the ability to evaluate. Other factors that Dewey considered “essential to thought” include “orderliness” and “flexibility” (p. 30), corresponding to Guilford’s last two thinking operations, Convergent Production and Divergent Production.

Dewey, however, went beyond the intellectual aspect of teaching and learning. Dewey (1964) saw education as both “an ethical and psychological problem” (p. 197), and thought there should be a degree of “symmetry among all the intrinsic factors in human experience” (Kliebard, 1995, p. 55). For Dewey it was important that the moral or ethical dimensions of learning were somehow linked to the cognitive. Dewey’s definition of the purpose of education is “the training of the powers of intelligence and will with the object to be attained … a certain quality of character” (Dewey, 1964, p. 197). Character, according to Dewey, is a “measurement of mental power” (p. 197). He describes the five qualities of character: “reflection, mastery of truth and laws, love of beauty in nature and in art, strong human sympathy, and unswerving moral rectitude” (pp. 196-197).

Bringing the Cognitive and Moral Dimensions Together

The TIEL model brings together the cognitive aspects of learning from psychology and the moral or social-emotional dimension of learning found in educational philosophy. These two disciplines which help teachers understand the underlying processes of teaching and learning are often considered incompatible (Arcilla, 2002). The TIEL Design Wheel connects components from each discipline in the following ways.

Reflection and Cognition. Dewey links the intellectual activity of observation within the operation of Cognition to Reflection, the power to “master and not be mastered by the facts” (Dewey, 1964, p. 197). He warns against the quantitative gathering of facts and information with no regard to the connection and organization of those facts. The connecting and organizing is the product of reflection, or what Dewey calls, “the formative energy of the intelligence” (p. 196). He says, “There cannot be observation in the best sense of the word without reflection, nor can reflection fail to be an effective preparation for observation” (p. 196). Borland (1989) points out, “Thinking requires an object of thought” (p. 178). The linking of cognition to reflection emphasizes the importance of content in relation to process. Process cannot be neglected for content, nor can content be neglected for process.

Empathy and Memory. Empathy, or “human sympathy” in Dewey’s (1964, p. 197) words, connects with Memory, linking new knowledge to previous experiences. Thresholds of empathy naturally vary within each person’s life. To feel compassion for another means “one must draw upon one’s own capacity … one’s own experience” (Jersild, 1955, p. 127). It is through remembering experiences of caring, either in reality, or sometimes vicariously through observing the experiences of others, that we learn to be caring individuals. As we empathize with others, the connecting cues to our own experiences are strengthened and our capacity for empathy increases (Hoffman, 1991).

Moral or Ethical Reasoning and Evaluation. Ethical Reasoning, or “moral reasoning” (Dewey, 1964, p. 197), corresponds to the operation of Evaluation. The skills of defending choices with sound criteria and setting standards by which to evaluate ourselves are the same basic skills needed in making moral decisions. Moral or ethical decisions, however, also include valuing and having consideration for others. Moral reasoning is described as “being conscious of ourselves struggling to make meanings, to make critical sense of what authoritative others are offering as … real” (Greene, 1995, p. 126).

Mastery and Convergent Production. Dewey’s term “mastery of truth and laws” (1964, p. 138) implies an external absolute. Similarly, mastery in learning usually involves an answer or skill expected by someone else other than the learner. Mastery, therefore, connects to logical thinking and the problem solving that involves a search for the one right answer (Convergent Production). It is important to understand convergent thinking in relation to other processes of thinking because of its prominence in the educational system (Berliner & Biddle, 1995; Brooks & Brooks, 1993; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Dewey, 1938; Gehrke, Knapp, & Sirotnik, 1992; Goodlad, 1984; Meeker, 1995; Resnick, 1987; Sarason, 1982; Smith & O’Day, 1990). Mastery of school skills and subjects is strongly connected to social-emotional well-being. Levine (2002) uses the term “intellectual self-esteem” (p. 206) to describe the importance of the learner having confidence in his or her intellectual abilities. When students lack a feeling of intellectual mastery or if they have intellectual strengths unsupported in school (Noddings, as cited in Kanevsky & Keighley, 2003), they can become “emotional powder kegs” (Levine, 2002, p. 267).

The linear sequential thinking that has dominated society and education since the scientific awakening of the 17th century has been the main process of thinking used in gaining mastery over academic knowledge (Bailey, 1996). While convergent production is still important in mastery of traditional school skills, today’s chaotic, information-laden society requires that students develop the ability to search for patterns, make connections, and to sift and select among a glut of disparate data (Bailey, 1996; Rushkoff, 1996). To succeed in such pattern finding, students need thinking abilities beyond those of sequential processing that remain the most influential in our culture (Bailey, 1996).

Appreciation and Divergent Production. Appreciation for beauty in arts and nature is related to creative thinking within the operation of Divergent Production. Guilford (1977) defined divergent production as “a broad search for alternatives” (p. 93). “Inventing, designing, contriving, composing, and planning” (p. 78) are all activities exhibited by persons showing creativity. Each of these activities includes a search for alternatives. Each involves seeing more in a situation than others have seen before. Developing the traits of creativity that include fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration (Guilford, 1968; Williams, 1981), increases one’s appreciation for these same characteristics found in the artist or in nature.

Even though the natural and man-made worlds display an endless variety of creative alternatives, creativity has importance beyond art and beauty. Kessler (2000) explains that “creativity replenishes the soul not only through the arts, but also in the way we meet challenges in every domain of the curriculum and of life” (p. 92). The TIEL model, through placing creativity and appreciation in a position of equal importance to other areas of intellectual and social-emotional endeavor, supports bringing creativity out of its current “exile” (Kessler, 2000, p. 92) from the priorities of the educational system.

Hence, what can be derived from the work of both Dewey and Guilford is that teaching and learning must include not only the intellectual components, but the components of moral and/or emotional dimensions as well. Dewey’s writings in philosophy and Guilford’s work in psychology complement each other in ways that clarify the processes involved in teaching for intellectual and emotional learning. Dewey’s five qualities of character integrated with Guilford’s five intellectual operations form a powerful instructional model that can help teachers better understand complex teaching and see new ways of designing learning experiences that “nurture the spirit as well as the mind” (Darling-Hammond, 1997, pp. 5-6).

The TIEL Model: Extending the Knowledge Base of Complex Teaching and Learning

The TIEL model addresses four gaps in the knowledge base of teaching. These four gaps, revealed in the literature, include codification of “knowledge underlying and relevant to teaching” (Goodlad, 1990, p.267); communication about “learning and thinking” (Sarason, 1982, p. 220); curriculum development that is “largely absent, inadequate, primitive” (Goodlad, 1990, p. 267); and the lack of connection from teacher education coursework to the P-12 classroom (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Goodlad, 1990; Hollingsworth, 1989).

This section will explore each of these four areas and provide insight into the effect of implementation of the TIEL model on the roles of teacher educators, teachers, and P-12 students. Examples will be drawn from a year-long study that followed the experiences of four New York City public elementary school teachers who implemented TIEL within the context of project work. As part of the study, the teacher educator/ researcher included a professional development component that focused on the Evaluation component of the TIEL Model that includes the self-management processes of decision making, planning and self-evaluation within the context of group project work.

This research focus was chosen for three reasons. The higher order thinking processes (Marzano, 1993) included in the Evaluation component can be clearly taught through project work. Project work requires the use of all the thinking processes included in the TIEL model that include researching (Cognition), making connections (Memory), and producing both convergently and divergently (Convergent Production and Divergent Production). The process of creating a project opens opportunities for reflection, learning empathy, acting ethically, developing appreciation for differences, and developing mastery in learning and working with others.

Using their own curriculum, teachers learned to design project-based learning experiences in which their students participated in the setting of criteria for evaluating their projects, made decisions about, planned, and evaluated their project. The researcher met weekly with each teacher for a half day to teach and observe the new strategies. A group meeting was held monthly to share strategies. Baseline data was collected at the beginning and at the end of the professional development intervention using classroom observation, teacher and student interviews, and analyses of teacher materials and student project work.

Results of the study revealed that the TIEL framework helped the teachers become aware of and understand the skills of decision making, planning, and self-evaluation within the thinking operation Evaluation. TIEL helped clarify these within the context of other thinking processes they wanted students to develop. Teachers learned to discuss thinking with their students, plan more purposefully, and increase project work in their classrooms. Student performance demonstrated the learning connections from the teacher educator/researcher to the teachers to the students in second through fifth grades. Students clearly articulated their thinking, consciously planned their work, and showed increased motivation and empowerment. A more detailed discussion of this research can be found in Folsom, 2004.

Codification

The TIEL Design Wheel codifies a holistic view of the complex adaptive system of teaching and learning. The TIEL framework helped these teachers become aware of and understand the skills of decision-making, planning, and self-evaluation within the thinking operation Evaluation and the relationship of evaluative skills to other thinking processes. In a complex adaptive system, forward progress in research and understanding is determined by understanding the hidden order or theory that lies at the foundation of the system (Holland, 1995). While complex adaptive systems rely on theory to bring order, the complex intellectual and social-emotional factors involved in complex teaching and learning have not been codified into a coherent holistic theory (Labaree, 1998).

TIEL codifies a developmental view of teaching and learning that addresses the intellectual and psychosocial aspects of learning (Seifert & Hoffnung, 2000). The TIEL Design Wheel graphically represents and makes accessible to teachers and learners alike basic intellectual and social-emotional processes that “support individual students’ development, acquisition of knowledge, and motivation” (NCATE, 2000). In this way, as Goodlad (1990) suggests, TIEL codifies “knowledge underlying and relevant to teaching” (p. 267). Understanding the intellectual components that underlie the terminology of thinking can help teachers create learning activities that promote development of a wide range of thinking processes in students. Understanding thinking processes and social emotional characteristics helps teachers plan curriculum and instruction that promotes both intellectual and character development (Tyler, 1949).

Communication

TIEL adds to the knowledge base in the area of communication. In the Folsom (2004) study, TIEL facilitated communication about thinking between the teacher educator/researcher, the four teachers and their second through fifth-grade students. Bringing together terminology of thinking from the fields of philosophy, psychology, and education, TIEL provides an accessible language that helps educators fill the gap in classroom discussions about thinking and learning. By naming thinking and social-emotional processes, the TIEL framework facilitates communication about thinking and learning. Through the use of the TIEL framework, teacher educators, teachers, and learners share a common language and a common responsibility in making the processes of teaching and learning transparent.

The experience of one of the four teachers who participated in implementing TIEL offers insight into the importance of a language that facilitates communication about thinking processes. Prior to the research study, Teacher A participated in the pilot project, a three-month version of the research, learning to teach the self-management skills of decision making, planning, and evaluation skills to her students through project work in social studies. Baseline and final data were collected, as in the later research, through classroom observations, teacher and student interviews, and analysis of teacher-designed materials and student projects.

A major difference occurred between the pilot study and the year-long research. During the pilot, TIEL was not used as an organizing structure or as a language for instruction. Instruction in curriculum design, however, requires clear communication about “knowledge underlying and relevant” (Goodlad, 1990, p. 267) to the processes of teaching and learning. Without the TIEL framework, Teacher A had no larger context in which to place the self-organization processes of decision making, planning, or self-evaluation. According to Goodlad (1990), she had “no taxonomies or hierarchies of knowledge connected to a classification of the teaching decisions in which teachers regularly engage” (p. 267). She was at a disadvantage in not having the same knowledge to guide her own learning as the teacher educator/researcher had in carrying out instruction. This limited communication caused an unequal relationship of “knowing” and restricted a more open and equitable collaboration. At the conclusion of the full research year, Teacher A compared her learning experience with that of the pilot. She reported that using the TIEL framework was important to contextualize and name the thinking processes enhancing her learning and impacting on the learning outcomes of her students.

Curriculum

TIEL adds to the knowledge base of teaching in the area of curriculum development. The four teachers who participated in the TIEL study had gaps in their knowledge about curriculum that Goodlad describes. According to Goodlad (1990), training in “curriculum development in teacher education is largely absent, inadequate, primitive, or all of these” (p. 267). This situation leaves teacher educators and teacher candidates “to their intuitive and practical interpretations” (p. 267). When knowledge of curriculum development is inadequate teachers are left to depend on “what appears to work … their own experience as students,” “well-packaged and marketed” curriculum, or teaching materials dictated by others (p. 268). Teachers, therefore, often do not have the knowledge they need to carry out effective teaching themselves or to bring about knowledgeable curricular change.

The four teachers were unprepared to teach thinking or to design project-based curriculum, both important factors in progressive teaching (Darling-Hammond, 1997; Dewey, 1938, 1964). Even when abundant opportunities for decision making were present in the classroom, teachers were unaware of how to make the transfer from unstructured daily decision making to the more formal decision making required in project work. Where opportunities for decision making in project work were present in one subject, teachers did not transfer the processes of decision making to project work in another subject (Folsom, 2004). Much of their planning consisted of loose amalgams of learning activities with moderate attention to overall instructional goals.

Integrating procedural and metacognitive knowledge into declarative knowledge or subject matter is the essence of curriculum development. Tyler (1949) stated that an objective for a learning activity should have four procedural characteristics: develop thinking, acquire information, develop social attitudes, and develop interests. Yet, without an organizing structure that clarifies what “develop thinking and social attitudes” can mean, connections between intellectual and social-emotional processes are lost and curriculum development remains “inadequate [and] primitive” (Goodlad, 1990, p. 267). TIEL can provide teachers with the tools they need to plan for complex learning that skillfully weaves procedural and metacognitive knowledge into declarative knowledge.

Using the TIEL framework facilitated several changes in how the four teachers planned curriculum. The TIEL Design Wheel helped them “intellectually organize their own work” (Dewey, 1964, p. 175; emphasis in the original) and improve their skills of “purposive planning” (p. 170). Teacher B had many opportunities for choice in his classroom and regularly planned for his students to do project work. As Dewey advocated, these projects provided a need for decision making, planning, and self-evaluation (Kliebard, 1995). Yet, prior to the TIEL research, Teacher B did not explicitly teach students how to make decisions or plan their projects. Using the TIEL framework to design project work, Teacher B greatly improved his ability to plan curriculum and quality hands-on experiences for students.

The TIEL framework also helped the teachers in the study learn to design more balanced curriculum. Following the pilot, Teacher A focused heavily on process to the neglect of important content as she planned project-based curriculum for her fifth-graders. She planned creative projects that helped her students develop an appreciation of subject matter and taught self-organization processes, yet she neglected teaching factual information important in the study of content. The TIEL Design Wheel helped her see the importance of balancing learning activities between those that include Convergent Production and Mastery of subject matter and those that emphasize Divergent Production and the development of Appreciation.

Implementing TIEL helped the four teachers change their approach to curriculum. Teacher C, who utilized more traditional methods than the other teachers, was afraid to do project work as the research study began. Realizing that opening the curriculum to allow for student choice would require her to give up certain amounts of control in the classroom, she was reluctant to teach project work. Yet, by the end of the research year, Teacher C planned for her students to create projects that ranged from simple poster board collages to dramas that involved writing scripts and designing costumes. Teacher C was impressed with the motivation of her students, commenting, “The kids can be swept up in it … I’m not always dragging them on this heavy sled” (Folsom, 2000, p. 390). Convinced of the value of student empowerment and the experience of working with TIEL, Teacher C changed her practice to consistently include project-based learning in her curriculum development repertoire.

Connections

TIEL brings to the knowledge base of teaching a powerful tool that forges connections from the theory learned in teacher preparation coursework to the practice of teaching in P-12 classrooms. TIEL addresses both the lack of transfer from teacher preparation coursework to the P-12 classroom (Ashton, 1996; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Dill, 1991; Goodlad, 1990; Hill, 2000; Hollingsworth, 1989; Tom, 1997) and the explicit discussion of thinking and learning that is missing in teacher preparation coursework (Ashton, 1996; Hill, 2000; Sarason, 1982). TIEL helps teacher educators explicitly teach the underlying intellectual and social-emotional processes relevant to curriculum and instruction that P-12 students need to develop. When teachers understand intellectual and social-emotional components, they can plan curriculum that will address development more holistically. When students understand their own thinking and emotions, they become more aware, motivated, and involved learners (Folsom, 2004).

Students from the four classrooms involved in the study used the language and visual representation of the TIEL Design Wheel to discuss the thinking processes they employed to develop their projects (Folsom, 2004). One student made the following observation that reflected the connection from the teacher educator to the teacher to the fifth-grade student. The student said, “Evaluation is a bridge between cognition and doing.” The student did not have the words content, process, or product to express the idea that evaluation contains the processes that link content to a concrete product. Instead, she used the thinking operation Cognition to name the concept of content. Since Cognition refers to gathering information and research, the student chose a term that clearly represents content or the “stuff” of learning. Evaluation includes the skills of analysis, setting criteria, decision making, planning, and assessment that are involved in the processing of content. The action of doing, or creating a product, is inherent in the thinking operations, Convergent Production and Divergent Production. Thus, the student’s statement, “Evaluation is a bridge between cognition and doing,” clearly demonstrated her understanding of the concepts underlying the connection from information to a product emerging from that information.

Implications

The TIEL model provides a technology for examining “knowledge underlying and relevant to teaching” (Goodlad, 1990, p. 267). After a comprehensive review of the theoretical literature about thinking, learning, and curriculum development, TIEL emerges as a model that serves to concretize the abstract intellectual and social-emotional components essential to complex teaching and learning. As a consequence of looking at this new pedagogy, the application of the TIEL model suggests an ambitious research agenda at both the university level for teacher preparation and the P-12 classroom level to improve student performance.

If the role of teacher educators is to develop the capacity in pre-service teachers for complex teaching, research is necessary to determine the most effective ways of learning the new skills needed. First, teacher educators must understand the intellectual and social emotional infrastructure of complex teaching and learning and become skilled in conducting the deep metacognitive discussions necessary to make these processes visible to teacher candidates. Second, they must learn how to develop syllabi that include learning experiences through which teacher candidates can experience complex learning. Third, they must learn to teach how to plan curriculum and instruction in explicit ways that address Goodlad’s concerns.

Research is now under way to assess the effect of using the TIEL model with teacher candidates within the context of teacher preparation coursework. The purpose of this research is to investigate the connection from coursework to the P-12 classroom and includes both in-service and pre-service teachers enrolled in a masters program in elementary education. The research will follow teacher candidates through coursework in which the TIEL model is implemented and will evaluate the quality of transfer to P-12 classroom.

In addition, studies on the individual components of TIEL are needed. The research with the four teachers cited in this article focused on the self-management processes of decision-making, planning, and self-evaluation found in the Evaluation component of the TIEL model. Similar studies on individual components and on the relationships between the intellectual and social emotional components across all grade levels and within a variety of content areas could develop a rich array of applications for the TIEL framework.

Finally, longitudinal studies of the TIEL framework are needed. Darling-Hammond (1997) draws a connection between access to knowledge and the ability “to manage complex forms of teaching” (p. 13). Multi-year studies of teachers who receive instruction using the TIEL framework during their teacher preparation program could help determine the effect that foundational knowledge of intellectual and emotional components has not only on their own teaching, but on their mentoring of student teachers and interns.

Conclusion

Research on the TIEL model, Teaching for Intellectual and Emotional Learning, comes at an appropriate time in educational history. Teacher educators need a theoretical framework that facilitates an understanding of the intellectual and social emotional processes that underlie complex teaching and learning. Such teaching is necessary to prepare teachers who in turn will prepare P-12 students with the thinking and social emotional skills needed for living in a highly complex society. Grounded in the work of Guilford and Dewey, TIEL provides a language to communicate with teachers about thinking and social emotional learning, offers a practical guideline for curriculum development, and is a way to forge more effective connections between teacher preparation coursework and practice. The TIEL model can assist teacher educators in preparing teachers who will create future “humane [and] intellectually challenging” classrooms (Darling-Hammond, 1997, p. 33).

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David Wray and Maureen Lewis remind us of the need to focus on the teaching of factual texts in primary classrooms. They offer one particular teaching strategy, ‘writing frames’, trialed by teachers in the EXEL (Exeter Extending Literacy) Project, as a useful strategy in assisting young writers learn to write factual texts.

Introduction

As members of a postmodern literate society we need to read and write a wide range of texts, including factual texts. However, much of the research in the United Kingdom into the development of children’s writing has concentrated on personal and fictional texts while factual literacy has been relatively neglected. Our work with teachers in the Exeter Extending Literacy (EXEL) Project (see, for example, Lewis, Wray & Rospigliosi, 1994) demonstrated that although many classroom practitioners recognised the need to widen the range and quality of children’s non-fiction writing they were unsure as to how to do this. This article sets out to describe the theoretical background to our project and some of its practical outcomes.

Genre theory: new insights, new approaches

There has been an increasing interest in encouraging students to write for a particular purpose, for a known audience and in an appropriate form. However, what constitutes an appropriate form is often presented in general lists of different text types; e.g. `notes, letters, instructions, stories and poems in order to plan, inform, explain, entertain and express attitudes or emotions’ (Department of Education and Science, 1990).

Such lists imply that teachers and students know what differentiates one text type from another. At one level this may be true – we all know that a story or narrative usually has a beginning, a series of events and an ending. We have a general sense that this differs from a recipe. And many teachers discuss these differences with their students. However, it is still relatively rare, in the UK anyway, for teachers of elementary school students to discuss non-fiction texts by drawing on knowledge of the usual structure of a particular text type in order to improve students’ writing.

It has been argued (e.g. by Martin, 1985) that our implicit knowledge of text types and their forms is quite extensive and one of the teacher’s roles is to make this implicit knowledge explicit. Theorists in this area have been referred to as `genre theorists’ and they base their work on a functional approach to language (Halliday, 1985). They see all texts, written and spoken, as being `produced in a response to, and out of, particular social situations and their specific structures’ (Kress & Knapp, 1992: p.5) and as a result put stress on the social and cultural factors that form a text as well as on its linguistic features. They view a text as a social object and the making of a text as a social process. They argue that in any society there are certain types of text–both written and spoken–of a particular form because there are similar social encounters and events which recur constantly within that society. As these `events’ are repeated over and over again certain types of text are created over and over again. These texts become recognised by the members of a society, and once recognised they become conventionalised, i.e. become distinct genres.

These distinct genres, however, need to be learned by our children. And we need to help to make explicit the purpose and features of such genres for them.

Written genres in the classroom

Several ways of categorising the written genres used in classrooms have been proposed over the years. Collerson (1988) categorises written genres into `early genres’ (labels, observational comment, recount, and narratives) and `factual genres’ (procedural, reports, explanations, and arguments or exposition), while Wing Jan’s (1991) categories are: `factual genres’ (reports, explanations, procedures, persuasive writing, interviews, surveys, descriptions, biographies, recounts and narrative information) and `fictional’ (traditional fiction and contemporary modern fiction).

In our project we took as our model the categories of non-fiction genres identified by linguists Martin and Rothery (1980, 1981, 1986). The six non-fiction genres they identified were recount, report, procedure, explanation, argument, discussion. Of these, recount was overwhelmingly the most used in student writing.

Martin and Rothery argue that being competent in the use of nonfiction written genres in our society offers the language user access to power. Persuasion, explanation, report, explanation and discussion are powerful forms of language that we use to get things done and thus have been labelled the `language of power’. It can be argued that students who leave our classrooms unable to operate successfully within these powerful genres are denied access to becoming fully functioning members of society. This suggests we can no longer accept the overwhelming dominance of recount in our students’ non-fiction writing. Our challenge as teachers is to provide students with the `language of power’.

The problems of writing non-fiction

For the inexperienced writer this overuse of `written down talk’ or written recount can indicate a lack of knowledge about the differences between speech and written language.

Bereiter and Scardamalia (1985) highlight the supportive, prompting nature of conversation where somebody speaks which prompts someone else to say something and so on. This reciprocal ;prompting or `turn taking’ is missing from the interaction between a writer and blank sheet of paper. Bereiter and Scardamalia’s research has shown that a teacher’s oral promptings during writing can extend a student’s written work, with no drop in quality. The prompts act as an `external trigger of discourse production’ (1985: p. 97). The teacher-student, and peer conferences, have become part of writing classrooms, it would seem, to support this process. Bereiter and Scardamalia further suggest that students need to `acquire a functional substitute for…an encouraging listener’.

Other problems students experience when reading and writing non-fiction text are caused by the complexity of the cohesive ties used, the use of more formal registers, and the use of technical vocabulary (Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Perera, 1984; Anderson & Armbruster, 1981).

An approach to helping students

Our challenge was to find ways of supporting students in their learning to write non-fiction. Vygotsky proposed that children first experience a particular cognitive activity in collaboration with expert practitioners. The child is firstly a spectator as the majority of the cognitive work is done by the expert (usually a parent or a teacher), then a novice as he/she starts to take over while under the close supervision of the expert. As the child grows in experience and capability of performing the task, the expert passes over greater and greater responsibility but still acts as a guide, assisting the child at problematic points. Eventually, the child assumes full responsibility for the task with the expert still present in the role of a supportive audience. This model fits what is known theoretically about teaching and learning. It is also a model which is familiar to teachers who have adopted such teaching strategies as paired reading and an apprenticeship approach.

In busy, over-populated classrooms, however, it can be difficult to use this model, constructed around an ideal of a child and an expert working together on a one-to-one basis, as a guide to practical teaching action. In particular, it seems that students are too often expected to move into the independent writing phase before they are ready. Often the pressure to do so is based on the practical problem of teachers being unable to find the time to spend with them in individual support. What is clearly needed is something to span the `joint activity’ and `independent activity’ phase.

We proposed a scaffolded phase, where we offer our students strategies to aid writing but strategies that they can use without an adult necessarily being alongside them.

One such strategy we have been exploring is that of `writing frames’. A writing frame consists of a skeleton outline to scaffold students’ non-fiction writing. The skeleton framework consists of different key words or phrases, according to the particular genre. The template of starters, connectives and sentence modifiers which constitute a writing frame gives students a structure within which they can concentrate on communicating what they want to say while scaffolding them in the use of a particular genre. And in the process of using the genre, students become increasingly familiar with it. The frame should be developed with the students drawing on how the various non-fiction genres are structured in what they read.

How writing frames can help

The work of Cairney (1990) on story frames and Cudd and Roberts (1989) on `expository paragraph frames’ first suggested to us that children’s early attempts at written structures might profitably be scaffolded. Cairney describes story frames as `a form of probed text recall’ and a `story level cloze’, whilst Cudd and Roberts claim that expository frames `provide a bridge which helps ease the transition from narrative to content area reading and writing’. Using these as a model to develop frames that would introduce students to a wider range of genres, we have evolved and developed, in collaboration with teachers, a range of writing frames for use in the classroom. These frames have been widely used with children throughout the elementary and middle school years and across the full range of abilities, including students with special needs. On the strength of this extensive trialling we are confident in saying that not only do writing frames help students become familiar with unfamiliar genres but that they also help overcome many of the other problems often associated with non-fiction writing.

There are many possible frames for each genre and we have space here for only two examples (see Lewis & Wray, 1995, and Lewis and Wray, 1996, for much more extensive discussion).

Recount genre

Using the recount frame, nine-year-old Rachel wrote about her trip to Plymouth Museum. The frame helped structure her writing and allowed her to make her own sense of what she had seen. It encouraged her to reflect upon her learning.

A trip to Plymouth Museum

Although I already knew that they buried their dead in mummy cases

I was surprised that the paint stayed on for all these years.

I have learnt some new facts. I learnt that the River Nile had a god called Hopi. He was in charge of the River Nile and he brought the floods. I also learnt that sometimes people carried a little charm so you tell a lie and you rubbed the charm’s tummy and it would be OK.

Another fact I learnt was that they put pretend scarab beetles on their hair for decoration.

However the most interesting thing I learnt was they mummified cats and sometimes mice as well.

Discussion genre

Using the discussion frame helped eleven-year-old Kerry write a thoughtful discussion about boxing. The frame encouraged her to structure the discussion to look at both sides of the argument.

Kerry’s framed discussion

There is a lot of discussion about whether boxing should be banned. The people who agree with this idea, such as Sarah, claim that if they do carry on boxing they should wear something to protect their heads. They also argue that people who do boxing could have brain damage and get seriously hurt. A further point they make is that most of the people that have died did have families.

However, there are also strong arguments against this point of view. Another group of people believe that boxing should not be banned. They say that why did they invent it if it is a dangerous sport. They say that boxing is a good sport, people enjoy it. A furthermore reason is if this a good sport, people enjoy it. A furthermore reason is if they ban boxing it will ruin people’s careers.

After looking at the different points of view and the evidence for them I think boxing should be banned.

How the frames might be used

The use of a frame should always begin with discussion and teacher modelling before moving on to joint construction (teacher and students together) and then to the student undertaking writing supported by the frame. This oral, teacher-modelling, joint-construction pattern of teaching is vital, for it not only models the generic form and teaches the words that signal connections and transitions but it also provides opportunities for developing students’ oral language and their thinking. Some students, especially those with learning difficulties, may need many oral sessions and sessions in which their teacher acts as a scribe before they are ready to attempt their own framed writing.

It would be useful for teachers to make `big’ versions of the frames for use in these teacher-modelling and joint-construction phases. These large frames can be used for shared writing. It is important that the child and the teacher understand that the frame is a supportive draft and that words may be crossed out or substituted, extra sentences may be added or surplus starters crossed out.

We are convinced that writing in a range of genres is most effective if it is located in meaningful experiences. The concept of `situated learning’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991) suggests that learning is always context-dependent. Thus, we have always used the frames within class topic or theme work rather than in isolated study skills lessons (Lewis & Wray, 1995).

We do not advocate using the frames for the direct teaching of generic structures in skills-centred lessons. The frame itself is never a purpose for writing. Our use of a writing frame has always arisen from students having a purpose for undertaking some writing and the appropriate frame was then introduced if they needed extra help.

We have found the frames helpful to students of all ages and all abilities (and, indeed, their wide applicability is one of their most positive features). Teachers have commented on the improved quality (and quantity) of writing that has resulted from using the frames with their students.

It would, of course, be unnecessary to use a frame with writers already confident and fluent in a particular genre but they can be used to introduce such writers to new genres. Teachers have noted an initial dip in the quality of the writing when comparing the framed `new genre’ writing with the fluent recount writing of an able child. What they have later discovered, however, is that, after only one or two uses of a frame, fluent language users add the genre and its language features into their repertoires and, without using a frame, produce fluent writing of high quality in that genre.

The aim with all students is for them to reach this stage of assimilating the generic structures and language features into their writing repertoires. Use of writing frames should be focussed on particular children or small group of students as, and when they need them.

Conclusion

We need to give greater attention to teaching students to write effective and well-structured non-fiction texts. The concept of genre gives a useful framework, while writing frames are a strategy that helps us help students to reach our goals.

REFERENCES

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As it is known, ESP materials are developed in order to respond to the specific needs of English learners. ESP is a branch of applied linguistics in which investigators attempt to put their fingers on the specific needs of individuals or groups of individuals in English in order to design materials related to their specific interests or specialties. And there is always a need to look at ESP within the context of language teaching in general, i.e., it should be considered as an offshoot of English language teaching. As Alan Davies (1990) argues, all language teaching can be perceived within a broader context of language for specific purposes (LSP). Therefore, the pedagogic problem is whether the general (ELT) and the particular/specific are so different that it is useful to teach them separately. Since there is a general misconception among subject teachers at non-English faculties that ESP courses should/must be taught by teachers of the subject matter, the question is how it is possible to come to a judgment on who is qualified to monitor an ESP classroom: a content (subject) specialist or a language teacher.

The ESP point of origin, according to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), can be pursued in three ways. The end of the Second World War was simultaneous with the demand of the world for technology and commerce in the consequence of which the requirement of an international lingua franca arose.

Therefore, the goal became that of teaching English, which would be useful in technology and commerce. This was the beginning of placing value to the demands of the learners. Synchronically, new ideas began to emerge in the study of English. Traditionally, the aim of linguistics had been to teach the rules of correct grammar. But now the world witnessed a shift of focus to the rules of use. The line of improvement was all around the needs of the learner or what the learner needed the language for.

Improvement in educational psychology also prepared the ground for the rise of ESP, by emphasizing the learners’ needs and their attitudes and motivations to learn. The effect of this improvement was also extended to materials as they became more course-related, such as medical texts for medical students.

Gueye (1990: 31) has developed the concept of English for development purposes (EDP). By this he means that English in developing countries is used as a medium through which people will get access to technology, science and world culture. If this is the objective of teaching English to academic students, he claims, then ESP classes should help the learners understand the significance of the roles they will have after their formal studies are finished to increase their consciousness of the issues and problems in the society. This objective is tacitly respected by teachers and students as they both participate in its formulation.

It is worth mentioning that ESP has developed at different speeds in different countries and situations due to the different needs and specifications that arise in each language-learning environment. Thus, it is not considered a monolithic universal phenomenon (Hutchinson & Waters 1987).

But the common factor in all ESP programs is that they are designed for adults who have a common vocational or educational concern for learning English and who bring content knowledge of their field of study and well-developed learning strategies.

In traditional, skilled-based ESP courses, it has generally been thought that the trainer does not require specialized academic knowledge of the learners’ major subject of study. This is because such training focused on developing language and study skills and not on the academic subject itself. The learners, it is often argued, can deal with complexities of terminology and ambiguities of subject content that may be beyond the trainer’s knowledge of the specialist subject. ESP trainers were typically told to exploit queries about subject content, so as to provide opportunities for the students to develop their fluency, produce extended spoken discourse, and effectively share their knowledge of the subject, even if this knowledge goes beyond the trainer’s command of the subject. This strategy however, involves a high degree of risk for the trainers, particularly in terms of credibility with the learners (Bell 1996: 3).

The emergence of subject content-based (as opposed to skill-based) ESP courses in the 1980s (Brinton, Snow & Wesche 1989, cited in Bell 1990: 5) raises the issue of which types of skills and knowledge are necessary for ESP trainers to deliver effective and professional courses for ESL/EFL students intending to follow college degree programs in English speaking countries. Krashen (1982: 172, 1985: 70) identified what he calls a “transition problem”, which refers to a perceived gap in the English language and study skills abilities of learners who have passed through traditional language classes, and those required for study purposes within universities. He argues that subject content-based courses can impart both subject knowledge and language competence at the same time, and points to evidence from the Canadian immersion programs at the University of Ottawa (Edwards et al. 1984; Wesche 1984 cited in Bell 1990: 6).

More recently, the work of Kasper (1995, cited in Bell 1996: 9) has greatly strengthened the evidence for the effectiveness of content-based courses. She has reported both improved language and content performance among students exposed to content-based ESP programs, higher scores on measures of reading proficiency, and higher pass rates on ESL courses. She also provides quantitative evidence that such students establish and retain a performance advantage over students exposed to non-content based ESP training.

The trend towards content-based ESP training presents a clear challenge to ESP instructors. How much longer will ESP training be done by instructors who may lack specific background knowledge of their learners’ specialist academic disciplines? How much longer will the traditional emphasis on training in language and study skills be regarded as adequate in the face of the growing body of persuasive evidence for the effectiveness of subject content-based programs? It may therefore be necessary for ESP teachers to possess a certain level of background knowledge in their students’ academic subjects in order to meet this challenge.

Teachers may have difficulty teaching both language and content but in the real world, people learn language and content simultaneously, and teachers need to be able to address both language and content within their classrooms. To learn academic English requires the use of academic English. Content teachers cannot expect students to arrive in their classrooms totally proficient in academic English; nor can English teachers leave the task of presenting academic texts and tasks to the content teacher since students cannot develop academic knowledge and skills without access to the language in which that knowledge is embedded, discussed, constructed, or evaluated. Nor can they acquire academic language skills in a context devoid of content.

The overall objective behind this short paper is to arrive at a partial judgment on who deserves to monitor an ESP classroom: a content teacher or a language teacher.

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

An important factor, which affects materials design in ESP courses, is the kind of reference that one may make to the general language ability of the students who take part in ESP classes. These students take the ESP course after they have supposedly passed the pre-university and the general English courses. The content of the pre-university and the general English textbooks in current use at different universities includes a number of reading passages followed by a set of comprehension questions and a host of structure exercises to help students’ reading ability. However, due to the extremely limited amount of time available for these English courses on the one hand, and tremendously huge language content necessary for the student to acquire on the other, it might be reasonable that work on the language items goes on even within ESP classes.

Whether the text is one of a general or specific/technical kind, the main academic objective is to enhance the students’s ability and proficiency in handling English rather than providing them with a set of technical jargons since they are already way familiar with such jargons. Widdowson (1983: 54) expounds on ESP purposes as follows:

… it is a wrong assumption to claim that ESP is more specific in
its purposes than other English courses. It is known that every
English course which students are willing to pay attention to has
some specific purpose.

He also adds that, in ESP, the purpose is to develop a “restricted competence” to cope with a specific set of tasks which are atleast partially language tasks and tasks on content as well. In GPE, the purpose is to develop a general capacity for English usage. In other words, ESP is understood as a matter of “objectives” which are narrower, more concrete, observable, and specific while GPE is realized as a matter of “aims” which are broader, more abstract, and less observable. He rightly concludes that ESP purposes will not be achieved if they are so specifically defined to limit the learners to a very specific set of responses. According to him, ESP courses should take in both aims and objectives in order to accurately obtain the established goals. In other words, materials chosen for ESP learners should include portions of the subject matter and General English to actually guarantee the learners’ success in acquiring language. And since we ultimately want the students to acquire the language through the content of their specialism, I think it is the task of language teacher to monitor and teach ESP courses.

On the other hand, the underlying syllabus, which is predominantly employed in compiling the incumbent ESP textbooks in Iran, is ostensibly synthetic even though it is now open to a lot of criticisms by many curriculum writers insofar as different components of language are taught discretely and step by step. This implies that language is to be taught as units of linguistic competence for investment and grammatical difficulty is still considered as a determining criterion in this syllabus (Wilkins 1976). If there is any justification in having a synthetic syllabus as a point of departure, then it seems reasonable to “focus on the linguistic items that students will learn or the communicative skills that they will be able to display as a result of instruction” (Nunan 1991: 18). To achieve the above, I again think that it is the role of language teacher to monitor and teach an ESP course.

MATERIALS FEATURES

If we agree upon the fact that it is the language teacher’s task to monitor or run the ESP classes, the related question is whether s/he needs to understand the subject matter of the ESP materials, the answer to which is absolutely positive. Teachers who come to ESP classes are not expected to know little or nothing about the content of the text to be taught. However, as mentioned by Hutchison and Waters (1987), we need to ask the following questions:

* Does the content of ESP materials need to be highly specialized? * What kind of knowledge is required of the ESP teacher?

As far as the first question is concerned, Hutchison and Waters (1987) claim that the research has elucidated little linguistic justification of having highly specialized materials. Actually, there is no explicit relationship between grammar and specialization of knowledge. In specialized texts, the discourse structure may be denser and more formalized, but this does not necessarily account for the difficulty level of texts. In fact, due to the presence of some internationally used technical terms, such texts may become even much easier. The only reason to have highly specialized texts is probably to keep the learners motivated. And to put it badly, if such texts are so difficult, learners will soon lose their inspiration to continue. I guess that ESP is one point on the continuum of teaching/learning English. And texts should so meticulously be selected that they facilitate the learning of English.

Harking back to the second question, which is of course more relevant to the purpose of this paper, Hutchison and Waters (1987) argue that ESP teachers do not need to learn the subject matter’s specialized knowledge. Rather, they are asked for the following requirements:

* A positive attitude towards ESP content,

* A knowledge of the fundamental principles of the content, and

* An awareness of how much they probably already know.

To put it simply, I need to say that an ESP teacher should not become a teacher of subject matter but a teacher of English through a subject matter. Of course, in a learning-centered approach, an ESP teacher needs to negotiate the texts with the learners. In this way, the reciprocal contribution of the teacher and the learners in negotiating the meaning helps the ESP teacher to take in/acquire the basic knowledge of the subject matter.

One source through which the subject may have some influence on language is vocabulary, which is of four types:

* Structural

* General

* Sub-technical

* Technical

Inman (1978) found that in an extensive corpus of scientific and technical writing, technical vocabulary accounted for only nine percent of the total range of lexis. These technical terms are likely to pose the least threat to learners as most of such words are internationally used, and on the other hand, the percentage of these technical terms is too low to affect comprehension drastically. In other words, the possible effect of technical words which scares the language teacher is not tremendously so enormous that a subject specialist takes over. Therefore, I think, in terms of language content, there is little justification for a content specific approach to ESP, and it becomes less significant when we take into account the underlying skills and strategies required to comprehend the text. Widdowson (1983: 82) states that “there is no reason why register, varieties or rhetorical types should not be characterized by reference to the communicative properties of linguistic forms in context,” which are the major priority but by the subject matter to which a subsidiary role should be assigned.

ESP TEACHERS’ CHARACTERISTICS

Provided that we come to the judgment that it is the role of the language teacher to monitor ESP classes, there are certain things that ESP teachers should do. One thing that ESP teachers can do is to try to develop their professional competence. This may involve specialism in a particular discipline or profession, or undergoing further training, or carrying out research alongside their teaching. Kennedy (1991, cited in Bell 1996: 11) even argues for teachers to carry out “action research”:

… I want to suggest that we should create conditions whereby the
teacher himself undergoes research in his classroom which can feed
back into his own teaching and so create the possibility for
self-renewal so important for teaching.

As Kennedy goes on, the teacher is usually “at the bottom of the decision-making hierarchy,” so that such action research helps to give him/her some degree of control over his/her own professional life.

Inman, who refers to the “gap between the learners’ knowledge of the special subject and the teacher’s ignorance of it, “recommends three techniques:

* Become familiar with the ESP course materials.

* Become familiar with the language of the subject.

* Allow students to put you right.

The important question to be asked if the language teacher is to monitor an ESP course is how far the ESP teacher should know of the students’ specialism. There seem to be conflicting views on this issue, and many key variables should be kept in mind. First, a lot depends on whether the students are experienced in their specialism or not. Do the students have pre-experience, post-experience, or are they studying their specialism concurrently with English? In each of these cases, we might expect the learners to have different views about the teachers’ engagement with their specialism. Second, we must consider the sponsor’s requirements: in some cases, these may include specific teaching of aspects of the specialism. Third, we should take into consideration the students’ views about the role of the teacher and the nature of English language teaching. If the students expect that the teacher should be an authority, they may find it hard to accept a teacher who is forced to admit ignorance of their specialism. If the students believe that English language teaching should consist of practice in grammar and general vocabulary, they may be disconcerted when the English teacher appears to be teaching their specialism. And finally, we must see what help is at hand to the ESP teacher. Is an appropriate ESP textbook available? Is the teacher working alone or is there an ESP team, who are able to share in the needs analysis, the syllabus design, and the materials preparation? Are there helpful specialist informants around for the ESP teacher to consult? Has the teacher enough time to learn something of the students’ specialism?

Strevens (1974, cited in Robinson 1991) recommends: “Become familiar with the language of the subject,” and refers to the “educated layman.” Is this possible; is it appropriate? He suggests that “the ESP teacher’s most acceptable and effective role, in addition to that of pure language teacher, is not as a pseudo-teacher of subject matter students have previously learned or expect to learn in their specialist studies or occupations, but as a teacher of things not learned as part of courses in these specialisms.

A number of ESP practitioners would seem to share the view that a knowledge of the technical area will be of great help to the language trainer, but it is not a pre-requisite for successful technical training. As a matter of fact, the chief value of experience and of knowledge of the students’ specialism is to give the teacher some confidence (Robinson 1991).

CONCLUSION

In sum, as far as the programs in Iran are concerned, these programs have most probably not met with success, and part of the blame may go to the subject teachers. Teachers’ insufficient knowledge of the methodology of language teaching and the ineffective pedagogic techniques lead them to act anachronistically and, consequently, encourage the students to take turns and read aloud and rely on the often-vicarious habit of translation which is not so productive.

One major problem affecting students’ reading ability is “language related information” (Schleppegrell 1991: 21) which has to be taken into account even at the advanced levels. Such discourse factors as length, connectors, embedded constructions, anaphoric and cataphoric expressions, referential pronouns, etc affect the reading ability of students, and to actively and effectively teach these materials, a skillful language teacher is needed. It seems that decisions on who to teach in ESP programs should be rescrutinised and readjusted so that students can become independent readers.

It is likely that most of these subject-teacher specialists, anxious to convert to language teachers, would have to take the training in areas of basic language teaching skills as well as relevant linguistic information which the subject teacher does not presumably possess. Therefore, within the domain of ESP, the teaching of information skills presupposes study skills, which require a motivated language teacher to establish and validate learning materials.

In the end, I hope that this short article has offered sufficient rationale to justify the position of a language teacher inside an ESP classroom.

REFERENCES

Bell, T. 1996. Do ESP Teachers Require Knowledge of their Students’ Specialist Academic Subjects? 4 June 2005. Available online

Davies, A. 1990. Principles of Language Testing. Oxford: Basic Blackwell Inc. Gaughan, D. E. 1998. Introduction to Analysis. California: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

Gueye, N. 1990. One step beyond ESP: English for development purposes (ESP). English Teaching Forum, 33/3, 31.

Hutchison, T., & Waters, A. 1987. English for Specific Purposes: A Learning-centered Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Inman, M. 1987. Lexical analysis of scientific and technical prose. In M. Todd Trimble, L. Trimble & K. Drobnic (Eds.), English For Specific Purposes: Science and Technology. Oregon: Oregon State University Press.

Krashen, S. D. 1982. Principles and Practices in Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

–. 1985. The Input Hypothesis: Issues and Implications. London: Longman.

Nunan, D. 1991. Syllabus Design. London: Oxford University Press.

Robinson, P. C. 1991. ESP Today: A Practitioner’s Guide. Great Britain: Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd.

Schleppegrell, J. M. 1991. English for specific purposes: A program design model. English Teaching Forum, 39/4,18-22.

Widdowson, H. G. 1978. Teaching English as Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

–. 1983. Learning Purpose and Language Use. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Wilkins, D. 1976. Notional Syllabuses. London: Oxford University Press.

About the author

OMID TABATABAEI, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, ISLAMIC AZAD UNIVERSITY, IRAN

Can whole language be ‘defined’ in the true sense of the word? Lorraine Wilson believes that while whole language can never be ‘defined’ in the sense suggested by the word’s Latin root (definire = to finish, finalise), certain core principles and assumptions can be made explicit. In this article she describes how a group of whole language advocates set about defining what whole language meant for them, and discusses the ten beliefs which emerged from this research.

Introduction

In a paper in the Reading Research Quarterly entitled ‘The rhetoric of whole language‘, Moorman et al. (1994: pp. 310) complain that ‘no concise definition of whole language exists’. Whilst they may see that this is a problem, I don’t. The very nature of whole language is that there can’t be one, eternal, universal concise definition of it. There can, however, be some consensus about it. Whole language has been broadly defined as ‘a set of beliefs’ (Altwerger, Edelsky & Flores, 1987), ‘a point of view’ (Watson, 1989),’a philosophy’ (Clarke, 1987; Newman & Church,1990), or ‘a view of epistemology’ (Pearson, 1989). Cambourne more recently defined it as ‘an ideology’ (Cambourne, 1997). This raises the issue of whether ‘whole language’ can actually be ‘defined’ in the original sense of the word, i.e. ‘to finish/finalise’ (L. definire = to finish). The act of developing such a definition involves the construction of a knowledge system.

Scribner, DiBello, Kindred and Zazanis (1991) have argued that knowledge systems are socially created. Lemke (1990) has argued that learning the knowledge system of a discipline or profession entails a community developing a set of shared meanings (i.e. ‘a language’) for that discipline or profession. Thus, defining something called ‘whole language’ would entail a group of whole language educators reaching a sophisticated consensus of what they mean by ‘whole language’ through the reading, writing, talking and listening they do as members of such a community. This is what I set out to try to organise.

In this article I will describe how a community of whole language educators constructed a definition of whole language that was relevant for them and their purposes. The particular community of whole language educators comprised the membership of the TAWL (Teachers Applying Whole Language) Special Interest Group of ALEA.(1) Wanting to articulate its explicit beliefs about whole language, the group posed the following two research questions.

1 What are the explicit assumptions by which this TAWL community defines itself?

2 What implicit beliefs underly these assumptions?

In 1995 the membership was invited to submit, in writing, individual core beliefs and assumptions about whole language. The invitation was deliberately open-ended to encourage respondents to be as explicit as possible. Submissions were written by classroom teachers, university researchers, literacy consultants and school administrators, and thus can be considered reasonably representative of Australian whole language advocates. The responses were then analysed by a sub-committee of the group. The following beliefs emerged from this analysis.

Belief 1

Whole language is a dynamic, continually growing and evolving framework for thinking about language, learning, and literacy

This means that: Whole language is multi-theoretical in the sense that it continually draws upon and is informed by research from many areas including psycholinguistics, sociopsycholinguistics, systemic functional linguistics, cognitive psychology, child development, genre theory, critical theory, learning theory, classroom discourse, philosophy, epistemology, praxiology and ideology.

Belief 2

Whole language is meaning centred

This means that: The core of whole language is the construction of appropriate and sensible meaning. No one in the real world deliberately engages in speaking, reading or writing nonsense. We speak to mean. We write to mean. We listen to mean. We read to mean. Whole language is based on the belief that the teaching of language must occur in contexts that are meaningful for, and make sense to, every learner.

Belief 3

Whole language values the language, culture and lives of students to empower them to take control of their lives and be critical members of their society

This means that: Whole language teaching must start with the learners. Each child’s curriculum must start with that child, with his or her language, with her or his view of the world. It cannot start with fixed language outcomes and a fixed body of knowledge prescribed in a centrally determined syllabus, which assumes children of one age are identical. Consequently, the specific details of literacy programs will differ from school to school.

For example, at Geelong Rd Primary School, in Footscray, Melbourne, over 90 per cent of the children are of Asian origin, mainly Vietnamese. At this school, a Vietnamese teacher and Vietnamese teacher’s aide use traditional Vietnamese rhymes, songs and folk tales to provide the basis of the children’s early experiences with literacy.

On the other hand, children in other Australian schools may instead listen to Dreamtime stories in their first year of school. Such stories would not have the same meaning for children at Geelong Rd, Footscray, and vice-versa. Then again, the children of Moonee Ponds West Primary School are predominantly middle-class Anglo children. Neither the Dreamtime stories of the Aboriginal culture nor the Vietnamese rhymes and songs provide a bridge between preschool literacy and school literacy for these children in the way that popular picture storybooks do.

While whole language teachers value literacy as a medium for personal growth and development they are predominantly concerned with literacy for social equity. They view language as a cultural resource, and believe that access to power and equity in our culture is contingent upon control of many forms of language. They therefore aim to create classrooms which support learners in the acquisition of the skills and knowledge necessary for understanding the links between language and status and language and power.

Belief 4

We learn language, we learn through language and we learn about language simultaneously as we use it

This means that: Whole language teachers believe students are best able learn about language as a by-product of using it to meet their social and cognitive needs. It is the opposite of believing that we first of all need to be taught language, and then after we’ve been taught it, we can be taught about it.

Belief 5

Whole language views listening, speaking, reading and writing as integrated, not separate domains

This means that: Whole language teachers treat reading, writing, speaking and listening as parallel forms of the same thing, namely, language. They further believe that each of these forms of language can both `feed off’ and `feed into’ each other and that this `feeding’ is what increases each person’s total pool of language. Thus they understand the link between reading and writing and the way that reading nourishes writing, and vice versa. Whole language teaching builds upon the relationships between listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Belief 6

Whole language recognises that an individual learner’s knowledge is socially constructed through collaboration with others

This means that: Whole language teachers value co-operative learning as children share, ask questions, hypothesise, compromise, argue, report, draw conclusions, teach and much more. Whole language teachers value the negotiated understandings that develop as children talk and work together. They also acknowledge that each child is active in constructing meanings through interactions with others, and that because of different life experiences, each learner’s perceptions will vary. They encourage children to ask questions, offer interpretations, challenge other children’s beliefs, and follow hunches. Because of all this, many whole language teachers favour multi-age classes. Finally, whole language means that competition is not highly valued.

Belief 7

Whole language acknowledges and recognises the relationship between text, context, and linguistic choice

This means that: Whole language teachers understand that context changes according to the subject matter, the purpose and the audience for the communication. As the context changes so do the linguistic choices. Language is always used for a purpose and has an audience. Purpose and audience mutually shape the text, and thus determine the genre.

Belief 8

Whole language recognises that students are active participants in their learning

This means that: Whole language teachers view language learning as a form of hypothesis testing. Children form hypotheses about how language works. They try out these hypotheses while actually using language. With further experience they test and refine them, forming rules or generalisations. These personal hypotheses are refined according to the social conventions of the language community of which the individual is a member.

Belief 9

Whole language recognises that students learn the subsystems of language as they engage in whole language use. It is only while students are using language that the teacher can observe the students’ control of subsystems, the needs they may have, and plan the appropriate strategies

This means that: Whole language teachers understand that language is a series of sub-systems (phonemic, graphic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) which all interact together to create meaning simultaneously. They recognise that students best learn the sub-systems of language (e.g. phonics, syntax, punctuation) as they engage in whole language use. Furthermore they understand that `phonics’, i.e. the meaningful and explicit teaching of sound-letter patterns, is an integral part of whole language.

It also means that whole language teachers do not `sit back and let it happen’. A whole language classroom is not a laissez-faire environment. Every time a whole language teacher plans a demonstration she is intervening. Every time a whole language teacher responds to an individual child’s writing at conference time he is intervening. Every time a whole language teacher makes explicit the invisible processes of reading, writing, spelling, thinking, she is intervening. Every time a teacher demands that students clarify their intent, every time a teacher refocuses, redirects or modifies their learning, he is intervening.

Belief 10

Whole language recognises that teachers are professionals who are life-long learners

This means that: Whole language teachers are perpetual learners. They learn by observing students closely. They learn from each other. They learn by engaging in on-going professional development. Whole language teachers are therefore able to articulate and develop their beliefs, and make informed curriculum decisions which are responsive to the needs of the students they teach.

Conclusion

In the introduction to this article I alluded to the issue of whether `whole language’ can actually be `defined’ in the original sense of the word; i.e. `to finish/finalise’. I am convinced that while I have been able to describe (define) those beliefs common to a group of Australian whole language educators at this current time, this set of beliefs will not remain static. I would expect that as we learn more about language and learning, and as society changes, this same community will also change its beliefs, and thus its definition.

REFERENCES

Altwerger, B., Edelsky, C. & Flores, B. (1987). Whole language: What’s new? The Reading Teacher, 41. pp. 144-54.

Cambourne, B. (1997 in press). Ideology and the teaching of phonics: An Australian perspective. To be published in A. Marek and C. Edelsky (eds), A Fetschrift for Kenneth Goodman. New York: Macmillan & Co.

Clarke, M. (1987). Don’t blame the system: Constraints on `whole language’ reform. Language Arts, 64. pp. 384-96.

Lemke, J. (1990). Talking Science. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Moorman, G., Blanton, W. & McLaughin, T. (1994). The rhetoric of whole language. Reading Research Quarterly, 29,4. pp. 308-29.

Newman, J. & Church, S. (1990). Myths of whole language. The Reading Teacher, 44. pp. 20-6.

Pearson, P. (1989). Reading the whole language movement. Elementary School Journal, 90. pp. 231-41.

Scribner, S., Dibello, L., Kindred, J. & Zazanis, E. (1991). Coordinating Two Knowledge Systems: A case study. New York: New York Laboratory for Cognitive Studies of Work, City University of New York.

Watson, D. (1989). Defining and describing whole language. The Elementary School Journal, 90. pp. 129-41.

In this article Jo-Anne Reid postulates the benefits of postmodern thinking in language and literacy education. She encourages literacy educators to think about what we are doing, each and every time, without relying on what we might accept (without thinking) as rules for the genre of teaching. Rather, she says, we should be engaging ourselves thoughtfully in the `generic practice’ of teaching.

Postulation

All we have got are sign systems; we have no immediate access to a reality apart from a sign system. So what licenses any one of them? A given sign system (language, way of seeing the world, form of art, social theory, and so forth) can claim universality or authenticity or naturalness, but this is always a claim made from within the system itself. Outside the system, we are in another sign system that may well have different canons of universality or authenticity. Where do we stand to claim `authority’ for ourselves and our sign systems? I The postmodern answer is `nowhere.’

(Gee, 1993: p. 281)

Pre-position

Christie’s definition of genre as `purposeful, staged, cultural activity in which human beings engage’ (1984: p. 20) was as generative for many teachers committed to `whole language’ teaching and learning as it was anathema to others. Much discussion and debate have followed. There have been books and papers written, positions held, insults honed and careers made over this time. And although it may not be politic to encourage such irreverence, the `process-genre’ industry developed in Australia during the 1980s, and exported during the 1990s, has, in my opinion, been a Jolly Good Thing for the teaching profession. It has caused us all to have a Jolly Good Think about what it is we do as teachers to encourage the development and expansion of language and literacy, and why we do it, thereby examining the ground on which we stand to claim authority for our own particular (sign) systems for literacy education.

We’ve all had to take up a position–and The Jolly Postmodern has brought into our professional mailboxes many rewritings about literacy learning we have taken for granted as `true’ for too long. In being forced to begin shoring up the sign system of whole language against a competing position, many in the ‘whole language camp’ have been forced to re-examine certainties suddenly challenged as inadequate, and uncertain, after all. The claims of feminist and critical theorists (Gilbert, 1990; Luke, 1992), that whole language has not addressed dearly enough the hard questions of social justice and equity in education, could not be ignored–and as Christie (1990), Luke (1992), Green and Morgan (1992), Gee (1993), and Kamler and Comber (1996) have argued, the need for a pedagogy for ‘critical literacy’ in our primary schools is greatly overdue.

This is not simply a result of continued calls for social justice. Rather it is an accident of history, as the world turns, inexorably, along the conveyor belt of Fordist Modernism, whirling us all, unready, into the chaos of Postmodern Fast Capitalism. Our uncertainty has come about because the world has changed! Things are different. We can’t push the reverse button. The postmodern condition is now programming itself and we have to learn to deal with this.

Position

In postmodernism, ‘after’, and ‘on the basis of’ modernist understandings of teaching literacy, where ‘the system’ dictates the rules of successful social textual behaviour, any certainties about what is right and proper to teach can no longer hold. Post Modernism though, this is not a bad thing–it is only different. And we should not feel afraid or reluctant to act. Even if we can claim no authority for our sign systems and beliefs, we can examine them in relation to an ethical imperative to ensure that our actions bring no harm to others (Gee, 1993). If we continue to do this, then we will be doing something both worthwhile and beneficial to literacy and education.

I want to argue then that an emphasis on language in literacy education is no longer sufficient, and that an emphasis on the idea of social generic practice may prove to be more useful to learners of literacy in the postmodern era. I draw on the work of Gee (1990, 1991, 1993) and that of Green (1995, 1996) whose notions of literacy go beyond the modernist process/genre binary. For Green (1996), a holistic view of literacy requires the acknowledgment of three related dimensions of literacy central to effective social practice–the operational, the cultural and the critical.

From a position strongly grounded in an historical understanding of educational practice, Green claims that an effective literacy curriculum for schools must seriously account for the critical dimensions of literacy learning. Drawing from both sides of the process/genre debate to explain the interconnection between the three dimensions of literacy, he acknowledges the ‘first-order relationship’ that exists between the operational and cultural dimensions, in accordance with Halliday’s view that learning language is learning culture, and vice-versa. The critical dimension of literacy learning is different, however, in that it is ‘a second-order phenomenon’; contextualising the manner in which learning how to operate in the culture involves such things as ‘how to best deploy its “technologies”, and being socialised into it, becoming part of it, an “insider” (Green, 1996). He compares this with what has become a key referent for the whole language movement: the conditions for literacy learning Cambourne (1989: p. 20) describes as ‘a model of acquisition learning’.

These principles or conditions are derived from observations of ‘naturalistic language learning’…They can be seen as bringing together four kinds of reaming: enactive learning, iconic reaming, verbal learning, and environmental learning–put simply, learning by doing, learning by watching, learning by using verbal language (speaking, listening, writing, reading), and learning by being immersed in a certain environment over an extended period of time. The best learning situation is one which combines all of these.

(Green, 1996: p. 6)

This view of critical literacy is very close to what I am calling, here, generic practice: the engaged production of social texts for real purposes. It is not just the provision of ‘good educational programmes for the teaching and learning of literacy’, which Christie (1990: p.3), says ‘will teach explicitly the ways in which language operates’. It goes beyond the need to teach about literacy to encourage learning through holistic social practice.

Following Gee (1990, 1991), learning literacy involves much more than just language, and the sort of ‘environmental’ learning referred to above must address more than the operation of language alone. Language is always social, and used in symbolic, textual and embodied practice. In this way, the idea of generic practice links closely with Gee’s explanation that any sign system in society can be understood as a ‘discourse’, defined as:

…a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and…of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group or ’social network’.

(Gee, 1991: p. 1)

Learning to read and write successfully in school thus involves much more than language. It involves learning how to hold a book; how to sit in a certain place on the mat, with your body in a certain position; bringing the right sort of lunch; getting the teacher’s attention; getting to know which bits of the teacher’s talk you need to listen to, and which bits are meant for someone else; staying awake; and the right sorts of colours to use for colouring with your crayons (Kamler et al., 1995). Learning a discourse can be thought as acquiring ‘an “identity kit” which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act and talk so as to take on a particular role that others will recognize’ (Gee, 1991 p. 1).

Proposition

Learning to write and speak about things that matter, in recognisable ways that will get you read and heard in social life, requires the textual crafting of your meaning to become transparent, invisible. The meaning is the message. As you read this article, it has been my intention so far to slightly jar and fracture the lines and planes of the textual form so as to make the nature of the text itself, my alliterations and allusions, the object of your attention from time to time–not ‘as well as my meaning’, for this is, of course, my meaning.

Like any genre, the journal article can be thought of as a ‘purposeful, staged, cultural activity’. The conventions can be (and are) explicitly taught to academic writers around the nation. Yet knowing the rules of the journal article genre will not necessarily get me published. What matters, more than knowing and being able to utilise the conventional way to say what I have to say, is knowing how to fashion it in a way that will be read as ‘meaningful’ by a range of different readers. This is not a new argument, of course, but it is one that is not clearly enough heard by teachers–especially when the outcomes statements to which we are oriented describe our teaching/learning goals in very conventional frameworks. We can help our students learn ‘operational and cultural literacies’ through attention to the processes and genres of textual production in classrooms, but we often fall short of providing them with access to critical literacies, which are most meaningfully produced in and through fully realised, social, textual practice. The appearance of rule-governance is always after the fact, but strategic tactical decisions need to be made as part of larger generic practices specific to particular situations of practice. In postmodern terms, I don’t need to know or understand information to use it (Green, 1995). The question is: How does textual practice parallel this generic practice? And taking us Back to Basics, here is the allied question of what happens when you are not well practiced at all; when you are ‘just practicing’–learning what it means to engage in the generic practice of producing a journal article or even recounting what you did at the Royal Show last week.

Re-position

To answer this, let us reflect for a moment on the learning of a quite specific cultural activity in which some people engage–the buying of meat. For some, this was extremely easy. We learnt ‘for free’, as Gee (1991) says, at our mother’s knee, as we were first carried, then pushed in our strollers, and then finally obliged to follow her in preschool shoes through the rounds of the shopping, looking up quietly, waiting, but knowing not to ask, for the hoped-for piece of polony or frankfurt. We learnt the smell and the sawdust. We know about butchers’ paper, the wooden chopping block, and the clink of the butcher’s knives as he (always, it was he) drew them from his belt to sharpen against the steel hanging from a hook on the wall.

Since then, we haven’t consciously noted the changes to the generic practice of meat buying. But when the smells changed, when the sawdust disappeared and the plastic fern appeared in the window, our practice also changed. We accepted the convenience of the supermarket meat-counter. We can tell a good cut of meat, and we know the difference between a good sausage and a poor one. And further, we also know (Heath, 1983; Cambourne, 1988; Gee, 1991, 1993; Luke, 1992) that some children in our schools learn to read and write in exactly the same way as they learn to buy meat. Easily, `naturally’, almost without thinking.

But this is not the way all people get meat, or all people become literate. Some people’s fathers meet at the co-op once a week and take their share from the communal purchase. Other people buy meat fresh every day. These might, or might not, be among those who choose meat from plastic-covered packets displayed on supermarket shelves. The variety of generic practices is large, though it is not infinite. Nor is it infinitely varied. If you have never had the opportunity to watch someone else select a veal rump before the butcher slices it, you may not have the power/knowledge to ask him to cut it, just so. Instead you pick up a package of schnitzel pre-cut, from the display cabinet. The point is, there is not just one way to achieve your ends. If you want meat, you will strategically adapt and accommodate your actions to the generic practice of getting it–in practice, as you go. And to do this, you will draw on the range of practices available to you to achieve this end, even if they are not exactly ‘kosher’. To learn to buy meat involves much more than just the purposeful stages of selecting-asking-paying. It may also involve talking to strangers, deferring to powerful men, writing lists, reading magazines, cookbooks and novels, watching television, going to restaurants, imagining tastes, estimating weights, and the multiplication, addition and subtraction of numbers.

It is the same with writing. There is always more involved in the production of a text than can be ordered or governed. We learn generic literacies in practice. We will only learn to write good letters by wanting/needing to write them: but learning to write letters may also involve telling anecdotes, talking on the telephone, reading books, watching television and movies, copying accurately, and reading letters ourselves. We learn to make arguments by wanting things, feeling unfairly treated, observing the way others convince us, move or influence us (or fail to do these).

We get better at doing these things by practicing them, until we too can make an argument, write a narrative or construct a dialogue, without thinking about it unless something unexpected occurs. We learn to tell stories by stretching our imagination, rearranging ideas from our lives, our reading and viewing of television and movies, from the Internet and computer games. In this way, the literacies we value in schools can be understood as generic. They are, in practice, ‘general, not specific or special’ (Australian Oxford Dictionary). And yet mostly in schools we value and reward only a narrow range of conventionally powerful strategies for achieving a particular outcome. Other ways are seen as wrong, inadequate or unconventional. When this happens, Gee (1993: p. 291) argues:

Schools can only expect opposition from those children and their families whom they either exclude or seek to apprentice to practices that are ‘owned’ and ‘operated’ by groups who otherwise oppose and oppress them in the wider society outside the school.

Critical literacy practice in schools, then, must be generic practice, where children can tactically select from all the practical strategies from the cultures available to them, rather than being taught one, conventionally ‘most strategic’ operation. Through generic practice, learners experience which of their generic tactics ‘pay off, and which don’t, for particular purposes, or on particular audiences. They observe the practical effects of their literacy on others. And they won’t just have one set of ‘powerful’ rules to draw from.

We can no longer rely on modernist logics to guide us through the teaching of literacy, now that we realise that the learning of literacy does not work like that. In postmodern literacy education, we learn (and teach) powerful literacies through powerful literacy practices, not just through the operational and cultural dimensions of literacy learning. Children learning to write must be encouraged to write in ways which reward their attempts to sample, copy, borrow, quote and utilise everything within all available sign systems, to get the job done (Green, 1995). There is not just one right way. Not any longer. Operational and cultural literacies are ’strategies’ while critical literacy is derived from tactical attempts to use literacy to get things done. Literacy learners need to experience and reflect on the effects of their practices on other people. They need to talk about the effects of other people’s practice on themselves. Without this they cannot learn to question the undoubtable ‘truth’ of their reading, nor to doubt the unquestionable logic of any one best way.

Post-position

As Gee (1993: p. 291 [my emphasis]) writes: ‘Education is always and everywhere the initiation of students as apprentices into various historically situated social practices so that they become “insiders”. Or it is the exclusion of children from these apprenticeships.’ Simple reminders like this dearly underline the benefits of postmodern thinking. It is a Jolly Good Thing to have doubt. Doubt encourages us to have a Jolly Good Think about what we are doing, each and every time, without relying on what we might accept (without thinking) as rules for the genre of teaching, rather than engaging ourselves thoughtfully in the generic practice of teaching.

REFERENCES

Cambourne, B. (1988). The Whole Story. Auckland: Ashton Scholastic.

Cambourne, B. (1989). Look what they’ve done to my song, ma: A reply to Luke, Baty and Stehbens, English in Australia, 90. pp. 13-22.

Christie, F. (1984). Varieties of written discourse. In F. Christie and course team, Children Writing: Study guide. Geelong: Deakin University Press. pp. 11-52.

Christie, F. (1990). The changing face of literacy. In F. Christie (ed.), Literacy for a Changing World. Hawthorn, Victoria: ACER. pp. 1-25.

Gee, J. (1990). Social Linguistics and Literacies. Ideology in Discourses. Basingstoke, UK: The Falmer Press.

Gee, J. (1991). What is literacy? In C. Mitchell and K. Weiler (eds), Rewriting Literacy. New York: Bergin & Garvey. pp. 1-11.

Gee, J. (1993). Postmodernism and literacies. In C. Lankshear and P. McLaren (eds), Critical Literacy: Politics, praxis, and the postmodern. New York: State University of New York Press. pp. 271-95.

Gilbert, P. (1990). Authorizing disadvantage: Authorship and creativity in the language classroom. In F. Christie (ed.), Literacy For a Changing World. Hawthorn, Melbourne: ACER. pp. 54-78.

Green, B. (1995). On Compos(IT)ing: Writing differently in the post-age. Paper presented at the Australian Association for the Teaching of English National Conference, Sydney.

Green, B. (1996). Literacy/technology/learning: Notes and issues. Discussion Paper DEET project: The role and status of technology in language and literacy learning. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin Centre for Education and Change.

Green, B. & Morgan, W. (1992). After the tempest? Literacy education and the brave new world. Opening keynote address to the Whole Language Umbrella Conference, Niagara, USA.

Heath, S. (1983). Ways with Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kamler, B. & Comber, B. (1996). Critical literacy: Not generic–not developmental–not another orthodoxy. Changing Education, 3, 1. pp. 1-6.

Kamler, B., Maclean, R., Reid, J. & Simpson, A. (1995). Shaping Up Nicely: The formation of schoolgirls and schoolboys in the first month of school. Canberra: Department of Employment, Education and Training.

Luke, A. (1992). The social construction of literacy in the primary school. In L. Unsworth, (ed.), Literacy Learning and Teaching: Language as social practice in the primary school. Melbourne: Macmillan Education. pp. 1-53.