28.290, Review: English; Applied Ling: Farr (2015)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-290. Fri Jan 13 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.290, Review: English; Applied Ling: Farr (2015)

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Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2017 12:48:20
From: Skyler King [skylerrking at gmail.com]
Subject: Practice in TESOL

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-137.html

AUTHOR: Fiona B. Farr
TITLE: Practice in TESOL
SERIES TITLE: Edinburgh Textbooks in TESOL
PUBLISHER: Edinburgh University Press
YEAR: 2015

REVIEWER: Skyler King, University of Massachusetts at Boston

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

‘Practice in TESOL,’ by Fiona Farr, is part of the Edinburgh Textbooks in
TESOL published by Edinburgh University Press. It is the 5th volume in a
series that presents English Language Teaching (ELT) concepts and research
issues simply in order to inspire undergraduate and graduate students to
conduct their own research and even pursue their interests in a PhD. The book
is made up of ten chapters (an introduction, eight core chapters, and a
conclusion), preceded by a table of contents, a list of abbreviations, a
series editors’ preface, and acknowledgments; the text is followed by
appendices, references and an index. 

Chapter Structure

In ‘Practice in TESOL’, each of the eight core chapters contains a five-part
structure: an introduction, input (with three content sub-sections each
containing three tasks), further reading (with two tasks), a summary, and a
list of suggested additional readings. For instance, section 3.4 of Chapter
Three “Thinking about Your Materials”, asks readers to consider corpus-based
materials (or activities centered on a computerized database of ‘real life’
instances of language use) with tasks such as: 1) creating a corpus-based
activity specifically for your language learners, 2) comparing and contrasting
a textbook’s findings on a language point (a modal verb, a tense, etc.) with
that of a selected corpus (provided in Appendix 4), and 3) exploring and
trying in class a selected activity from specific corpus websites. Each of
these tasks concludes only once you “share your findings with your peers”
(41). In the ‘further reading’ section of the chapter is then presented
separate summaries of two related articles or chapters with regard to
materials development. Two in-depth questions follow each summary and invite
further reflection and engagement with the chapter topic. 

Book Structure

Effectively comprising what can be considered the ‘first section’, Chapters
Two through Six discuss what are considered by the author to be five essential
elements that make up the TESOL Teaching Practice (TP) and upon which a TESOL
instructor must reflect: learner background (Chapter Two), materials (Chapter
Three), effective classroom observations (Chapter Four), the lesson plan
(Chapter Five), and the classroom environment (Chapter Six). While this ‘first
section’ offers some unique evidence-based tasks, the author persuasively
claims in the ‘second section’, Chapters Seven through Nine, that a TESOL
instructor’s role extends beyond classrooms and assignments and into regular
reflective practice. Sustaining such an effort is founded in not only an
increased devotion to “reading research findings” but also “to conducting
[one’s] own research” (172), particularly Action Research (AR) as one key
element to Reflective Practice (RP).

This research-driven teacher development emphasis reflects the author’s larger
assertion that in order to critically identify a teacher identity or role in
each classroom one must not only conduct “intuitive reflection” (158) when
assessing those five key TP elements to the classroom setting but also employ
the following three developmental aspects of RP that reciprocally inform one’s
classroom approach and practice. They are: teaching practice feedback (Chapter
Seven), reflection and continuing professional development, or CDP (Chapter
Eight), and the more investigative approach to RP that is AR (Chapter Nine).
According to the authors, AR focuses on social situations, usually involves
collaboration, consists of systematic data collection, and is exploratory by
nature (158). It is neither experimental with formal controls nor
generalizable in terms of quantitative results: it is a localized, qualitative
and “systematic reflection” (154) within the constraints of one’s own
professional and personal circumstances that does not necessarily apply to
other teaching contexts. 

EVALUATION

True to its title, ‘Practice in TESOL’ challenges beginner and novice ESL
teachers to practice what is read because eight of its ten chapters provide 11
tasks each (88 total) that direct the reader to research and implement
suggested practices and specific language learning materials. What is ideal
for TESOL student teachers and practicing teachers is that each chapter
strongly and frequently encourages “early-career teachers” (173) to present
these reflective and exploratory findings to a small group of interested
individuals (hopefully peer teachers). For Farr, continued collaboration is
key to professional development. And Farr’s engaging evidence-based
discussions and guided tasks are divided into two main topics with regard to
how beginner teachers can successfully integrate 21st century technology and
classroom-based research into their own TP and RP. 

As an “early-career teacher” myself, starting my second year as an ESL/English
composition adjunct and entering my third year as the director and trainer of
nearly two dozen college ESL tutors (all of whom have a BA in linguistics or
English or another language), I have already adapted many of these principles,
particularly that of TP with some RP. In this concerted, yet admittedly novice
application, I have learned that creating and having a productive TP Feedback
experience can prove quite a challenge for isolated adjuncts who ‘freeway fly’
and teach at multiple colleges, or for a new TESOL teacher who enters an
unsupportive department unfamiliar with such structured TP feedback and RP as
Farr advocates. In addition to this realization, it is easy to agree with Farr
who acknowledges the most common obstacles confronting effective TP and RP are
simply the following: limited resources, limited time, and a lack of teacher
motivation (158). However, Farr persuasively argues that despite such
ubiquitous obstacles, even the least devoted TESOL teacher-researcher can
successfully implement TP and RP because each of the combined eight elements
concerns “practice-based issues” allowing the teacher to “focus directly
on…ongoing, everyday activities” (152), not on creating and implementing an
experimental study whose results are analyzed for weeks.

The book’s weakness, limiting its reach, relates to its asserted aim that it
can be effectively used by individuals through self-study as well as in
groups. Granted, many tasks can be completed alone and in collaboration with
language students from the classroom. However, if the reader does not have a
group of teaching individuals with whom to regularly share these findings then
such a self-directed reader can be left with a somewhat unfulfilled reading
and learning experience. Every chapter’s set of 11 tasks contains multiple
web-based tasks that require implementation in the classroom with the
expectation of reporting the findings to a group (in fact, 34 of the 88 (38%)
tasks direct the reader to online sources). For instance, while the reader is
directed to explore educational material on various publisher websites (29) or
to compare and contrast corpus-based tasks to those found in your own course
books and to conduct a corpus-based analysis (41), a teacher is also directed
to research the attitudes of a small group of more experienced teachers
regarding the rigors of lesson planning (77) and to ask a fellow observer to
watch how you interact to a second “colleague telling you about a recent
difficulty they had while teaching” (139) with the expectation of sharing the
results with one’s teaching group. For a book purporting to be self-directed,
what is particularly challenging is that beginning in Chapter Seven, the
reader is expected to find a mentor instructor or tutor who offers
face-to-face teacher reflection as a means of creating an active professional
relationship that fosters ongoing cooperative TP feedback (113). 

In fairness, my reading of the text was relegated to a more expedited approach
for purposes of review. Therefore, my criticism of this weakness in claim of
application in self-directed fashion can be qualified were I or any other
solitary reader able to more collaboratively absorb the text over a longer
period of time such as over a semester or quarter equivalent to three or four
months and actually find a mentor instructor. Nevertheless, the more
independent reader must commit to the understanding that some activities will
not be fully completed to some degree. In fact, it appears that some ‘section
two’ RP activities become decreasingly achievable alone; external observation
and peer feedback along with structured discussions of teaching practices
comprise the focus of the RP guided activities. At that point, the weakness is
minor, for the evidence-based perspective and the amount of individual
reflective practices abound even if the reader is unable to regularly meet
with peers to share findings. 

Finally, while each chapter adheres to the aforementioned five-part structure,
it proves cumbersome if read cursorily and not as intended: to introduce a
topic and thoroughly explore it, reflect upon it, and then discuss student
impact with other teachers. Gleaning implications for one’s own classroom from
this text takes active time: considering and completing the guided activities
and then discussing your findings with other teachers. While this reflective
structure itself exemplifies the self-directed yet collaborative aim, the text
is most clearly understood from the broader perspective of its two main
focuses: assessing your own TP in the classroom environment and then informing
the concomitant practice through devoted RP. 

In sum, I heartily recommend this text to any beginning language teacher
because its guided activities help beginner teachers make sense of copious
amounts of/three decades of research on language teaching and learning. Farr
achieves the intended effort that the reader become “a self-directed and
independent learner…ready to take responsibility for your ongoing development
as a teacher” (173). Furthermore, in order to fully appreciate how Practice
seeks to help beginning teachers improve their teaching practice (TP) or
Reflective Practice (RP), I suggest being enrolled in a training or
certificate course that utilizes it as a course text, or find a committed
group of teaching peers that are also willing to embark on a powerfully
critical journey of professional teaching development tailored to the 21st
century. Either way, beginning and novice language teachers (and even veteran
teachers trained without various portions of RP) will find this concise yet
thorough text an indispensable guide to improving their own self-directed
teaching and reflective practices.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Skyler King is an English/ESL adjunct at southern California colleges and
directs the Language Success Center at Chaffey College. He also teaches and
trains undergraduate students in TESOL pedagogy with Brigham Young University,
Idaho. He is interested in phonetics and phonology, intelligibility, native
speaker listener skills in TESL teacher training programs, and evidence-based
pedagogy. Currently, he is pursuing admission to PhD programs in Applied
Linguistics and TESOL.





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