(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) Team teaching as a tool for professional development insiders'''' views

19 3.1.1.1 EFL teachers’ professional development fostered through Team- Teaching between English teachers and Vietnamese teachers.... From the point of view of some teachers’ personal d

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: Đào Thu Trang, M.A

HANOI-2010

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS

Field: English Teaching Methodology

Code: 601410

HANOI-2010

Page

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Significance of the study 2

4 Methods of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Design of the study 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter I: Review of Related Literature 4

1.1 Overview of Teachers’ Professional Developmet 4

1.1.1 Concepts of Teachers’ Professional Development 4

1.1.2 Areas of Language Teachers’ Professional Development 5

1.2 Overview of Team-Teaching 7

1.2.1 Definitions of Team-Teaching 7

1.2.2 Forms of Team-Teaching 8

1.2.3 Factors affecting Team-Teaching 9

1.3 Why Team-Teaching as a valuable means for Professional Development? 10

Chapter II: Methodology 13

2.1 The setting of the study 13

2.2 The research questions 14

2.3 The Participants 14

2.4 Data collection instruments 16

2.4.1 In-depth interviews 16

2.4.2 Class room-observation 16

2.5 Data collection procedures 17

2.6 Data analysis 18

3.1.1 EFL teachers’ professional development fostered through Team-Teaching 19

3.1.1.1 EFL teachers’ professional development fostered through Team- Teaching between English teachers and Vietnamese teachers 19

3.1.1.2 EFL teachers’ professional development fostered through Team- Teaching between Vietnamese teachers and Vietnamese teachers 24

3.1.2 Barriers to Team-Teaching 27

3.1.2.1 Barriers to Team-Teaching between English volunteer teachers and Vietnamese teachers 27

3.1.2.2 Barriers to Team-Teaching between Vietnamese and Vietnamese

Teachers 29

3.2 Discussion 29

3.3 Recommendations 31

3.3.1 Recommendations for the administrators 31

3.3.2 Recommendations for team-teachers 33

PART C: CONCLUSION 37

1 Conclusions 37

2 Limitation and suggestion for further study 37

REFERENCES 38

APPENDICES I Appendix 1 I Appendix 2 V Appendix 3 XVII

PART A : INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

With the development of regional integration and global participation, the quality of tion is becoming an urgent need to the Ministry of Education and Training as well as the government Since the Vietnamese government sees the quality of teachers as the major factor in improving education, it is setting targets for the general reform of cirriculum and teaching methods in all educational establishments There have been many annual educa-tion workshops, conferences, researches conducted in many universities in order to help teachers sustain high quality performance in their teaching career and encourage them to pursue life-long learning which is vital to their professional development To ensure this ongoing professional growth, teachers-as professionals-should constantly develop them-selves Teachers’ own growth is necessary in order to cope with the ever-expanding know-ledge base in subject matter and pedagogy, rapidly changing social contexts of schooling, and increasingly diversifying students’ needs EFL (English Foreign Language) teachers are not exempt from this professional responsibility In other words, teachers have to be

educa-viewed as learners- “the teacher as life-long learner”- and they need to learn together

Teachers today are experimenting with many approaches for professional development such as: self-evaluation, portforlio collections, classroom observation and performance as-sessment, peer assessment, keeping a teaching journal, peer coaching, mentoring, action research Among these, team-teaching seems to be very effective in enhancing teachers’ professional growth, though for many teachers, team-teaching remains unexplored territo-

ry

Although team-teaching is not new in some locations and used widely in many schools around the world, it is an experimental approach at my college because of some reasons below Firstly, in early 2001, many teachers at my college were sent to a 12-week-skill-based language teaching methodology course sponsored by the Vietnam-Australia Training (VAT) Project in Hanoi in which team-teaching was introduced as a new form to improve the quality of EFL teaching and learning Secondly, in recent years, our college has re-ceived some British volunteer teachers from some organizations in order to help EFL teaching and learning Then our Department has tried this form of teaching in order to take the advantage of our situation-that is, working with some British VSO (Volunteer Service Oversea) volunteers with the hope of contributing to teacher and student development

Hence, team-teaching between a British volunteer teacher and a Vietnamese teacher or tween two Vietnamese teachers has become a common way of conducting EFL classes

be-As a teacher, the researcher has been teaching English for nearly 10 years During that time, I have observed many team-teaching lessons and I have also team taught with some colleagues The issue raised is that: to what extent team-teaching can help to foster teach-

er’s professional growth Thus, I decided to conduct the study on: “Team-teaching as a

tool for professional development: insiders’ views” to investigate and explore the point of

views, feelings and attitudes of team-teachers towards to team-teaching as a means for teacher’s growth

2 Aims of the study

The study was conducted to explore the team-teachers’viewpoints and attitudes towards team-teaching in order to find out the benefits of team-teaching in terms of their profes-sional development as well as the barriers to team-teaching

From the findings of the study, some recommendations were proposed for the tors and team-teachers so as to use team-teaching as an effective means of professional de-velopment

administra-3 Significance of the study

The study is expected to offer an in-depth understanding about the team-teachers’ point of views and attitudes towards team-teaching as a tool for professional development in terms

of : (i) Theoretically, it justifies team-teaching as a tool of professional development in an EFL context

(ii) Practically and pedagogically, the findings of the study contribute to the understanding

of the advantages and disadvantages of team-teaching as a means of professional ment

develop-(iii) The recommendations for administrators and team-teachers can improve the benefits and reduce the drawbacks of team-teaching in order to help team-teachers conduct a suc-cessful team-teaching

4.Method of the study

This is a qualitative exploratory study because it was designed to deeply explore the

team-teachers’ point of views regarding the effect of team-teaching on their professional opment

devel-In order to collect data for the study, two techniques were used: in-depth interview and

class observation The interviews used in this study were semi-structured interviews with

most of the questions being open-ended Besides, the researcher also used class

observa-tion to triangulate the data

5 Scope of the study

In educational history, there are many different activities to foster EFL teachers’ sional growth However, due to the limited time and length of a minor thesis, this small-scale study only explores 9 participants’ point of views towards one of these activities:

profes-team-teaching

This study focuses on the in-depth interviews from 5 pairs of team-teachers (9 participants) and observed their lessons to explore their opinions about team-teaching as a tool to de-velop their teaching skills

Besides, the study also investigates the data from these interviews to find out the lenges of team-teaching that these teachers have to face and give some recommendations for both administrators and teachers

chal-6 Design of the study The study is structured as follows: Part A- Introduction, Part B- Development and Part

C- Conclusion

Part A- Introduction presents the rationale, the aim, the significance, the scope, the

me-thods and the design of the study

Part B- Development consists of three chapters:

Chapter I: Review of Related Literature - aims at the basic theoretical background

con-cerning professional development and team-teaching

Chapter II: Methodology - focuses on the setting of the study, the research questions, the

participants, the data collection instruments, the collection procedures, and the analysis

data-Chapter III: Findings, discussion and recommendations - reports majors findings

con-ducted from the result of previous chapter and discussion, and offers recommendations for

Part C- Conclusion summarises all the issues in the study, particularly the major findings

and recommendations The limitations of the study and some suggestions for further study are also included in this part

PART B : DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The opening chapter presents an overview of the nature of professional development and provides a conceptual framework for team-teaching and some related studies about team-teaching as a tool for professional development

1.1 Overview of Professional Development 1.1.1 Concepts of Teachers’ Professional Development

The term “Teacher Development” or “Professional Development” for teachers is a broad

term including a variety of aspects connected not only to a teacher’s professional opment but also to his/her personal development (Igawa, 2002) In other words, “Profes-sional development, in broad sense, refer to the development of a person in his or her per-sonal role” (Eleonara, 2003, p.11) Surely, professional development enhances competence

devel-of all members in a learning community to pursue their life-long learning

Underhill (1997) states that professional development involves teachers in a constant process of learning about their practice and discovering and using their own potential For Richards (1998), this process requires teachers to creat their own personal teaching metho-dology that takes into account their experience, beliefs and understanding about good teaching He adds that reflection, self-inquiry, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation are ne-cessary elements in fostering professional development, since they help teachers to be bet-ter informed and to evaluate their professional growth, as well as to plan for improvement Likewise, Richards and Farrell (2005) assert that teacher development involves teachers in understanding themselves and their teaching; in analysing their teaching practices, beliefs, value and principles, in keeping up-to-date with theories and trends; and in sharing their experiences with colleagues So it can be said that in order to develop professionally, teachers should feel a continuous desire to learn more about themselves as professionals, and about their profession Hence, teachers’ professional development becomes a miles-tone in teacher’s continuum of life-long learning and career progression

To sum up, although definitions and concepts of teachers’ professional development may

be some what different as scholars might approach it from different perspectives, they all share a common view that professional development is used to refer to the process through

which teachers attain higher professional competence and expand their understanding of self, role, context and career It is any experience that teachers engaged in to widen their knowledge, appreciation, skills, and understanding of their work inline with goals, values,

of the school and their interests and needs of teachers (Duke and Stiggins, 1990; Beerens, D.R., 2000; Norton, M.S, 2008) Professional development is, therefore, seen as “an ongo-ing process and an integral characteristic of a fully professional teacher” (Mc Donough,

1997, p.318)

1.1.2 Areas of Language Teachers’ Professional Development

Educational reform, a rapidly changing student clientele, technological development, and new views on assessment are just a few of the pressures that today’s foreign language teach-ers are encountering Foreign language teachers must maintain proficiency in the target lan-guage and stay up to date on current issues related to the target culture Regardless of the skills and knowledge that foreign language teachers possess when they commence teaching, maintenance and improvement must be an ongoing process In most states, teachers must continue to accumulate academic credits, while teaching, in order to keep their teaching li-cense current This can be done through evening cources, summer seminars, lectures, or workshops offered by professional associations or universities, so that teachers can improve language proficiency and cultural knowledge, teaching methods

Met (1989) states that foreign language teachers need: “competencies in the general areas of education, interpersonal skills and professional education” (p.177) In addition to demon-strating Met’s ideas, Peyton, in his study, presented in 1997, points out some skills and knowledge that foreign language teachers need According to him, good foreign language teachers need the following:

• A high level of language proficiency in all of the modalities of the target speaking, listening, reading, and writing

language-• The ability to use the language in real-life contexts, for both social and professional poses

pur-• The ability to comprehend contemporary media in the foreign language, both oral and ten, and interact successfully with native speakers in the United States and abroad (Phillips, 1991)

writ-• A strong background in the liberal arts and the content areas

• Understanding of the social, political, historical, and economic realities of the regions where the language they teach is spoken

• Pedagogical knowledge and skills, including knowledge about human growth and ment, learning theory and second language acquisition theory, and a repertoire of strategies for developing proficiency and cultural understanding in all students (Guntermann, 1992)

develop-• Knowledge of the various technologies and how to integrate them into their instruction chards (1998) asserts that professional development is directed towards both the institution’s goals and the teacher’s own personal goal Achieving personal growth and improving de-partmental performance can go hand in hand Most schools strive for a mix of both From the point of view of some teachers’ personal development, he lists six domains of professional development as follows:

Ri-• Subject matter knowledge: Increasing knowledge of the disciplinary basis of TESOL, that

is, English grammar, discourse analysis, phonology, testing, second language acquisition search, methodology, curriculum development, and the other areas that define the profes-sional knowledge base of language teaching

re-• Pedagogical expertise: Mastery of new areas of teaching, adding to one’s repertoire of

teaching specializations, improving ability to teach different skill areas to learners of ent ages and backgrounds

differ-• Self-awareness: Knowledge of oneself as a teacher, of one’s principle and values, strengths

and awareness

• Understanding of learners: Deepening understanding of learners, learning styles, learners’

problems and difficulties, ways of making content more accessible to learners

• Understanding of curriculum and materials: Deepening one’s understanding of curriculum

and curriculum alternatives, use and development of instructional materials

• Career advancement: acquisitions of the knowledge and expertise neccessary for personal

advancement and promotion, including supervisory and mentoring skills

Obviously, the field of language teaching is subject to rapid changes, both as the profession responds to new educational paradigms and trends and as institutions face new challenges as

a result of changes in curriculum, national tests, and student needs As a result, teachers need regular opportunities to update their professional knowledge and skills, that is, their oppor-tunities for professional development Teachers need to be able to take part in activities such as:

• engaging in self-reflection and evaluation

• developing specialized knowledge and skills about many aspects of teaching

• expanding their knowledge base about research, theory, and issues in teaching

• taking on new roles and responsibilities, such as supervisor or mentor teacher, teacher-researcher, or material writer

• developing collaborative relationships with other teachers

An important direction in teacher development in recent years has been a movement away

from “outsider” approaches to “insider” ones This means the former are often based on

ex-pert knowledge as well as general theories and principles that teacher apply to their own ation; the latter are locally based approaches that encourages teachers to explore their own contexts and construct their own knowledge and understanding of what takes place in their classrooms In self-directed learning, teachers assume responsibility for setting goals for self-development and for managing and controlling their own learning

situ-In short, language teachers have different needs at different times during their careers, and the needs of the school and institutions in which they work also change over time The pres-sure for teachers to update their knowledge in areas such as: curriculum trends, second lan-guage acquisition research, composition theory and practice, technology, or assessment is intense, and it is the school and the classroom that provide a major source for future profes-sional development Thus, foreign language teachers have very specific professional devel-opment requirements that include maintaining language skills, increasing cultural know-ledge, and keeping current with developmennts in the field that will enhance their perfor-mance as a classroom teacher

1.2 Overview of team-teaching 1.2.1 Definitions of team-teaching

At the outset of my discussion, I need to address the question of what we mean by

“team-teaching”

In 1995, Davis suggested that team-teaching was not easily defined He states that it refers

“most often to the teaching done in interdisciplinary course by the several faculty members who have joined together to produce that course” (Davis, p.6) Accordings to Buckley (2000), “Team-teaching involves a group of instructors working purposefully, regularly, and cooperatively to help a group of students of any age learn.” (p.4) Surely, team- teachers set goals for a course, design a syllabus, prepare individual lesson plans, teach students, and evaluate the results They share insights, argue with one another, and perhaps even challenge students to decide which approach is better

Team can be single-discipline, interdisciplinary, or school-within-a-school teams that meet with a common set of students over an extended period of time New teachers may be paired with veteran teachers Innovations are encouraged, and modification in class size, location, and time are permitted Different personalities, voices, values, and approaches spark interest, keep attention, and prevent boredom

In conclusion, the term team-teaching has been defined by many researchers However,

they all share the common view about team-teaching that:

(i) it involves two or more teachers within the teaching and learning environment (ii) it can vary along a continuum of collaboration

(iii) it facililates a learning community by impacting on both teaching and learning

(iv) it can be both formal and informal

And in addition, Eisen and Tisdell (2000) declare that team-teaching often occurs in

“communities or workplaces that are not bounded by four walls or institutional structures”

(p.7)

1.2.2 Forms of team-teaching

There are various forms of team-teaching depending on the particular context Sandholtz (2000) has identified three configurations for team-teaching: (1) two or more teachers loosely sharing responsibility; (2) team-planning, but individual instruction; and (3) joint planning, instruction, and evaluation of learning experience

Clearly, teaching partnership can function in different ways We conceptualize teaching as being part of a continuum of collaboration that varies according to levels of coordination and shared responsibility At the low level, collaboration (end of the scale) would be courses planned by a group of faculty and later taught individually by members

team-of the group They might plan the general content team-of these related courses, but would teach and evaluate the courses separately and they would not observe each other’s classes At the highest level of collaboration, the courses are co-planned, co-taught and evaluated by a pair or a group of teachers

From many types of team-teaching defined by different scholars, it is realised that there appear to be two basic types of team-teaching: type A and type B In type A, two or more teachers work together but do not always teach the same students at the same time Some

authors call this type “team-planning” In type B, two or more teachers teach the same

stu-dents at the same time in the classroom Within type B, there are 4 basic instructional

mod-els: the Traditional Model, the Supportive Model, the Parallel Instruction Model and the

Differentiated Instruction Model These models may be used singly or combined in any

number of ways In Traditional Model, both teachers share the instruction of content and skills to all students This is not like to Supportive Model in which one teacher focuses on

content instruction while the other teacher conducts follow-up activities or works on skill

building In the third model, the Parallel Instruction Model, students are divided into

groups and each teacher provides instruction in the same content or skills to his or her

group In the last model, the Differentiated Instruction Model, students are divided into

groups on the basic of learning needs with each teacher providing instruction based on his

or her group’s needs In practice, this often means dividing a class by ability to provide enrichment activities to the high ability group and extra support to the lower functioning group

There is also another type and the third one is occasionally called team-teaching, but lacks the shared responsibility and coherent structure of the first two (A and B) In this version, one coordinator alone is responsible for course content and grading Extensive and regular use is made of guest lectures and panels, and the material presented in this manner is an intergal part of the overall course design

In short, team-teaching is open to several interpretation Both type A and type B are coming common in my college However, type B is an experimental model for teacher de-velopment, so for the purpose of this study, I am assuming the following: two teachers share a class and divide instruction between them and team-members are from closely al-lied discipline: EFL teaching

be-1.2.3 Factors affecting team-teaching

Theoretically, team-teaching is a very positive model for professional development ever, the practice of team-teaching faces some factors These concerns are revealed in the Pritchett’s study (1997) in which the author shows some factors affecting team-teaching According to Pritchett, there are three important elements influencing team-teaching: (i) roles and expectations (ii) experience and knowledge and (iii) personality and teaching style

How-The first two factors are related to “the conflict that could arise if there is uncertainty or disagreement in the role of each team member.” (Letterman & Dugan, 2004, p.6)

The second two factors appear to be a two-edged sword: some of the team-teachers adapt a more submissive role readily as they learn from a more experienced team-teachers, while the others feel a need to compete for a leadership role in the partnership

The last two factors are concerned with personal incompatibility and inadequate cation skills that may cause the failure of the partnership

communi-Other factor, mentioned by other authors, is also related to the lost of autonomy: individual teachers may fear that the collaboration process, which involves “a curricular theme, com-mon assignments, and readings, shared presentations, and shared expectations and grading system for student work.” (Mc Daniel & Colarulli, 1997, p.28), will result in the sense of losing control over their own teaching practice

Furthermore, several studies (Buckley, 1998; Timothy & Bill, 2005) identify that a poor

relationship between two team-teachers may lead to a breakdown in this relationships

This could occur because team-teaching involves interpersonal relationships (Buckley, 1998) This relationship is not inherently beneficial because, to some extent, it can under-mine trust and openness which are of great importance to the establishment and the main-tenance of a real collaborative culture

Another factor is that team-teaching requires enormous investment of time, money, effort and resources (Pritchett, 1997; Bill Perry & Timothy Steward, 2005; Goetz, 2005) Con-cerning time, a group of studies (Davis, 1995; Sandholtz, 2000) showed that it was a criti-cal factor for the effectiveness of team-teaching

In short, it is obvious that team-teaching is a beneficial approach for teachers’ professional

development, but it needs further research into how to overcome its barriers

1.3 Why team-teaching as a valuable means for professional development?

The study of team-teaching as a viable alternative to traditional teaching as a way to crease students’ outcomes has a long history, dating back to the mid 1950’s Bunyan of Calgary (1965) see the teacher as an important factor in team-teaching He sees this initia-tive as a way to promote better teacher professional development and, therefore, to pro-vide a better opportunity for students to learn He feels that teachers co-operating effective-

in-ly would need training and preparation in order to effectivein-ly deal with the psychological impact of team-teachers He does not question the benefits of team-teaching as he feels they are many and widely accepted Instead, he warns that we should not undermine its effectiveness with poor teacher training and planning Johnson and Hunt (1968) see team-teaching as a way for teachers to come out from under the sometimes-crippling effects of threat upon their practice and free themselves up to better teachers They feel that teachers who work in an environment of collaboration, constantly getting new ideas and feedback from others, will become more perspective and lose the fear that has so often blocked im-

provement They see team-teaching as a way for teachers to become more efficient and more effective than their traditional, isolated teaching counterparts They feel that dignity and integrity are implied in a teaching team and that they are given more freedom to work, not constrained by arbitrary schedules and routines

Similarly, Edmonds in “Teaming for teachers” (1973) writes that the essential concern of

team-teaching is that of professional sharing He contends that team-teaching provides a good platform for teachers to engage in professional discourse and to get and give advice about teaching practice without judgement This, he sees, is a step towards better teacher practice

In recent studies, Davis (2005); Steward & Sandholtz (2000); Anthony Bynom (2000) sert that team-teaching in ESP (English for Special Purpose) or interdisciplinary can be an effective forms for professional development

as-In summary, once again, the issue of teacher isolation is identified as one factor that tributes to the repression of professional development and teacher growth Because teach-ers spend so much time isolated in their classrooms, they have little or no opportunity to observe and learn from others Teachers avoid seeking advice from others in this type of structure because it is seen as a sign of weakness and others resisted giving advice so as not to insult their colleagues Teacher should be supported to try new things, and they be-come more effective and more enthusiatic The collective power of the group made them stronger

con-Teachers can surely enhance their professional development because team-teaching tainly “requires planning, skilled management, willingness to risk change and even failure, humility, and open-mindedness, imagination and creativity”.(Buckley, 2000, p.11)

cer-Literature revealed that team-teaching has enormous potential to bring about professional growth for teachers Although there have been factors affecting team-teaching, with ap- propriate understanding of team-teaching, it has emerged as an effective tool for profes- sional development The literature review of previous studies in the field has provided the background in the field of team-teaching research and can be considered as basic for the investigation of team-teaching in the context of a Teacher Training College located in NgheAn

However, the emergence of team-teaching as a tool for professional development has not been paid due attention in Vietnam Moreover, there has been almost no research into the

field of team-teaching in the context of the Vietnamese education system, except for an ticle by Le Thi Anh Phuong in Teacher’s Edition No study exists that examines the pres- ence and benefits of team-teaching in terms of teacher growth Therefore, this study fills the gap by investigating the team-teachers’ point of views and attitudes towards their team-teaching experience as a tool for professional development.

ar-CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

This chapter includes five small parts: (i) The setting of the study; (ii) The research tions; (iii) The participants; (iv) Data collection instrument; (v) Data-collection proce- dures; and (vi) Data analysis

ques-2.1 The setting of the study

The study was conducted at Foreign Languages Department of NgheAn Teacher Training College located in Vinh city, Nghe An province

The Foreign Language Department of Nghe An Teacher Training College has 37 teachers including English major and non-English major teachers In fact, nearly of all the teachers are young, active and energetic with teaching experience ranging from 3 to 12 years There are only 4 old teachers who have been teaching for over 20 years All teachers have good attitude to English teaching and they are always willing to enhance their teaching skills

To do this, they spend their time on class observation, self-evaluation, portfolio collection, peer-observation, peer-coaching, action research Especially, they also team-teach to im-prove their teaching skills and learn together Besides, there are annual workshops for pro-fessional development so teachers have good chances to exchange their experience and contribute many good ideas for professional growth

In recent years in Vietnam, volunteers from organizations such as Volunteer Service sea (VSO) and Volunteer In Asia (VIA) have been sent to different Teacher Training Col-leges to help with instruction and to promote the relationship between these organizations and the Teacher Training Colleges

Nghe An Teacher Training College started to receive help from VSO in 1998 Some lunteers have been working here for a long time These volunteers typically teach a work-load of 16 periods or more as assigned in the contracts between the college and the organi-zation However, at first they often taught independently, with little preperation or consul-tation with other colleagues in the Section or Department A similar situation exists among their Vietnamese colleagues, who often taught independently as well, rather than preparing

vo-lessons together For instance, the subject British Studies was taught by a Vietnamese

teacher, instead of by a British volunteer who may has been in a better situation to do so

As a result, the course was sometimes taught more like reading comprehension class, and

no good use was made of the expertise and knowledge of the native speaker teachers ish teachers) This to me is not a desirable situation!

(Brit-Reflecting on such situations, we see that the present way of cooperating among teachers

in my college does not maximize the benefits of working context and much more could be done to aid both teachers’ professional development and students’ language development

To address this issue, we have tried team-teaching with the aim of developing the tages of our situation, that is: working with British VSO volunteers From then on, some Vietnamese colleagues are also asked to work closely with the volunteers to exchange ex-

advan-perience and so they can take over the subjects when the volunteers leave (i.e British

Stu-dies or English Literature)

When other British volunteers arrived in 2007, the Dean of Foreign Languages ment and the Head of English Section decided that a closer cooperation between the volun-teers and the Vietnamese teachers, especially in classroom, could make our work more useful to teachers and students as well This suggestion was welcomed by both Vietnamese teachers and British volunteers and we started team-teaching between not only British vo-lunteers and Vietnamese teachers but Vietnamese and Vietnamese teachers

Depart-To be honest, our attempts at team-teaching were mainly experimental-to find out whether team-teaching could work in our environment, and what benefits as well as barriers it might bring to our teaching and learning context

2.2 The research questions

The research questions that guided the study mainly focused on the following issues:

1.To what extent, can team-teaching help enhance professional development, as ceived by both English volunteer teachers and Vietnamese teachers?

per-2.What are the barriers to team-teaching, as perceived by team-teachers (both English lunteer teachers and Vietnamese teachers)?

vo-2.3 The Participants

The study involved 5 pairs of team-teachers (9 team-teachers) Teachers’s ages ranged from 21 to 55 years-old with an average age of 38 They all taught English for English-

major students The first pair of team-teachers (Mai Anh & Nguyên) were teaching

Inte-grating Skills for the first year students The second two pairs were teaching Speaking Skill

(James & Hiển) and Writing Skill (Thanh & Vân) for the second year students; and the last two pairs were teaching British Studies (Chris & Châu) and English Literature (Chris &

Liên) for the third year students The number of female teachers is higher than that of male

teachers as seen in the Table 1 These teachers have been teaching English for 2 to 25 years

and they have some experience with team-teaching Among these teachers, two are from England

Chris Staples-aged 55- is an English volunteer from VSO He arrived in Nghe An in 2004

He before had a long time for volunteering in some Asian countries such as: China, Korea,

Thailand, Japan At first, he taught British Studies and English Literature independently Then, with the suggestion from the Dean of Department and the Head of English Section,

he team-taught with two Vietnamese teachers (Châu & Liên) so the Vietnamese teachers could take over the subjects when the volunteer left

James Edwards, the second volunteer from VSO, is a quite young English “teacher” (aged

21) He almost had very little teaching experience and he arrived in Vietnam for the first time He was asked to team-teach with some Vietnamese teachers for skill subjects (such as: Speaking or Writing) or Pronunciation He left Nghe An Teacher Training College in

2009 The interviews with these volunteers were conducted last year for other study of mine at college-level I still kept the records and transcripts of these interviews and used for this study

Of the Vietnamese teachers interviewed, Mai Anh, Hiển, Thanh, Vân, Liên, Châu are eran teachers while Nguyên is an inexperiened teacher They were asked to team-teach together Their background details can be seen in Table 1

vet-Table 1-The Participants’ Information

No Name Gender Country Age Subject Team-teaching

male

female female female female female female female male

England

Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam England

Adopting an interview-based qualitative method, two data-collection instruments were

em-ployed for this study In-depth interview technique is used as the main method to collect

data for the study in order to achieve a holistic understanding of the team-teachers’point of

views, perspectives and attitudes towards team-teaching as a tool for professional growth

Besides, classroom observation is also used to triangulate the data

2.4.1 In-depth interview

There are many kinds of interviews Hitchcock (1989:79) lists 8 types: structured view, survey interview, counselling interview, diary interview, life history interview, eth-nographic interview, informal/unstructured interview and conversational interview Cohen and Manion (1994:273), however, prefers to group interviews into 4 types including the structured interview, the unstructured interview, the non-directive interview, and the fo-cused interview Some other researchers only name 3 main types of interviews: structured interview, semi-structured interview and unstructured interview

inter-According to many qualitative researchers, in-depth interviews are useful when the searcher wants detailed information about a person’s thoughts and behaviours or want to

re-explore issues in depth “The primary advantage of in-depth interviews is that they provide

much more detailed information that what is available through other data collection thods, such as survey They also may provide a more relaxed atmosphere in which to col- lect information-people may feel comfortable having a conversation with researcher to share their ideas” (Prairie Research Associates, 2001, p.12)

me-The semi-structured interviews were designed with open-ended questions me-There were three main questions for all interviews: (i) the benefits of team-teaching in terms of profes-sional development; (ii) the barriers to team-teaching and (iii) suggestions for improve-ment towards team-teaching When the researcher interviewed the English volunteers and Vietnamese teachers, their background (university major and teaching experience ) was also investigated to enrich the interviewing information Each interview lasted around 1 hour All the interviews were conducted both in English (for British volunteers) and in Vi-etnamese (for Vietnamese teachers) then were recorded by audio-taped and translated and transcribed for the purpose of analysis (For the guiding questions for in-depth interviews, see Appendix 1; for the in-depth interview transcript, see Appendix 2)

2.4.2 Classroom observation

To support and check the reliability of the data collected from in-depth interviews, room observations were also employed The purpose of classroom observations is to obtain information on teachers’ actual team-teaching practice as well as the atmosphere in the classroom; their partnership and the role of each teacher in the team-teaching classes Be-sides, this technique can help researcher observe the students’ feelings, attitudes, and be-

class-haviour in team-teaching lessons Thus, classroom observations can also help the

research-er give conduct effective post-obsresearch-ervation intresearch-erviews with appropriate questions

The classroom observations were carried out in three stages: before the class, during the class, and after the class In before-class stage, the researcher focused on making contact with team-teachers to know the teachers’ teaching objectives, the class size and the subject

In during-class stage, the observations were aimed at the team-teachers’ teaching tion, the teaching skills that teachers had learned from team-teaching were transfered into their classroom as well as the attitudes of students During the classroom observations, ex-tensive field notes were made of all the observed events in the classroom In after-class stage, the researcher concentrated on interviewing the critical issues arising from the ob-served lessons, as well as the issues related to team-teaching ( For the classroom observa-tion checklist, see Appendix 3)

interac-2.5 Data-collection procedures

Firstly, the researcher contacted with teachers who had the most experience in teaching to ask for the permission to conduct the classroom observations and in-depth in-terviews

team-As mentioned above, the interviews with two volunteers from VSO and their team-mates were conducted last year for other study of hers at college-level The researcher still kept the interview transcripts and used for this study

The other interviews and classroom observations were carried out during the second term

of the school year of 2009-2010

Each pair of team-teachers were observed three times (three lessons per pair) The teachers were not comfortable with their lessons beings video or audio recorded and so extensive field-notes were made of all the observed events in the classroom After each classroom observation, the interviewees were invited to go into the lab and have face-to-face inter-view The semi-structured interviews lasted around one hour and were recorded They fo-cused on critical issues arising from classroom observations as well as issues related to team teaching as a means for teacher development These teachers had class once a week

At the end, the researcher had total 15 class observations field-notes and 15 records of depth interviews These records were then transcribed for data analysis The data tran-scripts consisted of 15 pages for field notes and 50 pages for interviews

in-2.6 Data analysis

Once the researcher had obtained all the data transcripts from field-notes of 15 class vations and in-depth interviews, she had them typed on separate papers The researcher then read all information carefully, coded the different topics The data was repeatly read and important topics were grouped; then some ways by which teachers improved their professional growth gradually took shape Lastly, the researcher generalized all the most important themes emerging from the data These themes were presented in order of sa-lience based on the number of mentions in the data The researcher has attempted, as far as possible, to use the words of the team-teachers in the discussion rather than trying to in-terpret underlying intentions In other words, the researcher’s aim has been to let the team-teachers speak for themselves

obser-In summary, in this chapter the setting of the study, the participants, the data-collection instruments, the data-collection procedures and data-analysis have been described and the research questions have also given.

CHAPTER III: FINDINGS, DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter presents the majors findings of the study and discussion and proposes some

recommendations for both administrators and team-teachers

3.1 Major Findings

Together with classroom observations, the transcripts of in-depth interviews were analysed and two salient themes emerged from this data

3.1.1 Teachers’ professional development enhanced through team-teaching

Ways in which teachers developed or improved were varied and numerous, depend on “the teachers’ own desire and motivation to continue learning” (Head & Taylor, 1997)

To make the findings clear, the researcher will divide the first finding into two sections: (i) Teachers’professional development enhanced through team-teaching between English vo-lunteer teachers and Vietnamese teachers, and (ii) Teachers’ professional development fos-tered through team-teaching between Vietnamese and Vietnamese teachers

3.1.1.1 Teachers’ professional development enhanced through team-teaching between English volunteer teachers and Vietnamese teachers

Despite the differences among the teachers in age, culture and experience, and even ing styles, all were united by a desire to implement the team-teaching effectively The 6 domains of second language teacher education, identified by Richards (1998) were taken into consideration when finalizing the areas of professional development of team-teachers Five areas of professional development were generated by analyzing 15 transcripts of field-notes from classroom observations and in-depth interviews from 9 team-teachers as fol-lows:

teach-► Experience-sharing and knowledge-widening

► Improved teaching skills

► Enhanced communicative skills

► Developed cooperative-teaching

► Language improvement However, these generated professional development areas might overlap with each other because teachers’ professionalism today consists of various factors that cannot be clearly delineated, partly due to what an American educational philosopher Cremin (1989) calls

“politicizing education”

Experience-sharing and knowledge-widening

Sharing experience and widening the knowledge (including knowledge of subject matter, culture, beliefs and institution ) seemed to be the most popular ways in which teachers from different ethnic backgrounds strove to further their professional development This is illustrated by the following quotes from team-teachers:

“ Working in this way, we were able to make our lessons more effective because we usually had “double vision” For example, as a Vietnamese teacher, I tended to know Vietnamese students’ needs and problems better than the volunteer, but the volunteer provided valuable and interesting information about British life that I lacked ” (Châu, Vietnamese teacher)

“ In English Literature, I had more understanding of the content of what we had to teach Chris was really an expert in this field, he had a lot of teaching materials and sources of information and he shared with me When I found difficult in undestanding some concepts, I could consult him We exchanged, discussed and by that way, I learnt more and more ” (Liên, Vietnamese teacher)

“ As a non-native English speaking teacher I felt more confident when I worked with a native speaker in the course of British Studies This was because he could act as a more reliable resource for knowledge about culture and linguistics aspects of this subject ” (Châu, Vietnamese teacher)

“ Another area where Vietnamese teachers have the upper hand is in their knowledge

of institutional culture and goals They are familiar with the administrative framework They know what to expect from and how to deal with management, colleagues, and students They understand the system of examinations which may be different from my country’s This awareness of norms not only enables them to analyse students’ needs better but also helps me to avoid the kind of institutional culture shock ” (Chris,

English volunteer teacher)

Thus, a better understanding to students might lead to a better teaching method, and the

frequent exchange of experience between colleagues in cross-cultural context enriched the

knowledge and skills of both teachers

“ My Vietnamese teacher and I met after each class to evaluate the lesson After teaching a section, we talked on the way home about what had seemed to work well and what had not We commented on the parts that students had seemed to understand well and parts in which they had not done satisfactory Then we talked about neccessary changes for the following lessons At the end of the course, we both assessed the students and exchanged ideas about the outcomes of the course ” (James, English volunteer teacher)

And other English volunteer teacher commented:

“ I sometimes had challenge in explaining difficult concepts for students to understand My Vietnamese team-mates could have different ways of explaining things which made it easier for students to understand, or even could translate them into Vietnamese This is particilarly useful in British Studies and English Literature, in which some of the material was quite complex ” (Chris, English volunteer teacher)

Improved teaching skills

According to Richards (1998), one of the domains of teacher’s professional development is

“teaching skills and methods” including such skills and knowledge as: (i) to master

teach-ing skills (i.e questionteach-ing skills, classroom management, lesson plannteach-ing ); (ii) to

devel-op competence in using one or more language teaching methods (i.e communication

lan-guage teaching method ); and (iii) to be able to adapt teaching skills and approaches to new situations (p.15) Surely, for teachers who often work alone or teach independently, team-teaching provides a supportive environment that overcomes the isolation of working

in self-contained or departmentalized class-rooms Being exposed to the subject expertise

of colleagues, to open critique, to different styles of planning and organization as well as methods of class presentation, teacher can develop their approaches to teaching and ac-quire a greater depth of understanding of the subject matter of the unit or module This is illustrated by the following quotes from the excerpts:

“ Team-teaching helps me integrate various teaching methods and make good use of them to motivate the students in classes ” (Châu, Vietnamese teacher)

“ The shared responsibility and action helped me as a Westerner understand more about Vietnamese students’ needs, culture and previous learning experiences, and thus

to know why some ideas worked and other did not For example, they were used to students who could work very independently and often not prepared the lessons for that fact that Vietnamese students tend to need a lot more teachers’ guidance Working with

a Vietnamese teacher made me aware of this, so she could make suitable preparations and plan more guided activities ” (Chris, English volunteer teacher)

“ Other thing that was beneficial about it was that it was able to work with different teacher in the same classroom The class was easily controlled and there was time for

us to meet with individual students, especially when I’m a “stranger” here ”(James, English volunteer teacher)

As a Vietnamese teacher said that “conducting class in English” and “teaching English through English”, especially with native English speaking teachers is a good way to im-prove the students’ language competence

There are other ways in which teacher enhance their teaching skills by “letting go off some of (my own) teaching ideas, in favour of the experience of Vietnamese teachers of English and (I have realized that) it is important to always stay open to new ways of doing

things and reassess (my own) methodologies” (Chris, English volunteer teacher)

Improved communicative skills

According to Richards (1998), among some areas of professional development, nicative skills” is a key one and it means “to develop effective communicative skills as a basic for teaching” (p.15) This area involved some things as follows: creating relaxing at-mosphere; promoting students’ motivation; establishing rapport with students; establishing rapport with colleagues; discipline As team-teachers noted that team-teaching can help them create an relaxing atmosphere:

“ It was fun there’s more relaxing atmosphere in class At the same time, they’re much livelier classes We were able to reinforce eachother’s teaching and fill in gaps for the other If one of us forgot something or had trouble explaining something, the other was on hand to help It made learning more enjoyable, easier in that sort of environment ” (James, English volunteer teacher)

“ by team-teaching I could learn the way to make students relaxed and make a good atmosphere in class We could talk to students with humor and with smile ”(Chris, English volunteer teacher)

By “creating relaxing atmosphere”, team-teaching between two teachers from diferent

cul-tures can promote students’ motivation They realized that “this is a good way to keep

stu-dents’ attention, and interest level up” and they believed that “the students could also efit from seeing teachers’ collaboration, which some of students may not see in their regu- lar, single-teacher classroom”

ben-Thanks to team-teaching with Vietnamese teachers, English volunteer teachers asserted that they could foster their profession development by establishing rapport with students and colleagues

“ when team-teaching with Vietnamese teacher, I understand my students better, thus I can establish a good relationship with them ” (James, English volunteer teacher)

“ At a personal level, team-teaching made me feel less isolated Before team-teaching,

I had worked very much on my own and had had little contact with other teachers Working closely with a Vietnamese teacher helped me involved in the department and become better acquainted with other teachers ” (Chris, English volunteer teacher)

Different ideas about discipline from different cultures co-exist in a Vietnamese classroom where the traditional way of discipline for students is collapsing

“ Being in a situation when I am sometimes not significantly older than my students I’m teaching means I often have had difficulty in finding a comfortable method of discipline I find I build a good rapport and relationship with my students but find it hard to draw the line of authority (especially in Vietnam where discipline is approached differently to how I experienced in school) I would like to find ways to discipline

without compromoting my relationships with the students I am slowly learning by observing the methodology of my partner ”(James, English volunteer teacher)

Developed cooperative-teaching

As noted by teachers from two different cultures, team-teaching can enhance their sional development by sharing responsibilities and helping each other Some team-teachers stated:

“ Team-teaching is a good idea I like that we can pull each their strengths I have gained knowledge from my partners ” ( Liên, Vietnamese teacher)

“ It is an effective strategy for teaching large groups of students It is a method for teachers to collaborate in generating ideas Two heads are always better than one! ” (James, English volunteer teacher)

“ I strongly believe that : when responsibility is shared, stress is reduced One is not alone and isolated shouldering the sole responsibility for the successful learning of all the students ” (Châu, Vietnamese teacher)

In a similar manner, an English volunteer teacher mentioned as following:

“ I feel it is good, because I got a great partner Whenever the class did not

understand what the first teacher was talking about, the second would clarify for students ”(James, English volunteer teacher)

Language improvement

According to the six domains of second language teacher education proposed by Richards (1998), the domain “Language Improvement” is a part of the domain “Communication Skills” and is obviously for non-native speaking teachers only Richards states: “Presum-

ably one needs to attain a certain threshold level of proficiency in a language to be able to teach effectively in it, and activities addressing language proficiency are often a core com-

ponent of many SLTE [Second Language Teacher Education] programs” (p.7)

Most Vietnamese teachers when team-teaching with English volunteer teachers said that they could improve their professional development by language improvement because

team-teaching with English teachers helped them “make personal efforts everyday”; and they could “be an eternal language learner”, “try to be like a native speaker” and “become

a good language learner model for students” Thus, the way to extend professional

devel-opment is to look for opportunities to practise the target language

“ By exchanging ideas, discussing together and co-planning, I could practise the language everyday with a native-speaking teacher (English teacher) ”(Hiển, Vietnamese teacher)

“ In the field of language use, few of Vietnamese teachers can compete with native- English speaking teachers even if their language competence is very high or near- native The knowledge of English is often from books rather than direct contact with authentic sources ” (Liên, Vietnamese teacher)

“The good learner model” is considered the strength of non-native teachers (Roberts,

1998), as Widdowson (1992) states the differences between native speaking teachers and non-native speaking teachers: “Although native speaking teachers obviously have the more extensive experience as English language users, the non-native speaking teachers have had experience as English language learners” (p.338)

3.1.1.2 Teachers’ professional development fostered through team-teaching between Vietnamese and Vietnamese teachers

The Vietnamese team-teachers were from the same culture so they have some ties such as: they know each other, and they know their students’ needs and culture well There are two pairs of team-teachers: the first pair is the team-teaching between a veteran teacher and an inexperienced teacher, and the second pair is between two veteran teachers Like the benefits from team-teaching between English teachers and Vietnamese teachers, team-teaching between two Vietnamese teachers can give some benefits in term of profes-sional development Some areas of professional development were mentioned: (i) sharing experience and knowledge, (ii) teaching methods and skills; (iii) sharing responsibilities and helping each other; and (iv) communicative skills

opportuni-Experience sharing and knowledge widening

Vietnamese team-teachers said that if a single teacher had limitations of knowledge, skills,

attitudes and habits, the team-teaching provided them a “supportive environment in which

two teachers can share experience and knowledge, teacher strenghs are combined and weaknesses are remedied” (Mai Anh) Inexperiened teacher can be observed, critiqued and

improved by her team-mate (a veteran teacher) in a non-threatening, supportive context Huberman (1993) has characterized the beginning stage of teacher professional develop-ment as “a period of survival and discovery” (p.3) during which beginning teachers must face the challenges of their teaching career, such as “emotional and psychological stress”,

“the lack of support”, and “conceptual struggles about teaching and learning” (Wang & Odell, 2002, p.514) As a consequence, they may seek help from other teachers, especially, from veteran teachers Team-teaching is a good way for them to improve their profession,

as a beginning teacher said:

“ I’m a young teacher so I don’t have much experience in teaching and team-teaching

At first, I thought this was a hard work and I felt very anxious However, after a rather long time of working together I think team-teaching helps me feel more confident about

my professional competence ” (Nguyên, Vietnamese teacher)

And she added:

“ Through team-teaching with a veteran teacher, I have opportunities to learn, grow and move along life’s professional and psychological pathways ”(Nguyên, Vietnamese teacher)

Being open to accept or to ask for feedback from their partner has also helped some perienced teachers to improve their practice Also, an open attitude to learn from peers is a key element for professional development

inex-And the veteran teacher said that a good way to further her professional development is by helping other teachers, especially the beginning teachers

“ I think I tried to foster my professional development by helping another inexperienced teacher Nguyên is a quite young English teacher and she had no experience in team-teaching, even in teaching However, she is an enthusiastic, active and very humorous teacher and during the time of co-planing, co-teaching and co- evaluating we share our experience and we all grow as professionals ”(Mai Anh, Vietnamese teacher)