PGCE PROCESS WORK UNIT 2 TASK 1
List the Problems Faced by the English Teachers in the Video clip: Teachers TV (2006a) programme, Wider Horizons - Four Go to Kenya
What were the challenges that the four English teachers faced in teaching Kenyan students?
Why did they find the experience unsettling?
The problems faced by the four teachers during their work in Kenya were:
The pupils in Kenya were used to learning by rote and the English teachers did not teach in this way.
The pupils in Kenya were not used to being asked questions so were unresponsive and reserved when it came to answering the questions posed by the English teachers. It was however, interesting to see how the younger pupils reacted to their own teacher when he posed questions.This Kenyan Primary school teacher had a different approach which seemed more akin to that adopted by the English teachers in their own school. The younger Kenyan children were responsive to their teacher.
The English teachers themselves had expressed their own anxieties about teaching at the Kenyan school and felt uncertain of their own abilities to teach these pupils. It is possible that these insecurities came across during the lessons and this may also have contributed to the Kenyan pupils’ reservedness in responding to and answering questions posed by the English teachers.
Although it was mentioned that lessons were conducted in English at this Kenyan school it was also mentioned that English was not their first language. I observed that the Kenyan teachers in the video spoke in a slower, more deliberate way and in heavily accented English. The pupils may not actually have understood everything the English teachers said as they spoke more quickly and had regional accents.
It was mentioned and observed in the video that the Kenyan pupils had a strict code of behaviour which they observed. They were shown to be very quiet and respectful of authority and the English teachers, by their own admission, were not used to this in their own school.
The English teachers referred to the short attention span of their own pupils and the fact that their pupils expected to be entertained in their lessons. The English teachers were shown to use resources to illustrate the information they were trying to get across to the Kenyan pupils e.g. the torch and the globe to demonstrate the sun’s intensity. This use of resources seemed alien to the Kenyan pupils.
The English teachers were not prepared for the fact that Kenyan pupils were not used to critiquing each other’s work and did not respond well to this or to discussion .
I believe the teachers found the experience unnerving because they were not prepared for the different way in which the Kenyan pupils responded to them and their teaching methods. They had apparently not studied the Kenyan educational system or the culture prior to their visit. They were used to spending time getting their own pupils to be quiet and were unprepared for the disciplined and quiet, respectfulness of the Kenyan pupils or their concentration spans which the English teachers admitted were much greater than those of their own pupils.
‘There was lots of teaching but not much learning .... We want assertive and confident people'. How far did you agree with the conclusions drawn by the four English teachers about their experiences?
I don’t believe that the English teachers could measure what the Kenyan pupils had learnt merely by observing the fact that their normal style of teaching was didactic. They reached this conclusion based upon the way the Kenyan pupils responded to the English teachers’ own teaching methods. These methods were clearly different from those the Kenyan pupils were used to.
Just because the English teachers did not necessarily get the response they expected from the Kenyan pupils does not, in my opinion, qualify them to make such a sweeping value judgement on what the Kenyan pupils learnt either in the English teachers’ lessons or in the course of their usual studies at the school.
There could have been many reasons why the Kenyan pupils did not appear as confident or outspoken as the English pupils in the school where the English teachers normally taught. There are cultural differences to be taken into account. It was evident that the Kenyan pupils had a strict code of behaviour that was expected and that they were not called upon or expected to give their opinion as a rule in class, as was evidenced by the interview with the Kenyan teacher. Therefore, it might have been considered a mark of disrespect in the school culture that these pupils were educated in to voice their opinion.
The English teachers assumed that, because the pupils didn't voice their opinion, they didn't have one and were incapable of critical thinking. We do not know what evidence they had to base this remark on other than their brief experience at the school. What, for example, were the Kenyan students’ test results like? Mention was made of the fact that the Kenyan pupils had to pass their end of year tests before they could graduate to the next class, so presumably some, if not all, the Kenyan students were indeed learning what was asked of them.
Write about the difficulties involved in transferring teaching techniques from one teaching culture to another.
In my opinion there are many differences involved in transferring teaching techniques from one culture to another, some of which I have already mentioned in relation to the video extract of the English teachers’ experience in a Kenyan school. We live in a multicultural society and even within one classroom there are often many different nationalities.
Each country has its own inherent beliefs, moral and ethical codes to which it adheres. These evolve over the course of time and are influenced by many different factors for example; governmentally policies, resources, environmental issues, to name but a few. I feel it is important to acknowledge the fact that there are these differences and that some countries’ values are more deeply embedded in tradition than others.
Another consideration is the fact that, even within different cultures, some individuals observe these codes more than others. Teachers need to be sensitive to these differences which will inevitably present challenges both in the lesson planning stage, and delivery of the lessons.
The Qatari Case makes reference to some of the aims of international education below stating that:
“…international education adopts a curriculum that espouses a philosophy built around the following concepts and values: universal mindedness, awareness and empathy, cultural tolerance and the respect of other’s behavior and views, open mindedness, flexibility of thinking, neutrality, and universal affiliation” (Allan, 2002; Hayden et al. 2000; Hayden and Thompson, 1996, cited in Baker and Kanan 2005, p 334)
The above quote, in my opinion, is a model that teachers should try to embrace but, to achieve all these values in a multi-cultural society, is difficult; transferring teaching techniques from one country to another makes the values even harder to achieve. In order to attempt to do so I feel it is essential for some dialogue to be established between the teaching faculties in the different countries so that there is a greater appreciation of the cultural differences and teaching methods implemented. I feel that it is necessary for teachers in other countries to pool ideas and work together to try to respect the cultural diversity that exists, whilst at the same time endeavouring to find the best methods to bridge the gaps that may be present as a result. In this way teachers can attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the cultural differences and try to find ways of adapting their teaching in order to best facilitate the learning process for the pupils.
Bibliography
Baker, A. M. and Kanan, H. M. (2005) International mindedness of native students as a function of the type of school attended and gender. Journal of Research in International Education 4(3): 333-349.
Teachers TV (2006a) Wider Horizons - Four Go to Kenya [video online]. Retrieved from: http://www.teachers.tv/videos/wider-horizons-four-go-to-kenya [accessed 3 February 2011].
[Teachers TV videos now available at: http://schoolsworld.tv/videos/].
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