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THE PROBLEMS WITH CHANGING THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHER’S ROLE IN THE CONTEXT OF SHAPING A NEW EDUCATION PARADIGM (AS EXEMPLIFIED BY THE URAL FEDERAL UNIVERSITY)
T.P. Rasskazova Yu.R. Daminova A.D. Muzafarova
The article deals with the issues arising in the process of transition to new student-oriented paradigms in teaching foreign languages to adults connected with the necessity to review traditional teacher and student roles and caused by the lack of readiness of both parties to the educational process to such a shift.
Key words: the role of the teacher, adults learning a foreign language, student-oriented approach.
The strategic goal of the country's leading universities is to join the global scientific and educational space and to take part in the world rankings of higher education institutions, such as the QS World University Rankings. The internationalization of higher education requires, first and foremost, the development of academic mobility and the publishing activity of the higher educational institutions’ teaching staff. To attain those indicators, one must know a foreign language (first of all, English as a bridge language) at a level sufficient for carrying out academic activities, inter alia abroad. Increasing the rate of internationalization is impossible without assuring high efficiency of the foreign language teaching process. For that purpose, it must be modernized rapidly.
Ural Federal University (hereinafter UrFU) faced this same task in preparing the teaching staff for new standards of work in the international environment, improving the general level of English proficiency inside the university on a tight schedule. It became one of the tasks of the joint project between UrFU and Cambridge University. Within the framework of the project, 400 teachers and executives of UrFU underwent training in English courses aimed at passing Cambridge tests of various levels. The practical implementation of such a tremendous task and the creation of conditions promoting efficient learning of English were not devoid of certain difficulties. First and foremost, it was evident that English teachers themselves needed "modernization." In the case at hand, apart from readiness for the application of innovative methods and technologies in the sphere of foreign language instruction, we should speak of adaptation to new roles connected with the transition from traditional teaching to more student-centered teaching, whereby it is not the teacher as an authoritative source of information that becomes the center of the whole process, but the student who is transformed from an object (someone who is taught to) into a subject (someone who learns), and emphasis is shifted from teaching as a simple function of transmitting knowledge to learning [1,4],
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To solve this problem, we used the experience of Cambridge University and the well-tested practical program of retraining for teachers of English: 40 UrFU teachers underwent a CELTA (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) certification course in methods for teaching English to adults. Having been trained within the framework of functional methodology, within the framework of the project they had to reconsider their roles and faced the necessity of changing the functional approach for a role-based one. However, there are certain difficulties that complicate and slow down the process of adapting to new roles. In spite of the fact that Russia is not considered to be Soviet since the 1990s, it is impossible to deny the fact that education is a sector that rearranges itself and adapts to changes rather slowly. At any stage, education must weigh all the pros and cons of any changes because the adopted decisions and changes will subsequently impact the development of all other economic sectors. Twenty years is not a sufficient period for several generations of teachers to change so that new forms of teaching are adopted or the old ones reconsidered.
Overcoming the experience obtained in the process of their own training and adjusting themselves to a new model of teaching turned out to be a great challenge for many people. "The practice of a technocratic, not adaptive paradigm of training, being easier to display and manifest, makes itself known in those who were taught or brought up in this paradigm" [3, p. 11]. In Soviet times, speaking about the different functions of a teacher in the process of training, rather than his or her role, was a generally accepted approach to the idea of pedagogic activity. The concept of a role is by definition closer to the humanistic ideals forming the groundwork or contemporary education than the concept of a function that can be viewed as something "mechanistic" or inanimate. A function is unchangeable and it takes years to shape it, while a role is dynamic and by virtue of its purpose cannot be the same in the circumstances that arise at various stages of the educational process. In this regard, teachers need systemic restructuring, as they must first of all move from mechanic execution of functions to new forms of more flexible "behavior."
In other words, declaring readiness to employ new role positions is not the same as actual readiness to do it. As a result of a questionnaire survey of English teachers we performed, it was discovered that some teachers just never used the skills received in the process of professional retraining within the framework of the Cambridge project. Others find it difficult to realize them in actual circumstances, i.e., their wishes and abilities do not always coincide. Only the most innovative teachers were ready for the transitions. They were able to "play a role" temporarily - to make an analogy with the profession of actors: to come to the fore and to steal the scene in some circumstances and to withdraw into the shadows and play into a partner's hands. Those teachers can work as coaches and help others to master the mechanism of changing roles.
Many foreign (M.S. Knowles, E.F. Holton, R.A. Swanson, et al.) and Russian (V.I. Zagvyazinsky, E.F. Zeyer, N.O. Verbitskaya, et al.) scientists work in the field of the theory and methodology of teaching adults. Characteristic features of adult learners are known well. With regard to the positions of a teacher and a learner, it may be noted that "adults defend their rights to humanization of education more actively, they treat their educational practice more consciously, and they have a broader view of themselves as subjects of the educational process, not its
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objects... Adults preclude teachers from manipulating themselves and, because of their independence, treat the relations between a teacher and a learner more strictly and, at the same time, more calmly. However, it should be noted that unlike foreign andragogics, ours has not yet analyzed in detail the roles played by a teacher training adults, thus the problem of present-day Russian science’s unreadiness to prepare foreign language teachers to work in the modern educational environment and for realization of adults' personal potential in the process of training. In other words, the concepts of a teacher's role must be modernized. Foreign language teachers cannot limit themselves just to the functions of "quality inspectors" and sources of knowledge. Even if they got the idea of changing the roles of teachers and the need for that process, applying the skills they received can be protracted because students are also unprepared to change their roles to a more active position as someone who learns and not someone who is taught, to the independent search for knowledge.
This brings us to another problem: the students' unpreparedness to accept innovative methods and roles that are inconsistent with their stereotypes when teachers use them. Such a changeover is especially problematic for older students, whose stereotypes of passive behavior in the process of learning activities has become ingrained with years. Accepting a more active position in the process of education means greater responsibility for its results on the part of the student. By no means are all adult students ready for this. It is doubly harder for those students who are teachers themselves, and therefore have ingrained concepts of the algorithms of a teacher and a student's actions that are hard to change.
Within the framework of the experimental Cambridge project, the situation is made more complicated by the fact that the teaching staff of higher educational institutions is one of the most demanding audiences in the sphere of education. They are scientists and researchers that must communicate with their counterparts abroad, speak at conferences, perform scientific experiments, read lectures in English. They carry out such professional activities without sufficient knowledge of English and sometimes do not understand how much their level of language proficiency lags behind the international norms, where the В2+- С1 level by the European scale is a generally accepted requirement for students and employees of highly rated universities. The results of an opinion poll demonstrated that far from all trainees were pleased with the new approach to the organization of the education process, in spite of the unanimous positive assessment of both the course in general and its usefulness and efficiency. Many confessed that they lacked such components of a lesson as a "mini-lecture on grammar": explanation of grammatical forms by the teacher, generally accepted in the traditional practice of foreign language teaching, i.e., the habitual passive role, is the most convenient one for them, probably because it presumes application of lesser efforts and less active involvement.
Although the project aimed at teaching English to the UrFU teaching staff was successful in general and the trainees gave positive feedback, a questionnaire survey of the employees who studied English within the framework of the project brought to light a number of unsolved projects caused by the need for adaptation of all the educational process participants to new roles.
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At present, many scientists acknowledge the fact that the changing role of the teacher requires detailed development of technologies for practical application of innovative methods, and this, in turn, is impossible without the teacher mastering a whole range of roles and developing the skills of their changing in class.
The purpose of this article is to elicit the problems arising when a foreign language teacher who works with adult students changes his or her position from a functional position to a role position. This change is necessary to ensure greater student-centeredness of training. The authors tried to systemize the experience they gained within the framework of practical activity in the field of supplementary education for adults. The changing educational environments require that both the teacher and the student change their roles. Foreign language teachers must be a step ahead of everyone else in this respect, because by virtue of the specific nature of teaching and learning activity in the sphere of foreign language they bear responsibility for practical demonstration and dissemination of innovative pedagogical technologies.
Bibliography
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2. Вербицкая Н.О. Теория и технология образования взрослых на основе витагенного (жизненного) опыта: дис. док. пед. наук. - Екатеринбург, 2002.
3. Практическая андрагогика. Методическое пособие. Книга 1. Современные адаптивные системы и технологии образования взрослых / под ред. В.И. Подобеда, А.Е. Марона. -СПб.: ГНУ «ИОВ РАО», 2003. - 406 с.
4. Knowles M. S., Holton E. F., Swanson R. A. The adult learner. The Definitive Classic in Adult Education and Human Resource Development. - Burlington: Elsevier, 2005, 6th ed. - P. 150158.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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