![]()
1
Introduction: Innovation and Implementation of Change
Ken Hyland and Lillian L. C. Wong
Innovation and change in language education has been a subject of interest for both teachers and researchers since the early days of English language teaching. Driven by professional dissatisfaction with the status quo in local contexts or, increasingly, by the imperatives of quality audits and external course assessments, questions concerning the design, implementation and maintenance of innovation and change are, perhaps more than ever before, of central concern to teachers. As a result, there have been many initiatives by teachers, researchers and administrators to create and manage teaching and learning more effectively. Despite this interest, however, research does not seem to filter down to practitioners in a way which always allows them to draw on this activity to inform their own work. This book addresses this need by providing a clear and comprehensive introduction to the theoretical and research issues that inform this area and, at the same time, ground the discussion in practical examples of implementation. It brings together an impressive array of experts from around the world who, in a series of specifically commissioned chapters, link theory and practice in ways which illustrate both the findings of research and the processes of innovation and change in different domains of language education.
Innovation and change
Change seems to be a constant in our professional lives as teachers. There is almost a continuous progression of modifications to our current situation, sometimes improving matters and sometimes not, sometimes having beneficial effects, and at other times worsening things. But change can be unplanned and chaotic, a random process that occurs to us rather than being controlled by us and for this reason some observers prefer to talk of innovation, a process which āimplies some deliberation and consciousnessā (Kennedy, 1996: 4). Constructive change involves an aim, which makes innovation a key part of the process of educational change, initiating and driving change in many different areas.
According to Rogers (2003: 12), an innovation is āan idea, practice, or object perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoptionā. Novelty resides in perception; how something is seen by teachers, headmasters, administrators or others involved in its implementation. Sometimes these are mandated from above by policy-makers in government offices and at other times by classroom practitioners trying something new to make their students more active or their lessons more effective. As the contributors to this book make clear, such innovations can appear in a variety of guises and at various levels of performance. They are found in classrooms, materials and exam halls, and in the heads of teachers, in-service trainers, planners, policy-makers, materials developers and curriculum designers.
Rogers also talks of ādiffusionā to denote the process through which an innovation is communicated and made real. This is how those at the sharp end learn about innovations and attempt to understand them and put them into practice, however expertly or clumsily. It is where innovation becomes change and we can see the fruits of novelty. As our authors make clear, however, the stages through which innovation might move can be messy, with reinterpretations and additions made along the way which accommodate individual preferences, institutional ideologies and fiscal necessities. Teachers get different versions of the same story and are motivated to different degrees. Innovation, in other words, does not always mean change, or at least the kind of change that may have been intended. It is successful to the extent that targeted clients are reached, informed and persuaded to buy into it. Not all teachers are ready for change and not all institutions are prepared to support it. Stories of failed innovations are legend and the literature groans with detailed case studies where innovations are either unsuccessful or have limited effect.
In this book, we have tried to offer readers a range of different ways of thinking about innovation in English languge education, and different methods of investigating the impact of innovation. One theme that does recur in different guises throughout the book, however, is the importance of teacher-initiated innovation, and the practical difficulties associated with fostering this kind of bottom-up perspective. We hope this emphasis is welcomed by teachers who read the volume and who may not, for the moment at least, be in a position to influence or participate in top-down decision-making on innovation. Ultimately, however, it is the EFL teacher who decides what innovations find their way into the classroom: how new methods are implemented, new technologies deployed and new textbooks used. Innovations can, and should, be supported from above and forced through by clear policies, adequate funding and professional development initiatives, but if teachers have not fully embraced the concepts, then the innovation will die.
Some readers may wonder why this introduction does not attempt to more explicitly set the scene for the current state of ELT provision in the world, why it does not outline what the existing literature agrees to be the main features that need to be considered by those planning innovation and seeking to initiate change to such provision. It would, of course, be a useful undertaking to provide a checklist of innovations so that educators could just tick off what was needed. We are, however, unsure how to characterize the way ELT is offered worldwide and doubt this is even possible. The case studies in the book show a tremendous diversity in contexts, provision, expertise, resources and so on, which defy such simple characterization. Context is one of the key terms which inform this book and local conditions have a central locus of innovation which occurs in every one of the following chapters. It is not possible to establish a generic, universal yardstick by which to evaluate changes. Instead, we prefer to let the discussions and reflections by each author speak for themselves and allow readers to draw their own conclusions about what is relevant to them.
What we learn from these chapters is that only if change agents recognize the complexity and importance of local situations can innovations be successfully introduced and sustained. What is also clear is the systemic and holistic nature of educational change: that underpinning successful change, at any level, is the fact that the parts are interdependent and inseparable. It is futile, as many innovators have found, to change just one aspect of a national policy, institutional plan, classroom approach or beliefs of one group. Stakeholders need to ālearn changeā together.
As editors, we believe that a better understanding of change, and the processes of change, will help teachers, administrators and policy-makers to implement more effective innovations, and this view is shared by the contributors to this volume. The authors are all established experts, well-published in their fields and bringing to the book a measured sense of what potential different innovations have and how they might develop. While predominantly āWesternā, many of these contributors have spent years working overseas and several have collaborated with a ānon-Westernā coauthor to cover a dozen different countries. There is, however, a certain emphasis on South East Asian countries, as this is where many of the exciting attempts at innovation and change are happening, given increased funding by governments and attempts to break away from traditional teaching and assessment methods which have dominated the region for decades.
Each author focuses on a different area of innovation and change and provides a state-of-the-art review of the key ideas and concepts about that area, reflecting on how innovation has been conceived of and change undertaken. Where relevant, we have asked authors to include a case study of research to illustrate the points they are making, setting out in an accessible way the challenges, pitfalls and opportunities that educational innovations can present in particular instances of implementation. We have also asked authors to provide a reflection on their case study, considering its value and wider significance. Each chapter, therefore, offers an attempt to conceptualise, synthesise and illustrate what is meant by innovation in that field. The chapters conclude with annotated recommendations for further readings on the topic discussed.
Theoretical discussion is therefore set alongside case studies. In this way we hope to not only provide a sense of coherence to the volume, but also to encourage readers to think consistently in terms of applications and, while reflecting on conceptual dimensions of innovation, to understand these in terms of concrete examples.
Structure of the book
The book is divided into four sections with four or five chapters in each. The first introduces key ideas and perspectives on innovation and change in language education. Here the principles, models, contexts, cultures and management of change are presented and discussed. Section Two explores how change is initiated and implemented in teacher education and the effects this can have on teachersā thinking, practices and self-conceptions. In Section Three, the authors investigate and illustrate aspects of innovation and change in the language curriculum, looking respectively at innovation in language policy and at primary, secondary and higher education in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the US, Australia and other contexts. Section Four brings ideas about change down from these broad areas of planning and curriculum innovation to show what it means in particular contexts of practical implementation. Here, the focus is on the classroom, the development of materials and the introduction of technology to teaching. We have, then, sought to shape a movement from theoretical frameworks, through teacher training to curriculum to classroom practice, focusing on a variety of areas in a range of different ways, from detailed analysis of individual exchanges in the classroom, to overviews of large-scale decision-making at governmental level.
Section One seeks to define change and introduce the principal ideas and concepts which are central to understanding it in educational contexts. In Chapter 2, Chris Kennedy discusses models of change and argues that innovation projects often fail because they follow simplistic linear views. Instead, he proposes that models should be informed by a view of change as processes that continue to develop over time rather than have a definite start and end point. He stresses that we need to understand the central role of context in effecting change and the influence of social-psychological theories of behaviour, including the importance of cognition, attitudes, beliefs and social influences, to integrate relevant theories of behaviour into models of change. In this way, it should be possible to develop models that guide the implementation of change rather than seek to determine it. Drawing on examples, he explores the extent to which change in ELT has been influenced by such models, and whether best practice can suggest other aspects to be included in developing models of change.
Numa Markee takes up the issue of context in more detail in Chapter 3. Building on Kennedyās (1988) earlier āonion skinā model of how various socio-cultural factors (cultural, political, administrative, educational and institutional) play in influencing classroom change, Markee focuses on more emic, or participant-oriented, accounts of context. Here, he reviews recent discussions of context in the applied linguistics and ethnomethodological literatures on talk-in-interaction, and shows how these perspectives may allow us to gain novel insights into how innovative a project on iterative curriculum design, implementation and evaluation carried out at an American university actually was.
In Chapter 4, Yafu Gong and Adrian Holliday again turn to the crucial issue of context and consider the major question of making curriculum change appropriate to the cultural makeup of the target setting. Rejecting common conceptualizations of ācontextā as essentialist and the ānative speakerā model as dependant on views which posit a deficient non-Western cultural Other, the authors present a critical cosmopolitan approach, taken from sociology, which recognises the positive contribution of wider cultural realities to curriculum renewal. The authors exemplify this through a case study of recent research into the attitudes of rural Chinese secondary school students to English language textbooks, revealing an inner cultural reality which connects with long-standing issues of authenticity and suggests a key to wider ranging curriculum renewal.
The final chapter in this section explores the difficulties involved in change management. Here Alan Waters and Maria Luz C. Vilches survey some key aspects of managing change, such as the structure of the change process, innovation design features and contexts, and implementation processes. They then go on to examine the application of these concepts in the management of a recent major ELT in-service initiative for teachers in the Philippines. By describing the projectās main features and the findings of research into its operation, they evaluate its success in terms of the literature reviewed in the first part of the chapter. They then draw conclusions for the management of change in ELT and how these conclusions might help teachers avoid some of the pitfalls of implementing change.
Section Two of the book contains four chapters which look at the implementation of change in teacher education and the possible consequences of this on teachersā identities and practices.
In Chapter 6, Karen E. Johnson discusses the most explicit form of developing teaching expertise: innovation through teacher education programmes. She points out that many of these programmes are predicated on sociocultural principles which understand cognition as originating in and shaped by engagement in social activities, and this requires us to critically examine how teachers are expected to engage in such programmes. She argues that we have to scrutinize the nature of the activities in teacher education programmes, the sort of assistance that is provided for teachers as they engage in these activities, and how participation supports and enhances the development of teaching expertise. She then shows how a restructured microteaching simulation in a TESL methodology course addresses these issues to create spaces for strategic mediation in teacher learning and opportunities for teachers to practise their emerging understandings of both pedagogical and subject matter concepts within authentic activities of teaching.
Another means of initiating change and innovation in teaching practices is through action-research, which Anne Burns explores in Chapter 7. Burns sees action research as a means of empowering teachers and enabling them to acquire deeper insights and understanding of their practices through a systematic approach that brings together classroom action, research and reflection. This chapter describes the central philosophies and principles informing action research as a research approach and describes the main steps, procedures and methods used in conducting action research. Addressing the criticisms and debates surrounding action research, she considers issues such as how feasible it is for teachers to carry out action research, the conditions which can encourage or hinder action research, and how action research promotes change in teaching practice. To illustrate these points, she draws on a case study from a recent project involving teachers on intensive English programmes for overseas students in Australia.
Kathleen M. Bailey and Sarah E. Springer examine the important issue of reflection in Chapter 8, focusing on reflective teaching as an example of an educational innovation. Here, they define reflective teaching as a collection of practices āin which teachers and student teachers collect data about teaching, examine their attitudes, beliefs, assumptions, and teaching practices, and use the information obtained as a basis for critical reflection about teachingā (Richards and Lockhart, 1994: 1). Drawing on Wallaceās (1991) three models of teacher development ā (1) the craft model, (2) the applied science model and (3) the reflective model ā they see reflective teaching as innovative because it is disseminated through grassroots means as well as through official channels and because it can lead to the development of teaching skills, greater awareness, and enhanced professional satisfaction.
In Chapter 9, Donald Freeman takes a very different perspective on the complexity of educational change, turning to look at teacher thinking, learning and identity in the process of change. His focus is the critical importance of how the process of change is framed, which, he argues, is central from both the standpoints of designing and implementing educational change projects and researching them. From this perspective, he examines three interrelated constructs: teacher thinking (Borg, 2006), professional learning (Freeman, 2002), and professional identity (Lortie, 1975), showing how these constructs contribute to and are constrained in the educational change process. Each of the constructs is elaborated historically, with reference to the recent literatures in second language teacher education and general education, and operationally, through reference to specific educational change projects. Taken together, he shows that the three constructs can map out key elements and so help us make better sense of the educational change process.
Section Three moves from innovation in teacher education to the broader level of curriculum change, examining the planning and implementation of large-scale policy innovations.
Joseph Lo Bianco opens this section with Chapter 10 by looking at innovation in language policy and planning, confronting the geo-political forces which seem to be driving language planning in countries across the globe. He sees an explosion of the actual practice of language planning almost everywhere, despite a decade or more of savage criticism of its methods, concepts and operations. He finds explanations for this in the increasingly closer integration of economies and laws in Europe, par...
