Challenges and possibilities in educating EFL reading teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5617/adno.5610Keywords:
teacher education, subject English, reading strategies, learning sequence, metacognitionAbstract
Abstract
Experiencing literature is part of the English as a foreign language (EFL) subject in Norway. It is both challenging and possible to educate competent reading teachers who can foster this experience. The present article is a thematic exploration of some of these challenges and possibilities. The challenges are discussed under four headings: the profession of the teacher educator; the complaint that student teachers do not read enough; the role of national tests in forming how reading in English is taught in school; and the challenge of making sense of the concept of reading strategies. The second part of the article considers possibilities. These are grounded in the principle that teacher educators should not primarily lecture. Instead, they should alternate systematically between enactment and metacognition. The article describes scenarios in which students try out a sequence of pre-, during- and post-reading activities related to the short story “The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen. After engaging with each activity, the students take part in a reflection led by the teacher educator on their experience as readers, the learning potential of the activity, and questions related to its adaptation and organisation in a diverse school classroom. This operationalisation of a pedagogy of enactment (Grossman et al., 2009) allows student teachers to gain experience of and reflect on core practices. In the present case, the core practice is the planning and teaching of coherent and motivating learning sequences that promote increased reading motivation and proficiency in the English language classroom.
Keywords: teacher education, subject English, reading strategies, learning sequence, metacognition
Utfordringer og muligheter i utdanningen av leselærere i engelskfaget
Sammendrag
Litteraturopplevelser hører til i engelskfaget i norsk skole. Det er både ut-fordrende og mulig å utdanne kompetente leselærere som kan fremme slike opplevelser. Denne artikkelen er en tematisk utforskning av noen av disse utfordringene og mulighetene. Utfordringene diskuteres under fire overskrifter: lærerutdanneren som profesjonsutøver; misnøyen med at studenter ikke leser nok; betydningen av nasjonale prøver for hvordan lesing i engelsk er undervist i skolen; og utfordringen med å forstå lesestrategier som konsept. Den andre delen av artikkelen tar for seg mulighetene som ligger i prinsippet om at lærer-utdannere ikke primært skal forelese. Isteden bør de veksle systematisk mellom utøvelse og metakognisjon. Artikkelen beskriver en sekvens hvor studenter prøver ut før-, under- og etter-lesningsaktiviteter tilknyttet Elizabeth Bowens novelle “The Demon Lover”. Etter å ha engasjert seg i hver aktivitet, deltar studentene i en refleksjon ledet av lærerutdanneren, hvor de drøfter sine opplevelser som lesere, aktivitetens læringspotensial, og spørsmål om tilpasning og organisering av aktiviteten i et mangfoldig klasserom. Denne operasjonaliseringen av en enactment-pedagogikk (Grossman et al., 2009) gir lærerstudenter anledning til å skaffe seg erfaring med og reflektere over kjerne-praksiser. I dette tilfellet er kjernepraksisen det å planlegge koherente og moti-verende læringssekvenser som fører til økt lesemotivasjon og kompetanse i det engelske klasserommet.
Nøkkelord: lærerutdanning, engelskfaget, lesestrategier, læringsøkt, metakogni¬sjon
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