Professional Development

Community of Practice

for Chinese National English Teachers

Belinda Allan

University of Southern Queensland

Background

Professional development for Chinese teachers of English is left to the individual

• Schools don't actively encourage professional development
• Little to no reward for teachers' development efforts
• No infrastructure - time allowed, resources, etc.
• Bachelor of English graduates are hired as teachers
• Often no training in teaching techniques
• No training in teaching English as a second language (e.g. language acquisition, methodologies, etc)

Possible Solution

Through trust-based relationships and the process of social learning, Communities of Practice (CoP) inheritly create and share tacit knowledge and practice among its members creating a complete professional learning environment.

Overview

This presentation answers the following questions:

• What conditions are needed for the professional development of English teachers?
• What is a community of practice?
• How does a community of practice meet these professional development conditions?
• What would a community of practice look like for Chinese teachers of English?

Conditions for Professional Development

Conditions needed for professional learning to take place:

• A blame-free culture
• Ability to learn from all experiences (good and bad)
• Ability to make use of other members' knowledge and resources
• Encouragement to talk about learning (and teaching)
• Location and use of relevant knowledge from outside the community

Additional Conditions

Incorporate Krashen's Affective Filter and Comprehensible Input (because Chinese teachers are 2^nd language speakers of English) by:

• Having a relaxing, stress-free environment
  (accept grammatical mistakes)
• Breaking down complex English into understandable English

What is a CoP?

• Domain: Community members share a domain, theme or field of inquiry.
• Community: Members build trust, relationships and leadership forming a community.
• Practice: Community develops a shared practice through members sharing knowledge and participating.
• Joint Enterprise: Community of practice relies on the joint enterprise and activity of its members; without it the CoP dies.

Learning in a Community of Practice

Nonaka and Toyama's (2003) knowledge creation schema

1. Socialisation - members identify and generate tacit knowledge.
2. Externalisation - members convert tacit knowledge into explicit understandings.
3. Combination - members integrate explicit knowledge with each other to generate new explicit understandings.
4. Internalisation - individual members incorporate new understandings into tacitly held knowledge.

Learning in a Community of Practice

Meeting Professional Development Conditions

A Community of Practice can create:

• A relaxing, stress-free environment
  (accept grammatical mistakes)
• A blame-free culture
• Ability to learn from all experiences (good and bad)
• Ability to make use of other members' knowledge and resources

Meeting Professional Development Conditions

A skilled facilitator can provide:

• Encouragement to talk about learning (and teaching)
• Location and use of relevant knowledge from outside the community
• Break down of complex English into understandable English

Proposed CoP for Chinese Teachers

Focusing on 3 areas:

• English Learning - To improve teachers' English level.
• General Teaching Techniques - General teaching & learning topics.
• Language Learning & Teaching Techniques - Language acquisition theory and methodology.

Proposed CoP for Chinese Teachers

Community Held Annual Unconference

Proposed CoP for Chinese Teachers

Community Meetings

Benefits

• Professional development of Chinese teachers of English
• Reduce sense of isolation felt by teachers
• Improve community members' teaching careers