Professional Development for Chinese National Teachers of English

Chinese native teachers of English often come from an English degree program without completing training in the education field and so lack some of the fundamental teaching knowledge. To add to this, many schools fail to encourage any form of professional development through lack of resources or incentives. A community of practice would fill this professional development void with the added benefit of reducing the feeling of isolation that teachers often have.

This paper will discuss and answer the following questions:

• What is the current state of professional development in schools?

• What conditions are needed for the professional development of English teachers?

• What is a community of practice?

• Is a learning community the same as 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?

There is a powerful sense of isolation felt by teachers the world over where teachers are the sage-on-stage of their individual classrooms (Triggs & John, 2004; Wubbels, 2007). Pressures on time and energy come from external and internal to the school where teachers feel there is no time for discussion, reflection or any form of professional development within their normal teaching day. To add to this, schools and universities observed in China (within Jiaxing, Zhejiang) have no infrastructure (such as time, resources or reward to allocate) for teachers to undertake professional development which is reflected in some of the literature from other nations (see Triggs & John, 2004; Wubbels, 2007).

There is an additional barrier between teachers, the practitioners of education, and educational researchers, the producers of theory and research. These two groups operate in very different discourse communities (Triggs & John, 2004). In other words, the two groups speak different languages (such as jargon) and therefore think in different ways. Chinese teachers have an additional language barrier as they have English as a second language making most educational research written in English far beyond their reach.

Conditions Needed for Professional Development

Triggs and John (2004) state that the following conditions need to be met before professional learning can 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

In addition to these because this is a second language setting, Krashen's (1982) theories of Affective Filter and Comprehensible Input need to be considered by:

• Having a relaxing, stress-free environment where communication mistakes are accepted (and not punished or pointed out in an embarrassing way) and its meaning is taken rather than the grammatical correctness

• Ensuring all relevant external knowledge (such as research) is broken down into simple, understandable English

These conditions emphasise the need for teachers to have contact with other teachers, native speakers (of English) and those able to rephrase educational research into comprehensible English in a community environment outside their own school (Triggs & John, 2004) in order to have productive conversations and build professional knowledge (Por, 2000). This could be provided by a community of practice with the practice of English language teaching being the primary focus.

The term community of practice was first used by Lave and Wenger (1991) to "refer to the process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions and build innovations" (Wubbels, 2007, p. 226). Communities of practice all share a basic structure, as follows:

• A Common Domain: Community members share a domain, theme or field of inquiry.

• A Community of People: Members build trust, relationships and leadership forming a community.

• A Shared Practice: Community develops a shared practice through members sharing knowledge, having productive conversations and participating in the community. This contains explicit and implicit knowledge and often described as the way we do things around here (Shreeve, 2007).

Learning in a Community of Practice

Nonaka and Toyama's (2003) knowledge creation schema describes the four steps of knowledge creation that occurs in a community setting (as cited in Wiessner & Sullivan, 2007).

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.

As Figure 1 depicts, people spontaneously come together under a common theme and build trust with each other. Once trust is established people are free to share tacit knowledge and begin to step through the knowledge creation scheme thereby developing a shared practice among all the community members. This shared practice (which is a form of collective intelligence) becomes internalised in each member.

Figure 1: Knowledge Creation within a Community of Practice.

Is a Learning Community the Same as a Community of Practice?

Since learning is an effect of participating in a community of practice, many authors state that the two are the same. However, Wubbels (2007) draws a distinct difference between a community of practice, whose main concern is the practice of professionals, and a learning community whose main concern is learning and the advancement of learners. A learning community has an active instructor introducing material from outside the community and encouraging thinking through questioning and project work. A learning community strongly resembles a community of practice, but contains a variety of learning and teaching techniques (such as modelling and scaffolding) creating a whole learning environment (Wubbels, 2007).

Addressing Conditions for Professional Development

Due to the nature, socialisation and trust-based relationships within the community, the environment is blame-free and relaxed where communication and knowledge sharing barely needs encouragement from the facilitator. However, there are special requirements for the facilitator of a community of this nature because the members are second language speakers themselves. A native English speaking facilitator with an English teaching background (and preferably up-to-date with language learning theory) would be the best choice. This facilitator/s would be relied on to bring external knowledge (from research) into the community in an understandable or experiential way. Also, to learn from experience and make use of others' knowledge, personal and group reflection needs to be added into the community's repertoire or shared practice.

Communities of Practice Don't Just Happen

A community of practice relies on the joint enterprise and activity of its members; without it the community dies. The community is like a living entity such as a tree naturally growing with the help of water and nurturing. Left to nature, the tree fights for survival, but within someone's garden being tended to, the tree thrives and continues to grow. The joint enterprise or activity of its members are at the roots of the tree. Without enough roots, the tree dies. Also, by fertilising and tending to the roots of the tree, the tree grows its tallest and healthiest.

Figure 2: The Naturally Growing Tree of a Community of Practice.

Therefore, to carefully attend to the roots of your community, activity and participation needs encouragement by:

• Combining synchronous or live events with asynchronous activity (Por, 1999);

• Staging high energy activities, such as games (Roth, 2005);

• Publicising and celebrating successes (Wenger, n.d.);

• Demonstrating the value of the community to members (Wenger, n.d.); and,

• Integrating into teachers lives by:

  • Having community goals aligned with individual professional development goals;

  • Not being too time consuming;

  • Having practices and documentation that is easily integrated into teachers' work; and

  • Having the community and its artifacts easy to access.

The community for Chinese native teachers would focus on three areas:

• English Learning: To improve teachers' English level and reflection on how they learn English themselves in order to convey that knowledge to their students.

• General Teaching Techniques: Topics including instruction techniques, learning theory and classroom management (amongst others).

• Language Learning/Teaching Techniques: Discipline specific topics regarding language acquisition to be demonstrated rather than explained to allow for experiential learning.

Chinese national teachers of English often come from an English language degree rather than a teaching degree, making the topics above possibly outside their current knowledge base. This means, for the teachers to get the best value from the community a learning community should be used. However, a learning community might assume the learners have little practical knowledge in teaching and fail to use or improve on existing practices. Therefore, the best solution for this community is one that combines a community of practice with a learning community to build upon existing practices while introducing new theories and external resources.

One of the main strategies for learning within the community would be experiential learning. To obtain the most value from this type of learning, the teachers should use personal or group reflection processes. Facilitators could encourage the reflection by asking reflective questions about the events just experienced.

Community Held Annual Unconference

Every year the teachers' community would hold a seminar in the style of an unconference, meaning participation of community members should be maximised.

The annual seminar was partly inspired by Beaufait's (2000) Japanese teacher professional development program.

Community Meetings

To encourage activity throughout the year a regular meeting would be held outside of school hours. This meeting would be fairly informal to encourage the members to relax and run their own content.

Teachers the world over feel the isolation of practice where teachers are the leaders of their own classes without interference or input from other teachers. This is also true in China where the infrastructure of institutions fails to encourage professional development efforts. Therefore, Chinese native teachers of English would require an external community to fulfill their professional development needs.

Motivation & Success Factors

Choi (2006) summarised the top five motivational factors for the success of communities of practice as follows:

1. Team members' desire for learning.

2. Creation of work related knowledge (and sharing expertise).

3. A strong relationship between the domain of the community and members' working life.

4. Trust among members for sharing of tacit knowledge.

5. Strong leadership traits in the facilitator/leaders.

The proposed community addresses these success factors and the conditions needed for professional learning by holding an annual unconference with full member participation and inspiring activities along with monthly community meetings. These will encourage activity by the members themselves thereby making the community's work relevant to its members' working lives.

Expected Results

This community should not only address the professional development needs of its members, but also reduce the sense of isolation that teachers often feel (as found in Triggs & John, 2004). Shared knowledge will combine into new understandings and internalised to form the community's shared practice and the betterment of the English teaching profession in China.