Some General Notions of Pedagogical Practices

Pedagogic practices are defined by ^{Fierro et al. (1999)} as follows:

A social, objective and intentional praxis in which the meanings, perceptions and actions undertaken by the stakeholders (teachers, students, school authorities and parents) as well as the political, institutional, management and regulatory aspects shaping the teacher’s role are involved, according to the educational project of each country. (p. 21)

Moreover, ^{Huberman (1999)} conceptualizes the pedagogic practice with these words:

A conscious, deliberate and participatory process implemented by an educational system or an organization in an attempt to enhance performances and results, encourage the development for the renewal in academic, professional and labor fields and to cultivate the spirit of commitment of each person with society, especially with the community in which he or she is immersed. (p. 25)

Thus, for the purposes of this study, pedagogical practices can be conceptualized as a dialectic interaction between the English language teacher and the socio-cultural and educational setting which permeates the role he or she is expected to play in the language classroom.

Pedagogical Practices That Promote the Development of Communicative Competence

Based on the prior considerations, the importance of pedagogical practices can be enhanced in the English teaching and learning process since they serve as a source of information or inspiration to define the type of goals and objectives, and the type of procedures used to achieve them. In general terms, those goals can be form-oriented or meaning-oriented, which can be seen as a continuum from the so-called precommunicative activities to proper communication activities. According to ^{Littlewood (1998}, as cited in ^{Jaime Osorio & Insuasty, 2015}), “the first are based on accuracy and present structures, functions, and vocabulary; the latter focus on fluency and involve information sharing and exchange” (p. 50).

^{Jaime Osorio and Insuasty (2015)} contend that “the precommunicative activities are classified into structural activities and quasi-communicative activities” (p. 50). Whereas the structural ones are described as matching and practicing structures, the quasi-communicative ones are based on practicing communication and the structure of the language. Jaime Osorio and Insuasty also point out that “communicative activities are subdivided into functional activities and social interaction activities” (p. 51). In the functional communication tasks, learners’ interaction turns out to be less controlled and predictable. Social interaction activities, such as simulation and role play, go beyond the functional ones by adding a more clearly defined social context. Within these activities, the classroom itself is presented as another social context where learners and teachers engage in authentic discussions about different issues.

Reflective Teaching

Becoming a reflective teacher is a must for educators who want to improve the quality of the education they promote; it is also a challenge since teachers usually fall short in organizing their agenda to respond to the multiple tasks they face every day. ^{Murphy (2001)} points out that teachers may grow professionally in different ways which let them “look inward, both within themselves and within the courses they offer, to access information about what happens in their language classrooms” (p. 334). Moreover, ^{Gebhard and Oprandy (1999)} assert that one of the central reasons for being interested in reflective teaching is to “gain awareness of our teaching beliefs and practices” and to learn “to see teaching differently” (p. 4); in doing so, teachers would learn to take actions that allow them to enhance the quality of learning opportunities teachers promote in their classrooms. Murphy also claims that we should spend time and energy to develop understandings if we consider our continuing needs as teachers and the needs of the language learners we serve. Murphy poses three main purposes of reflective teaching: “(1) to expand one’s understanding of the teaching learning process, (2) to expand one’s repertoire of strategic options as a language teacher, and (3) to enhance the quality of learning opportunities one is able to provide in language classrooms” (p. 335).

There are several benefits a teacher can obtain when becoming a reflective practitioner. ^{Farrell (2003)}, for example, mentions four:

(1) Reflective teaching helps free the teachers from impulse and routine behavior. (2) Reflective teaching allows teachers to act in a deliberate, intentional manner and avoid the “I don’t know what I will do today” syndrome. (3) Reflective teaching distinguishes teachers as educated human beings since it is one of the signs of intelligent action. (4) As teachers gain experience in a community of professional educators, they feel the need to grow beyond the initial stages of survival in the classroom to reconstructing their own particular theory from their practice. (p. 20)

In the same sense, ^{Richards (2018)} suggests that for teacher development to take place throughout the critical reflection process, which is what actually happens when teaching reflectively, the teachers should rely not only on their experience but on the powerful mixture that is experience plus reflection. However, it is our understanding that the teacher’s reflection should not be seen as an isolated and individualistic adventure, but as a collaborative and professional commitment.

Interplay Between Reflection and Collaboration

In this respect, ^{Loughran (2010)} cites the contributions of several scholars such as ^{Barnett and O’Mahony (2006)}, ^{Baird (1992)}, ^{Passman (2002)}, and ^{Wallace (1998)}, among others, whose studies place a great deal of emphasis on reflection as a collaborative task which initially enables teachers to recognize, frame, and reframe the sort of problems they have in their particular professional setting and which also implies the use of an inquiry approach to building a learning community, strengthening their professional growth, and enhancing their practice.

Moreover, Gore (1987, as cited in ^{Insuasty & Zambrano Castillo, 2010}) refers to “collegiality as one of the outcomes of reflective teaching, since working in small groups to question and examine teaching behavior and provide honest feedback, student teachers may develop trust and respect for each other as teachers and professionals” (p. 89). ^{Richards and Farrell (2005)} propose the organization of teacher support groups as one of the ways to enhance teacher professional development, and they add that:

A teacher support group can be defined as two or more teachers collaborating to achieve either their individual or shared goals or both, on the assumption that working with a group is usually more effective than working on one’s own. Typically, a support group will involve a group of teachers who get together to discuss goals, concerns, problems, and experience . . . or to carry out more inquiring activities such as peer coaching, team teaching, action research, and classroom observation. (p. 51)

^{Richards and Farrell (2005)} also claim that in “a support group, teachers get to know their colleagues better and begin to function as a community of professionals rather than as individuals working in isolation from each other” (p. 51).

Participants

Each one of the three collaborative groups with which this research project was conducted was comprised of three members: a novice teacher researcher, a facilitator, and a research assistant. The novice researchers were three female and two male members of ILEUSCO faculty. One of them held an MA in translation, two of them held a BA in English language teaching and two were pursuing MA studies in English language teaching (ELT) methodology. As to the facilitators, they are active members of the research group “ILESEARCH”; three of them hold master’s degrees in foreign language teaching and the last one has a doctoral degree in education. The five research assistants are students of the foreign language program.

Instruments for Data Collection

This study required the implementation of the following instruments:

Semi-structured Interview. As part of the diagnosis process, the novice researchers were asked to answer questions in a semi-structured interview. The main purpose was to provide a self-reflection moment for novice researchers to describe their pedagogical practices and analyze their beliefs so as to find the recurrent problems they had to face. Moreover, novice researchers’ impressions on collaborative work, project work, the development of communicative competence, and the transformation of their pedagogical practices were also inquired (see Appendix A).

Class Observation. It was used to collect information about the pedagogical practices applied by ILEUSCO teachers in their English classes. Four classes were observed so as to diagnose the possible issues related to their pedagogical practices and then, six more classes were observed while implementing the pedagogical interventions proposed by the novice researchers. Each session was videotaped and analyzed by a research assistant. To this effect, a log of the most important activities of each videotaped lesson was kept and used as a corpus for the identification of recurrent patterns in their teaching practices.

Teacher’s Diary. Novice researchers were asked to fill out a diary where they recorded their reflections about their pedagogical practices before and while carrying out the intervention process. Each one of them wrote or recorded five journal entries in response to prompts (see Figure 1). The analysis of the novice researchers’ journal entries helped the collaborative team identify the novice teacher researchers’ views on what happened before and during the implementation of the courses of action.

Figure 1 Sample of a Prompt for a Journal Entry 

Online Forum. The novice researchers, facilitators, and research assistants were invited to participate in an online forum whose main purpose was to exchange information, perceptions, questions, and answers about the problems identified during the diagnosis phase and the possible action or intervention plans that could be designed, implemented, and evaluated to tackle them. To this effect, the following protocol was followed: Initially the participants (novice researchers, facilitators, and research assistants) of the three groups were invited to hold an online forum by means of Facebook. They were asked to use the previously assigned codes to identify their roles, for example, T1, F1, and A1 standing for novice researcher, facilitator, and research assistant, respectively. During the forum itself, the following key questions were posed: Based on the information gathered via the interview, lesson observation and diaries, what seems to be the most frequent problem of the novice researcher’s teaching practices? What possible courses of action can be proposed to try to solve the identified problem? And once again, a question about the collaborative methodology implementation was included to reflect on its impact on teachers’ pedagogical reflections and decision-making processes.

Survey. It was used as the last instrument to gather information on the perceptions of the facilitators, novice teachers, and research assistants regarding the impact of the action-collaborative research methodology in the exploration and transformation of the pedagogical practices of the ILEUSCO teachers (see Appendix B).

Procedure

The procedure of the research process was carried out through the implementation of the 11 steps of collaborative action research proposed by ^{Burns (1999)}: exploration, identification, planning, data collection, analysis/reflection, formulation of hypothesis/speculation, intervention, observation, report, writing, and presentation. Nevertheless, we hereby report what was achieved in the first three steps, in keeping with the three research questions this particular study is concerned with. According to Burns, in the exploration step “a general problem is identified and the teachers agree on a general procedure” (p. 36). Thus, based on the previous research by ^{Jaime Osorio and Insuasty (2015)}, a group of 20 teachers was given a survey aimed at identifying some of the factors which would explain, in general terms, Jaime Osorio and Insuasty’s finding of the “the prevalence of the precommunicative teaching practices in comparison to the communicative or autonomous learning based ones” (p. 59). The survey confirmed the problem and provided some reasoning as to its causes. After having checked with the teachers as to their willingness to participate in investigative initiatives which would eventually help them explore their teaching practices, the researchers formed three collaborative groups. A first meeting allowed the group members to agree on the methodology and steps to be followed.

In order to carry out the identification stage which “involves a fact finding process which enables the researchers to refine their ideas about the general focus area and to prepare for systematic investigation” (^{Burns, 1999}, p. 37), the group participants undertook the task of identifying the precise area to work on in each English language class. To this effect, they designed some data gathering instruments such as lesson observation, journal keeping, field notes, students’ surveys or questionnaires, and semistructured interviews. The main problematic areas identified in this stage were as follows: prevalence of structural or quasi-communicative exercises over the functional or social ones, lack of anticipating a backup plan to cope with unexpected results in the planned activities, and shortage of students’ motivation and participation.

Finally, the planning stage which, according to ^{Burns (1999)}, is “aimed at trialing a particular course of action and collecting data on the outcomes of this action” (p. 37) was satisfactorily completed by three groups. The concrete and viable courses of action undertaken by the “enduring” groups were concerned with the exploration the textbook’s communicative activities, the implementation of communicative strategies such as improvisations, oral presentations, and discussions, and the exploration of a differentiated instruction proposal based on the students’ visual kinesthetic learning styles.

A Look Into Novice Researchers’ Own Problems

From the implementation of the strategies, techniques, and instruments for data collection, it was determined that the problems that occurred most frequently in the pedagogical practices of participant teachers were as follows:

Prevalence of precommunicative pedagogical practices. (Both in the basic activities proposed by the guide book and in the complementary activities brought by the teachers). So, it is evidenced in the following excerpt of T1’s journal entry:

For today, February 27^th, I had planned Unit 5c. Actually, this unit was planned for two days, for today and for tomorrow. This unit, ehmm…As to grammar, with this unit we see the simple past tense with irregular verbs. Concerning vocabulary, we study three very important verbs such as go, have, and get. Likewise, we focused on learning the pronunciation of…or the accent in some sentences. (Translated from Spanish)

Absence of planning (backup plan) and/or anticipation of undesired results before the implementation of the planned activities. This is an issue which is revealed by T1’s second diary entry:

After tonight’s lesson I’ve realized that what I have planned didn’t work that very much cause [sic] I was thinking about making students realized [sic] how a topic like reported speech was about. But as soon as I started checking their knowledge about this, I could notice that they were kind of confused, especially in the reported questions, so I started to explain it but as I didn’t plan like a plan B hmm it was kind of confusing when I started making the sentences [sic] and trying to explain to them using daily life examples because the idea was to do something, I would say better organized. That is why I think the lesson didn’t go as well as I was expecting.

Time limitation for the development of other activities different from the textbook. In one of T1’s journal entries, it is possible to notice this aspect:

For the reading, the first paragraph was read to the whole class and then the students read the rest of the article alone themselves [sic]. The highlighted vocabulary was discussed as a class but there wasn’t enough time to complete the final task as proposed in the plan. One of the main reasons was the lack of time and the fact that more time was required to complete the previous exercises.

Students who interrupt the development of the classes either by their late arrivals or by their constant use of the L1. In one of T1’s lessons, this could be perceived:

8:10 The class starts

8:10 students arrive to the classroom

8:14 students gave the meaning in Spanish

8:16 another student arrives

8:48 Another student arrives, quietly takes sit. [sic] (Taken from the research assistant’s log)

Unmotivated students who do not participate in the classes. In the interview, T3 admitted that:

The main problems that I have faced during my professional experience have been the lack of interest and motivation from the students.

Use of L1 by the teachers and students to make themselves understood. In one of her journal entries, T3 states that:

The presentation of the new topic took place as planned and it was necessary to explain [sic] in Spanish to make sure they understood the different ways of telling the time.

Based on the observation of five lessons, a major emphasis is perceived on quasi-communicative and structural activities, rather than on functional ones. Most of these activities are book-centered since ILEUSCO instructors have to cover a fixed number of units and lessons throughout the academic term.

Due to the large number of issues and activities demanded by the curriculum of the School of Foreign Languages, novice researchers think that there is a shortage of time to fully cover them adequately. In the interview, T2 implied this when she contends that:

One of the problems that I have faced is the lack of time to sometimes finalize the topics to be studied. It is like I sometimes spend too much time on certain activities and then I have to rush to complete the units that have to be taught.

This kind of routinized dynamic is perceived as boring by students. It is also believed that these reported problems have a transversal nature; that is, they occur at different levels. The current prevalence of precommunicative pedagogical practices corroborated the findings of a previous study conducted by ^{Jaime Osorio and Insuasty (2015)}.

Courses of Action

In response to the previously identified problem situations, three small-scale research projects were designed with individual pedagogical proposals. This was done through the collaboration of the members of the ILESEARCH research group and novice researchers. These proposals were presented at the poster session of the XII Symposium on Research and the Second Encounter of the Language and Pedagogy Network that was held at Universidad Surcolombiana on November 2 and 3, 2017.

The first proposal was an investigative experience in a sixth-level English course at ILEUSCO whose syllabus was based on the textbook American English File 2. This research proposal was aimed at exploring the communicative activities of this book, particularly those found in units seven, eight, and nine of the sixth level. The major achievements of this study were as follows: the identification of the main features of those communicative activities, the assessment of their effectiveness from the perceptions of the novice researcher and the students of this course, as well as the pedagogical perceptions derived from the novice researcher’s reflection.

The second proposal consisted of the implementation of three communicative strategies (improvisation, oral presentation, and discussion) to improve the pedagogical practices of the novice researcher and the oral competence of the students. The activities were implemented in third-level and sixth-level English courses at ILEUSCO, the third level with three interventions, and the sixth level with six interventions. These activities were designed according to the themes that were handled in the book of each level, where speaking activities were replaced by the proposed activities. Data collection instruments such as class observation, general reflection of the interventions by the teacher, and a survey of students were used to obtain their perception of the activities, their oral competence, and the teacher’s performance.

Finally, the third proposal was framed in group pedagogical strategies based on differentiated instruction, taking into account the learning styles of the second level students of ILEUSCO. The implemented activities were designed according to the characteristics of the most dominant learning styles within the classroom (visual, kinesthetic). Accordingly, the students were grouped for the development of the same. The purpose of the mentioned pedagogical interventions was to contribute to the improvement of the pedagogical practices of the novice researcher and to motivate the students in their foreign language learning process. The instruments used for the collection of the information were the observations, an interview, a survey, the teacher’s diary, and questionnaires of learning styles directed to the students.

The Impact of Collaborative Action-Research on the Transformation of ILEUSCO Faculty’s Pedagogical Practices

According to the proceedings of the forum held by participants of the three groups as well as the final survey they were administered, favorable perceptions about the impact of collaborative action-research on the transformation of ILEUSCO faculty’s pedagogical practices could be perceived. It was argued, for example, that this methodology “is an ideal way to discuss and deal with situations that are sometimes not visible to us teachers” (T3). However, it is a methodology that needs to be complemented with a good interaction between the members of the team to discuss some things that are not totally visible in the process.

Based on the application of the final survey of perceptions about the collaborative action research methodology, it was found that both the facilitators and the research assistants offered the novice teacher-researcher support in making, executing, and evaluating the pedagogical decisions through which the problems identified in each group were overcome. Now, regarding the scope and impact of such accompaniment, the group members argued that the fact of working in a collaborative group was an enriching and fruitful experience for all the members of the team, especially for the novice teacher researchers, since they gained greater degree of awareness about the characteristics of their pedagogical practices, their strengths, and their weaknesses. Similarly, they contend that in a collaborative group the novice teacher researcher can find the contribution of an external perspective or point of view and feedback that allow him/her to carry out the identification of the problems, the design, and the implementation of intervention activities and the reflection on the effectiveness of their decisions.

Raising Awareness About Existing Problems

One of the first outcomes in this study is the identification of the most frequent critical incidents or difficulties the participating teachers were facing in their English lessons, one of them being the prevalence of precommunicative tasks. ^{Littlewood (1998)} characterizes these activities as those which are more focused on the knowledge and practice of grammatical structures and on a kind of quasi-communicative practice of the target language. The precommunicative activities constitute one of the sides of the continuum towards more communicative ones with a functional or social scope.

The fact that the English teachers have been willing enough to focus their initial attention on what was not working very well in their pedagogical practices can be taken as evidence of their reflectivity. It is in this respect that ^{Murphy (2001)} states that one of the purposes of reflective teaching is “to take steps to deepen awareness of teaching and learning behaviors” (p. 500). And this self-examination makes it possible to transcend the common teacher’s inconsistencies between what they preach and what they do, and to search for better alternatives of making their teaching more meaningful.

Informed Decision Making

Once the participating teachers became better acquainted with the complexities of their own pedagogical practices, they decided to discuss, adopt, and explore some courses of action to solve some particular problems in each one of their English classes. It is not enough just to reflect on the occurrence of teaching and learning problems as long as some intervention plans are further decided and explored. What there should be is an interplay between teacher’s reflection and teacher’s action. Otherwise, Freire’s assertion (as cited in ^{Bartlett, 1994}) that “reflection without action is verbalism and action without reflection is activism” (p. 213) would become true.

As ^{Murphy (2001)} suggests, it is through reflective teaching that teachers “can learn to see teaching differently, and to learn to take action in order to enhance the quality of learning opportunities we are able to provide in our classroom” (p. 500). He also says that reflective teaching enables language teachers to expand their repertoire of strategic options. And the ones who can benefit the most from the exploration of new teaching learner-centered strategies in the classroom are the students.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

The quintessential worth of the collaborative work in each of three groups can be summarized with T1’s comment in the forum:

The collaborative methodology is excellent since it is a useful way of learning. As the saying goes, “two heads are better than one.” One can achieve a more enriching result when exploring diverse opinions, thoughts, and experiences, rather than working on an individual basis.

This finding is conceptually supported by what some scholars have contended about the usefulness of peer observation and formative feedback. As a matter of fact, observing a peer provides an opportunity to obtain information about how another teacher deals with common problems, reflects on their own pedagogical practices, and shares ideas and experiences about similar situations or issues that take place in the classroom. In ^{Richards and Farrell’s (2005)} words: “In teaching, observation provides an opportunity for novice teachers to see what more experienced teachers do when they teach a lesson and how they do it” (p. 86). On the other hand, peer observation can be a valuable source of formative feedback in order for teachers to “gain deeper understanding and awareness of the teaching-learning process” (^{Murphy, 2001}, p. 506).

It was through observations, diary keeping, and peer discussions based on the data collected that the participating novice teacher-researchers started the cycle of reflective teaching suggested by ^{Bartlett (1994)}, and that will provide them with a framework to critical reflection and teacher development.