Secondary INSET in the Mainstream Education of Bilingual Pupils (England)

CAROL BARNARD & JOHN BURGESS

University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Conference, Cardiff University, 7–10 September 2000

1. Introduction

This paper (based on one presented at the BERA 2000 Conference in Cardiff) reports on a study carried out in an urban borough in the north-west of England. The study essentially investigated the impact of a series of three linked INSET programmes for secondary teachers in the borough. The explicit purpose of the programmes was to help mainstream teachers (MSTs) to meet the needs of developing bilingual pupils[1] through whole-class teaching strategies and through school policies (as recommended, for instance, by Bourne & McPake, 1991, and Harklau, 1994). They were funded by Grants for Educational Support and Training (GEST) from the Department for Education.

The programmes were set against a cultural background in which the development of bilingual pupils’ language abilities was seen wholly as the province of language support teachers (LSTs), and the teaching of curriculum subjects solely as the responsibility of MSTs. Furthermore, not all MSTs would necessarily accept the notion that they have some responsibility for the development of all pupils’ language through the teaching and learning of their own subjects. This unwillingness is illustrated by statements by two MSTs cited in earlier research related to the same programmes (Barnard, 1996):

I do not see it as one of my functions to be responsible for the teaching of bilingual learners until they are competent to gain benefit from [my mainstream subject] by being able to communicate in English (op. cit., p.39).
I’m damned sure that it’s not my job to do it [i.e. teach developing bilingual pupils] because I haven’t got the expertise to do it – I haven’t got the necessary skills (op. cit., p.43).

It was an implicit purpose of the INSET programmes to address this issue of language across the curriculum which in turn, therefore, featured also as a field within our study’s investigation.

2. The INSET programmes

The programmes were organised by the borough’s central language support agency and were delivered on the agency’s premises by a team of specialists, including ourselves. All but one of this team were employees of the language support agency. Carol Barnard was at the time working for the agency and based in a particular secondary school as an English language support teacher and co-ordinator. John Burgess is a teacher-educator in education and applied linguistics at the University of Manchester. As Fig. 1 shows, the programmes were delivered over the period 1995-98 and were followed by dissemination organised by mainstream teachers in the schools.

principally for “Type A” schools
i.e. those with significant numbers
of developing bilingual pupils
receiving language support / principally for “Type B” schools
i.e. those with insignificant numbers
of developing bilingual pupils
receiving language support
95-6 / Programme 1
Topics:
(i) cultural, linguistic, educational aspects
(ii) "common codes" LAC pedagogical approach
schools: 4
mainstream teachers: 20
lang support staff: 10 / -
96-7 / 





 / Programme 2
Topics: as in Programme 1
schools: 5
mainstream teachers: 10
lang support staff: 3
97-8 / Programme 3
Topic: dissemination
mainstream teachers
During & post
97-8 / Dissemination organised by mainstream staff in the schools

Fig. 1: The secondary INSET programmes in the borough

The four Type A schools were those that had a significant number of developing bilingual children receiving language support from LSTs based in the schools but employed by the central language support agency. The five Type B schools were those that had far fewer bilingual pupils receiving language support. These schools were included in the programmes on the supposition that they might in the future receive larger numbers of developing bilingual pupils, and in light of the implicit purpose mentioned above to improve the provision of language across the curriculum.

The thirty mainstream teachers, some of whom were heads of department, were drawn from the following subject areas: Maths, Science, English, Modern Foreign Languages, Music, Technology, Information Technology, Geography, History and Religious Studies. The language support staff were invited to participate for three reasons. They would share their knowledge of the pupils with whom they worked. They would be able to contribute to the development of appropriate strategies working with teachers they already worked with or might work with in the future. They would be engaged in examining and applying pedagogic theories and methodologies that might be new to them, given that many had initially been trained as mainstream teachers.

Programmes 1 and 2 had two main input components, the first dealing with introductory background matters, and the second with pedagogical methodology, as outlined below.

Component 1

The cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds of developingbilingual pupils in

the borough:

Home/community languages

Literacy skills of pupils (particularly new arrivals)
Cultural and religious heritage and orientation
Introduction to bilingualism
Role of the language support agency

This component was planned and delivered by members of the language support agency.

Component 2

A "common codes" approach to teaching mainstream subjects (Burgess & Carter, 1996) designed to facilitate the language development of all pupils through a focus on the language of education and on bilingual pupils' development. Fig. 2 shows the conceptual framework of this approach.

Input material:
spoken discourse
and/or
written texts /  / Processing /  / "Ideational frameworks" /  / Visual representations /  / Output material:
spoken discourse and/or written texts
Listening
and/or
Reading /  / Thinking, speaking & writing
in pairs or groups /  / Organising information in grids, flow diagrams,
tree diagrams, according to "discourse types" in input /  / Labelling or completing graphs, maps, pictures; carrying out experiments; etc /  / Speaking and/or writing re input topic or similar

Fig. 2: An integrated model: "common codes"

The framework focuses entirely on the "ideational" or informationcarrying function of language (Burgess, 1994; Lock, 1996). This is the main function of the language of textbooks, of teacher explanations and sometimes of pupils’ essays and examination answers, and is therefore significant to what has long been labelled pupils’ “cognitive/academic language proficiency” or CALP (Cummins, 1980; Cummins & Swain, 1986, pp.152-3). In the pedagogic framework, starting from spoken or written input, the teacher helps the learners to perceive the organisation of information in a text through carefully focused listening or reading tasks. Visual representations are then used to help the learners produce their own spoken or written discourse.

In each programme there were five whole-day and half-day sessions. In the early input sessions, the teachers were introduced to the framework experientially; they worked their way through tasks based on classroom materials. Several important pedagogical principles were emphasised as we worked (see Fig. 3).

1Language across the curriculum
•language for access to the curriculum (particularly developing bilingual pupils)
•the curriculum as medium for language development (all pupils)
•the need to develop whole-school policy and code of practice
•the need to develop practice and policy within specific sectors of the school
2Integrated pedagogic model
•the linkage between receptive (L/R) and productive skills (S/W) (see Fig 2), and the integration of the learning of subject-content reflects real relationships between learning, the use of what is learnt, and the testing of what has been learnt
•the usefulness of "ideational frameworks" (flow diagrams, grids or tables, and tree diagrams) as processing devices for language content and language form (Burgess 1994)
•differentiation of tasks according to learners' needs
•the encouragement of independent learning and the building of learners' self-esteem
3Oracy (listening & speaking)
•spoken language is a good medium for noticing and practising certain aspects of language form: pronunciation of difficult sounds (particularly for developing bilingual pupils), or the stress patterns of new specialist words (all pupils); vocabulary; grammar
4 Literacy (reading & writing)
•written language is a good medium for noticing and practising certain aspects of language form: vocabulary; grammar; spelling; punctuation; layout of text
5Receptive skills (L/R)
•exposure to sophisticated, non-simplified subject material is important
•variety of source material, both spoken and written: both that delivered by teachers, and that delivered by others
•the need for learner-training: focus and guidance through tasks, developing concentration span, comprehension, and notemaking skills
6Productive skills (S/W)
•the need for practice for all pupils to take possession of the language of the subject
•closely guided and monitored groupwork (involving gainful engagement) to build confidence with the target language
•guidance in the processes of speaking and writing is possible, desirable and useful across the curriculum
•the need for practice in producing extended discourse

Fig. 3: Pedagogical principles addressed in the INSET courses

The teachers then applied what they had learned from the two components in designing new materials, or revising existing ones, in their own curricular areas. This process was begun during the whole-day input sessions, and continued in half-day and twilight sessions. It was intended that the development of curriculum-specific materials would foster a sense of ownership to counteract the possible negative effect of the fact that the input on pedagogy had been led by an outsider (Alderson & Scott, 1992, pp. 25-27). These materials were collected into a pack.

Finally, the teachers designed, and were encouraged to deliver, dissemination sessions in their own schools, using any of the materials used by the INSET team and/or those they had themselves designed. This peer-training was believed to be beneficial (Hayes, 1995), though in some cases the teachers opted to invite members of the language support agency to participate in delivering those dissemination sessions.

The feedback from the teachers at the end of the programmes was generally positive. For example, the language support agency’s summary of the feedback from Course 1 said that

Participants found the course valuable or very valuable, using adjectives such as stimulating, refreshing and reassuring. Other positive comments were the relevance to all pupils and language development through the whole curriculum. Three references were made to the helpfulness of practical group activities.

A number of positive comments were made on

the usefulness of “highlighting task-centred approaches to text deconstructions”. Analysing and breaking down the text had made it more accessible, especially via the use of… techniques such as matrices, flow charts, tree diagrams etc.

Many of the materials the participants developed were held in high estimation by the language support agency staff who co-ordinated their collection, while some were seen to represent, as it were, a half-digestion of the notions and strategies.

3. The research methodology

However, we wished to investigate the programmes’ real impact in greater depth, after the programmes had ended and after any dissemination had taken place or had begun, to find out whether the initial enthusiasm had been sustained, or whether it had petered out in the face of other professional demands. We wished to discover more about the real transferability of the principles and strategies (Bax, 1995), and whether and how teachers had adapted the ideas according to their own agendas (Lamb, 1995).

We chose to carry out loosely-structured interviews, based on the schedules in Appendices 1 and 2, to allow the range and content to be as much as possible in the control of the interviewees. In practice, as one might expect the points were often not covered in the order presented in the schedule, so that the schedule acted more as an aide-memoire for the interviewer than as a script. We conducted thirteen interviews with staff from seven of the nine participating schools, and staff from the language support service. Six of these interviews were with individuals, and seven were conducted in pairs or groups of three and sometimes four. In all there were twenty-six interviewees as shown in Fig. 4.

•7 senior managers (1 Head of school; 5 Deputy Heads, most in charge of training in their respective schools; the Head of the language support agency
•13 mainstream teachers (including heads of departments)
•1 Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCo)
•5 language support teachers (appointed by the borough's central language support agency, and each working regularly or uniquely in one of the 3 Type A schools)

Fig. 4: The interviewees

We interviewed senior managers who had been responsible for deciding who should attend the training courses as well as the teachers themselves who had actually attended. The reason for this was that we wanted to explore school managers' perceptions of the climate surrounding the INSET, and their impressions of any effects the courses might have had on practice in their schools' classrooms and policies. Similarly, we wished to interview the language support teachers and the head of their service to explore their perceptions.

It was often the first time that the teachers had had an opportunity to focus on the way in which language carries information in subject areas. We therefore felt it was important first of all to try to measure the impact of the pedagogic principles listed in Fig. 3 above; see Barnard & Burgess (2000) for a report on this. But because the interviews were loosely structured, and the interviewees took the conversation in their own directions for much of the time, the data was found to be rich in the other issues around the business of language. For this reason we wished to analyse the data further.

To this end, comments in the transcripts were coded under sixty-seven data-led headings, which were then categorised under eight super-ordinate headings:

The political, social & educational context beyond the school
Multicultural matters within the activities of the school
Management matters
Teaching, learning & assessment matters, including language across the curriculum
Relationships between mainstream and language support staff & institutions
The impact of the INSET programmes on teaching & learning
Dissemination
Teacher training & education (pre- & in-service)

The categorised comments were graded as follows:

APositive attitude, awareness, or action

BNon-committal, not sure, or not confident

CNegative attitude, or lack of awareness or action

r(added to any of the above) reiterated point

It was thought that the reiteration of points would be worth noting when it marked emphasis on the part of the speaker. The graded comments were then counted and their content noted.

In the data we also noticed evidence of three types of delivery of English language support:

Full equal mainstream partnership between MST & LST

Some collaboration in the mainstream between MST & LST

Withdrawal.

We counted the instances of these comments and noted their content.

4. The findings

In this section we will look first at patterns that emerged from the data as a whole, and then at particular fields. As we quote or cite comments, we will preserve the interviewees’ anonymity as much as possible by referring to all of them with feminine pronouns, in line with the fact that the female interviewees outnumbered the male by 16 to 10. The quotations will be numbered for ease of reference.

4.1 Overview

As will be seen in Tables I and II, it was possible to divide the eight categories into three “groups”. This was according to the type of graph line their results produced, as shown in Fig.5.

Raw numbers of comments / A / Ar / A+Ar / B / Br / B+Br / C / Cr / C+Cr / Total
Group 1 / Multicultural / 38 / 5 / 43 / 33 / 1 / 34 / 12 / 1 / 13 / 90
Teaching/learning / 62 / 7 / 69 / 40 / 1 / 41 / 14 / 1 / 15 / 125
Impact of INSET / 82 / 15 / 97 / 40 / 2 / 42 / 10 / 2 / 12 / 151
Teacher training / 21 / 1 / 22 / 7 / 1 / 8 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 30
Group 2 / Political etc. context / 32 / 3 / 35 / 14 / 1 / 15 / 11 / 0 / 11 / 61
Relationships: MS/LS / 16 / 1 / 17 / 6 / 0 / 6 / 6 / 0 / 6 / 29
Group 3 / Management / 14 / 8 / 22 / 26 / 6 / 32 / 19 / 7 / 26 / 80
Dissemination / 32 / 4 / 36 / 35 / 6 / 41 / 7 / 0 / 7 / 84
Totals / 297 / 44 / 341 / 201 / 18 / 219 / 79 / 11 / 90 / 650

Table I: Overview of the findings: numbers of comments

Comments as percentages / A
 / Ar
 / A+Ar
 / B
 / Br
 / B+Br
 / C
 / Cr
 / C+Cr
 / Totals
 / Totals

Gp 1 / Multicultural / 42.2 / 5.6 / 47.8 / 36.7 / 1.1 / 37.8 / 13.3 / 1.1 / 14.4 / 100 / 13.8
Teaching/learning / 49.6 / 5.6 / 55.2 / 32.0 / 0.8 / 32.8 / 11.2 / 0.8 / 12.0 / 100 / 19.2
Impact of INSET / 54.3 / 9.9 / 64.2 / 26.5 / 1.3 / 27.8 / 6.6 / 1.3 / 7.9 / 100 / 23.2
Teacher training / 70.0 / 3.3 / 73.3 / 23.3 / 3.3 / 26.6 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 100 / 4.6
Gp 2 / Context / 52.5 / 4.9 / 57.4 / 23.0 / 1.6 / 24.6 / 18.0 / 0 / 18.0 / 100 / 9.4
MS/LS / 55.2 / 3.4 / 58.6 / 20.7 / 0 / 20.7 / 20.7 / 0 / 20.7 / 100 / 4.5
Gp 3 / Management / 17.5 / 10.0 / 27.5 / 32.5 / 7.5 / 40.0 / 23.8 / 8.8 / 32.5 / 100 / 12.3
Dissemination / 38.1 / 4.8 / 42.9 / 41.7 / 7.1 / 48.8 / 8.3 / 0 / 8.3 / 100 / 12.9
Totals / 45.7 / 6.8 / 52.5 / 30.9 / 2.8 / 33.7 / 12.2 / 1.7 / 13.9 / 100 / 100

Table II: Overview of the findings: percentages

A B C A B C

Group 1 line a Group 1 line b

A B C A B C

Group 2 line Group 3 line

Fig. 5:Graphs showing degrees of positivity, negativity and uncertainty in the three comment groups

In the case of the group 1 categories there was a marked predominance of positive comments, and a correspondingly low level of negativity. In group 2 there was apparently a markedly higher degree of negativity, level or almost level with that of uncertainty, although still appreciably lower than the degree of positive expression. In the group 3 categories there seemed to be a predominance of uncertain attitudes or a lack of confidence about the issues.

Emphasis through reiteration seemed to be fairly random: it usually occurred more noticeably in relation to positive comments, but no clear patterns emerged, suggesting that this was just as much a function of negotiation of the discourse as it was a representation of a speaker’s professional agenda.

We will discuss the findings in greater detail in the following three subsections, under the headings Context, The Impact of the INSET Programmes, and Further Development.

4.2Context

We might have anticipated that this area would be the one where the most negativity was felt. It is well known in the profession that teachers are, if not demoralised by the political and social dimensions of their work, at least highly conscious of them. As far as the particular focus of the INSET programmes is concerned, there is an important historical dimension to be taken into account in considering this context. It may be argued that the programmes represented the convergence of two educational movements: language across the curriculum, and language support for bilingual children (Burgess, 1995).

Language across the curriculum

The language across the curriculum movement, founded on the belief that all teachers are teachers of language, was given impetus by such seminal publications as Language, the Learner and the School (Barnes et al, 1969), the Bullock Report A Language for Life (DES, 1975), and Language Across the Curriculum (Marland, 1977). In the 1970s there were practical initiatives in which English teachers worked with teachers of other subjects across the curriculum. But the movement lost its impetus partly because, as one of our interviewees put it,