reviews of dr. richards' books
The following are a selection of reviews which have
appeared in various academic publications.. |
professional development for language teachers
J. C. Richards and T. S. C. Farrell
Professional Development for Language
Teachers: Strategies for Teacher Learning. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 202.
$25.00, paper.
ISBN 0-521-61383-3.
Reviewed by Tammy Jandrey Hertel (Lynchburg College)
Published in The Modern Language
Journal Volume 91 (2007)
Professional Development for Language Teachers serves to provide in-service teachers, supervisors,
and administrators with a variety of ideas for furthering
teachers’ professional development. The
book systematically examines 11 categories of activities:
workshops, self-monitoring, teacher support
groups, teaching journals, peer observation,
teaching portfolios, analysis of critical incidents,
case analysis, peer coaching, team teaching, and
action research. One chapter is devoted to each
of these activities, including its goals, methodologies,
potential benefits and problems, along with
illustrative vignettes written by in-service teachers
and questions inviting reflection on these
situations.
Each chapter is well organized and is written in
nontechnical, straightforward language, making
the activities easy to understand and implement.
The section of each chapter describing the procedures
to follow maintains a clear, step-by-step
guide for conducting a particular type of professional
development activity. Each category can
be implemented in many ways, depending on the
user’s context and goals, and the authors provide
a thorough list of the different forms the activity
can take. This approach gives readers ideas to
apply procedures to their own situations. If one
has to include a criticism of the book, it is that
the sheer number and variety of ideas provided
could be overwhelming. However, for those readers
who want to explore specific procedures in
greater depth, the bibliography provided at the
end of each chapter is an excellent resource.
The vignettes and examples included in each
chapter further illustrate how the activities can be
implemented in a variety of contexts around the
world. Although the outcomes of the situations
described are generally positive, not all scenarios
were problem free; they therefore represent a realistic
picture of what a teacher may learn from
similar activities. The reflection questions posed
after each vignette provide readers with opportunities
to apply the methods to their classrooms
and would be useful for stimulating discussion in
a classroom situation.
Underlying the book is a sense of the importance
of both individual critical reflection and collaboration
with peers. Activities suggested include
those that may be done on an individual basis, in
pairs, in groups, or at the institutional level. Although
supervisors and administrators are called
upon to encourage, support, and reward teachers’
professional development efforts, many of the activities
described are initiated by teachers. The
authors also recognize the apprehensions some
teachers may have toward certain aspects of professional
development activities, such as the time
commitment and fear of peer criticism. They suggest
ways to overcome or minimize these anxieties,
such as useful advice regarding nonjudgmental
peer observation, support groups, journal writing,
and coaching. They seek to overcome the view of
teaching as a solitary endeavor, and they provide
ways in which a community of teacher-learners
may be established.
Professional Development for Language Teachers makes a valuable contribution to the field of second
language teacher education. The book speaks
to the needs of new and experienced language
teachers, administrators, and supervisors. Readers
of this book will gain practical information
regarding teacher learning. Although examples
and vignettes included are from settings in which
English as a second or foreign language is the focus,
the procedures described can be applied to
the teaching of languages other than English. The
book would serve well as a textbook for graduate
programs in the teaching of English to speakers of
other languages and as a resource for administrators,
supervisors, methodology course instructors,
and, of course, in-service language teachers.
Language teachers who read Professional Development
for Language Teachers will gain a renewed
enthusiasm and motivation for furthering their
professional development and a wealth of ideas
for realizing activities that can help both them
and their students. The step-by-step description of
each kind of activity does not overwhelm already
overcommitted teachers. Even a teacher who does
not immediately undertake a professional development
activity described in the book will learn
the value of engaging in reflective teaching practices
as a result of having read the book.
professional development for language teachers
J. C. Richards and T. S. C. Farrell
Cambridge University Press 2005, 202 pp., £16.90
ISBN 0 521 61383 5
Reviewed by Pornapit Darasawang
Published in ELT Journal Volume 60, Number 3, July 2006
The issues of teacher training and teacher
development have become central to the field of
teacher education. Recently, the literature has
tended to focus on teacher development far more
than teacher training. For example, Edge (2005)
argues that, at present, ELT teachers are no longer
required to apply a particular theory or use
a particular method in their teaching. Instead,
they should be responsive and responsible for
examining their teaching context to gain a deeper
understanding of their own work. This process
of open, continuing development creates an
institution which is an environment that caters
for learning, collaboration, and growth.
In the book under review, Richards and Farrell also
make the distinction between teacher training
and teacher development. They argue that the
former deals with basic concepts, strategies, and
methodology, and therefore aims at short-term and
immediate goals while the latter aims at helping
teachers understand themselves and their teaching.
Through reflective analysis of teaching practices,
examining beliefs, values and principles, sharing
with colleagues, and keeping up-to-date with new
trends and theories, they believe that teachers
can engage in professional development. In the
12 chapters of the book the authors provide tools
for readers to employ for their own professional
development. Most of the activities which they
provide in this book are similar to those found
in other teacher development texts, namely,
workshops, self-monitoring, teacher support
groups, teaching journals, peer observation, case
analysis, peer coaching, team teaching, and action
research. In addition, they introduce less welldocumented
activities such as teaching portfolios
and analysing critical incidents, both of which
I found particularly interesting.
Teaching portfolios are a collection of documents
and other items that provide information about
teachers’ performance. They are composed of
teachers’ thoughts, goals, and experiences together
with reflection and self-assessment. Therefore,
teachers have to think about their goals and
priorities for future development or improvement
when compiling their portfolio. Separating portfolios
into working and showcase portfolios, the authors
suggest possible documents to be compiled and
how to organize the contents of the portfolio.
The second less documented activity concerns
critical incidents, an area that has been well covered
in general education (for example, Tripp 1993) but
largely overlooked in ELT. Critical incident analysis
concerns analysing unplanned events happening in
class, which cause teachers to have more insights
about their own teaching. Critical incidents can
be both positive and negative. Analysing them
encourages self-awareness and enables teachers
to become more critical about their teaching. Also,
the incidents can be used for action research.
Apart from the first chapter, which helps the readers
understand the nature of teacher education and
professional development, presentation of all of
the development activities covered in the book
follows a standard pattern. Since the process of
development deals with reflective analysis, the
authors arrange the information of each chapter to
help the readers reflect on their teaching and/or
work context. Therefore, each chapter starts
with a definition of the activity to provide
contextualization. This is followed by several
vignettes or personal teaching accounts, each
giving a teacher’s experience of putting the activity
into practice. The vignettes serve as input for the
readers to understand how other language teachers
think about the activity or use it to develop their
profession. The vignette is followed by a section
entitled ‘Reflection’ which includes a few questions
to let the readers relate their own experience to that
of the teachers in the vignettes. At the end of the
chapter, a real example of how the activity was
implemented is presented formally.
The vignettes and the reflections are the main
features of this book and they reinforce the key
processes of teacher development, which are
reflective analysis and sharing. The goals of the
authors in using this approach of vignette plus
reflection appears to be twofold. First, they
encourage readers to apply the concepts and
activities of development in their own context.
Second, since the vignettes are contributed by
language teachers working in different countries,
they show different cultures and constraints
on teaching English, emphasizing the contextdependent
issues in teaching but also the contextindependent
approaches to teacher development.
Although the authors use reflection and sharing
to encourage teacher development, the content
concerning how each development activity can be
implemented is rather introductory and presented
on a step-by-step basis. For example, the
description for implementing journal writing, an
activity which has been around in ELT for more than
a decade, concerns setting goals, deciding on the
audience, allocating time to write, setting
a timeframe for the activity, reviewing the journal
to see what can be learned from it, and evaluating
if it meets the goals of development. Although
the authors state that this book is intended as
a practical introduction and provides a strategic
approach to teacher development, this step-by-step
‘how-to’ approach is more training oriented than
development oriented.
Overall, this book achieves its goal in providing
tools for novice teachers to employ for their
professional development. However, it may not
go as far as creating the attitudes necessary for
ongoing long-term development, which involves
a more complex and internal process. This book
is thus best suited for novice teachers or student
teachers who are starting out on the road to
professional development.
References
Edge, J. 2005. Continuing Cooperative Development.
Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Tripp, D. 1993. Critical Incidents in Teaching.
London: Longman.
The reviewer
Pornapit Darasawang earned a PhD in TESOL
from Edinburgh University. She has been involved
in teacher training and development on the
post graduate programmes at King Mongkut’s
University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok,
Thailand. She is also interested in learner
autonomy, learner training, and self-access
learning.
approaches and methods in language teaching 2nd edition
Reviewed by Maria C.M. De Guerrero
Inter American University of Puerto Rico
Published in The Modern Language Journal Vol 87,
1, Spring 2003
This second edition of Richards and Rodgers's Approaches
and Methods in Language Teaching constitutes a significant
revision of the popular 1986 volume. This book "seeks
to provide a comprehensive and comprehensible account of
major and minor trends in language teaching methods from
the beginning of the twentieth century to the present" (p.
viii). The authors have not only written more than half
its contents specifically for this edition, but they have
also reorganized the material into a three-part structure:
(a) major language trends in 20th-century language teaching,
(b) alternative approaches and methods, and (c) current
communicative approaches. By devoting one whole part to
communicative language teaching (CLT) and treating the
other approaches and methods as alternatives, the authors
recognize the endurance and vitality of CLT. A host of
methods and approaches, which either consolidated them-
selves or newly emerged during the last 15 years of the
20th century, have been introduced. These are whole language,
multiple intelligences, neurolinguistic programming, the
lexical approach, competency-based language teaching, cooperative
language learning, content-based instruction, and task-based
language teaching.
The chapters in part 1, which remain practically the same
as in the 1986 edition, offer a historical account of language
teaching and of the methods that preceded the cognitive and
communicative movements of the second part of the 20th century.
The authors have done well in preserving two chapters in
this section: chapter 2, which clarifies differences between
method and approach and offers guidelines for the analysis
and comparison of methods, and chapter 4, a classic on the
audiolingual method.
Part 2 is a diverse collection of methods and approaches.
Some of these were once interesting innovations in language
teaching that have now lost their appeal. Others are "sufficiently
distinct" (p. vii) from the communicative approaches
in part 3 to be grouped in this section. Most of the methods
which had appeared in the earlier edition have been considerably
trimmed to reflect their decline in popularity.
Part 3 reflects the powerful impact of the communicative
view of language teaching on methods. Five approaches are
included here: communicative language teaching (the "classical
view," p. 151), the natural approach, cooperative language
learning, content-based instruction, and task- based language
teaching. It is perhaps this part, with its focus on the
major contemporary approaches to language teaching, that
will be of most interest to practicing and prospective teachers.
Several features make this an excellent second edition.
Useful short prefaces precede each of the three constitutive
parts. The same clear format, including sections on underlying
theories of language and learning, design of the approach
or method, and procedures, has been followed in every chapter.
The separate bibliographies for each chapter have been updated,
and many references to easily available ERIC documents have
been added. The book ends with a wonderful new final chapter
on the "post-methods era" (p.244), which predicts
future trends in language teaching and offers critical commentaries
on the notion of method and teachers' personal beliefs.
There is not much room for disagreement with the ideas presented
in this volume. For the most part, the authors have followed
their declared intent to be "objective" (p. ix)
and to avoid personal evaluation of the methods described.
When criticisms are presented, they are usually framed as
the words of the critics. There are two areas, however, where
important criticisms have been withheld or neglected: (a)
the calling into question of what is seen as CLT's predominant
reliance on a mechanistic input-output view of language learning
and communication; and (b) the critique of the assumption
of task-based instruction that tasks can predict the nature
of the input, as well as the failure of task-based instruction
to recognize learners as self-directed and self-motivated
agents in their own learning.
Finally, this reviewer would have preferred an extended
treatment of computer-assisted language teaching. It may
not be a teaching method or an approach in the sense adopted
by the authors, but neither are some of the trends granted
chapter status in this volume (e.g., multiple intelligences,
neurolinguistic programming). Given the increasing presence
of computers in language courses, the impact of this kind
of technology on methods should have been granted more attention.
Notwithstanding the above, as a recapitulation of a century
of language teaching and as a foundation to understand future
methodological developments, this book is a "must have" in
one's professional library.
approaches and methods in language teaching 2nd edition
Reviewed by Roger Barnard
Published in TESOL Quarterly
He concludes:
"Over the years, I have made constant reference
to the 1986 edition- so much so that my copy is now dog-eared.
I heartily recommend the new edition to all who seek clear
and dispassionate information about the wide range of current
approaches and methods to language teaching. Students of
English language teaching, practicing L2 teachers, and
those involved in professional development programs should
read this book".
curriculum development in language teaching
Reviewed by Erwin Tschirner
Herder-Institut, University of Leipzig
Published in The Modern Language Journal, Vol 87, 1 Spring
2003
This book ought to become the vade mecum of a
broad spectrum of language teaching professionals: language
program directors and coordinators; teacher trainers; materials
developers; curriculum officers in schools, universities,
and ministries of education; as well as teachers and students
studying to become teachers or any of the above. It provides
practical and detailed discussions of the processes of curriculum
development in second or foreign language teaching ranging
from needs and situation analyses to the design of courses,
syllabi, and instructional materials and to evaluating teachers,
lessons, materials, and programs.
Apart from the preface, the book comprises nine chapters
that focus on the history of syllabus design and curriculum
development (chapters 1-2), needs analysis and situation
analysis (chapters 3-4) , developing goals and learning outcomes
(chapter 5), course planning and syllabus design (chapter
6), providing for effective teaching (chapter 7), the role
and design of instructional materials (chapter 8), and curriculum
evaluation (chapter 9) .Each chapter provides an exhaustive
treatment of the topic at hand that features many useful
checklists and assumes little or no specialist knowledge.
All technical terms are clearly explained and ample examples
of all essential processes are provided. The chapters are
complemented with a set of discussion questions and activities
followed by a treasure trove of appendixes that contain all
kinds of useful forms: guidelines, questionnaires, checklists,
taxonomies, syllabi, and appraisal forms.
Each chapter is completed by a comprehensive list of references.
Author and subject indexes are provided at the end of the
book.
The first two chapters trace the history of curriculum development
from its beginnings as syllabus design in the first half
of the 20th century to the current concept of a range of
planning and implementation processes involved in developing
or renewing a curriculum. The chapter on needs analysis discusses
the purposes of needs analysis, its users, and features of
its target populations. The chapter then moves on to describe
common procedures for conducting needs analyses and finishes
with a discussion of how best to use the information obtained.
The appendixes include examples of needs analysis projects,
guidelines for designing questionnaires, and two complete
model questionnaires containing from seven to nine pages
each. The chapters on situation analysis and the development
of goals and learning outcomes follow a similar pattern.
The following two chapters on syllabus design and the creation
of conditions for good teaching comprise roughly a third
of the whole book with the greatest number of appendixes,
nine and eight respectively. Some of the topics treated in
the chapter on syllabus design are course rationales, the
description of entry and exit levels, choosing course content,
determining the scope and sequence of a course, and planning
course structure. The chapter on conditions for good teaching
focuses on characteristics of institutions, teachers, and
teaching and learning processes. The appendixes include,
among others, proficiency descriptions for speaking and writing,
a skills syllabus for listening and speaking, a unit from
an ESL text- book, an institutional mission statement, assessment
criteria for teaching practice, checklists for evaluating
lessons, and student and peer appraisal forms of teaching
effectiveness.
The final two chapters on materials design and program evaluation
focus on such issues as evaluating and adapting textbooks;
preparing materials for a program; managing a materials writing
project; and purposes of, issues, and procedures in program
evaluation. Appendixes include guidelines for developing
reading activities, a checklist for textbook selection, a
case study of a materials development project, and examples
of program evaluations.
This book fills a need in the area of foreign language teaching
and learning. It is particularly useful for people responsible
for the development or administration of language programs,
such as department chairs and language program coordinators
at large universities or institutions with fluctuating staff
membership. It is also useful for teachers and teachers-in-training,
who will find much valuable information with respect to improving
the quality of their own teaching through the use of systematic
planning, development, and review practices in all aspects
of their language program from revisiting needs, goals, and
objectives to course and lesson design to textbook selection
and to self- and other-evaluation. In addition, this book
helps policy makers grasp the scope of language program development
or renewal by providing them with detailed descriptions of
procedures and processes needed to establish successful programs
and with clear guidelines on how to evaluate their effectiveness
including the effectiveness of potential program evaluators.
Curriculum Development in Language Teaching belongs
on the shelf of every language professional involved with
curriculum development, materials development, and teacher
development and on the reading lists of graduate and undergraduate
students in foreign language education. Complemented by a
book on methodology and classroom practice, it might also
form the basis of a general methods course offered by ESL
and foreign language departments.
curriculum development in language teaching
Reviewed by Maraget Zeegers
Director of the English Language Centre
at the University of Ballarat, Australia.
Published in the journal English Australia, Vol 19, 2, 2002.
Interest in a book of this kind would normally result from
wanting to see what is current in the field of curriculum
development in language teaching, and to evaluate its use
as a resource for student teachers. It more than adequately
satisfies on both points. It also sets out to promote reflective
practices with its "Discussion Questions and Activities" at
the end of each chapter.
English language curriculum development may be encapsulated
by issues of PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production,), but
the English language teaching situation is more complex than
this implies. Richards recognizes the importance of understanding
the greater dimensions of what it means to be an educator
in this field. Central to his book, in the Cambridge
Language Education series, is the concept of the number,
range, and variety of decisions and choices made in curriculum
development as they reveal themselves when the curriculum
developer adopts an informed stance regarding choices available.
Curriculum development in language teaching, is, then, seen
not as a value-neutral presentation of essential grammar
and/or vocabulary drawn out of systematic observation, but
as a means by which it can lead into educational development
that enters the field of empowerment.
Not only that, the book presumes a need for introduction
to the curriculum developer's language with brief and integrated
explanations of terms used, along with useful examples given
in the Appendices. References at the end of each chapter
rather than at the end of the book serve as resources which
may be plumbed in a context of immediacy as each chapter
is dealt with. The structure of the book, grouping a number
of curriculum-related issues within the whole of the field
itself, presents possibilities for negotiation and compromise
in a contested field peppered with competing interests. In
doing this, Richards allows readers access to a number of
points to current concerns ranging from syllabus and proficiency
descriptors, to effective teaching and evaluation, with a
host of others in between.
Succinct overviews of various histories related to such
features provide a mini-contextual positioning, as it were,
preparing the ground for potentially insightful and informed
reflection as readers engage the materials. Richards constantly
gives specific and relevant instances linked to governments,
students, teachers and other educational stakeholders to
underscore the issues he raises. A series of examples at
various times throughout the book underscores the diversity
of responses that curriculum developers make in the face
of curriculum issues with which they must deal. These are
readily recognizable aspects of practitioners' experience
and serve to keep discussion relevant. The result is an address
to an audience treated as intelligent, concerned, and knowledgeable.
I would recommend this book to colleagues, as I would to
my own students.
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