Heather Richards

Foreign language teachers’ language proficiency and their language teaching practice

Teachers’ subject knowledge is recognised as an essential component of effective teaching. In the foreign language context, teachers’ subject knowledge includes language proficiency. In New Zealand high schools, foreign languages (e.g. Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish) have recently been offered to learners earlier in their schooling, prompting a demand for more foreign language teachers. A nationwide professional development programme for language teachers is building language teacher capacity to meet the demand. Participants on the programme have a range of language teaching subject knowledge. While some have extensive knowledge of their target teaching language but lack formal language teaching qualifications, others are generalist teachers with an interest in teaching a foreign language who are just beginning to develop their subject knowledge. This paper considers teachers’ subject knowledge, that is, their language proficiency. We report on the differences in the classroom practice of teachers with limited subject knowledge, compared with teachers with more extensive subject knowledge. The data were analysed against key aspects of teaching based on the work of Farrell and Richards. The analysis revealed a variance in the number of key aspects the teachers could manage and differences in their level of effectiveness in managing the key aspects. We highlight the importance for teachers with limited levels of target language proficiency of continuing to develop their subject knowledge in order to maximise the language-learning experience for their students.

Teacher Provision of Opportunities for Learners to Develop Language Knowledge and Cultural Knowledge.

This paper examines a language teacher education professional development programme in New Zealand that draws on the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum. At the heart of the Learning Languages area in the curriculum is communicative competence, with the understanding that communication involves language knowledge and cultural knowledge. The New Zealand Ministry of Education expects that schools will be able to offer all Years 7–10 students the opportunity to learn an additional language in order for them to participate effectively in multicultural settings, both in New Zealand and internationally. To deliver this, language teachers and generalist teachers are being encouraged to undertake professional development. This paper reports on a research evaluation of a Ministry-sponsored language teacher professional development programme. The findings reveal success in increasing teacher understanding of how to develop learners’ language knowledge, because this part of the programme was underpinned by a deep principled knowledge base, and teachers had opportunities to acquire knowledge and participate in a language teaching community. However, teacher understanding of how to increase learners’ cultural knowledge was less successful, because of a lack of a principled knowledge base of intercultural language teaching. We argue that effective professional development programmes need both to be based on deep principled knowledge and to offer learning that involves acquisition and participation.

‘Lunchtimes in New Zealand are cruel’: reflection as a tool for developing language learners’ intercultural competence

ABSTRACT Reflection as a tool for the development of an intercultural dimension in language learning is mentioned to varying degrees in curriculum documents, guidelines and the literature. While there is a call for teachers to encourage language learners to engage in reflection for the development of intercultural competence (IC), studies show it can be challenging to implement in the classroom. This paper considers the extent to which language teachers in New Zealand schools provided opportunities for learners to develop aspects of IC through reflection. Findings from a nationwide survey and interviews with teachers of six foreign languages indicate that many teachers were limited in both their understanding and use of reflection as a learning tool. However, two examples are given of how teachers did provide opportunities that encouraged their learners to reflect on their own culture and on the culture of others. From examples, we summarise strategies that may assist in scaffolding learners into reflection, and call for focussed language teacher professional development.