注重教师发展 关注教学实践

4月6日至11日，第44届IATEFL国际年会在英国哈罗盖特国际会议中心举行。该年会是世界范围内级别最高、规模最大的英语外语教育和教师职业发展综合论坛。来自全球113个国家的近千名英语教育界顶尖专家、理论研究者、政策制订者、教学指导者，以及从学前到大学各阶段的近千名教师代表汇聚一堂，就英语教育相关领域当前存在的问题及未来发展趋势展开了广泛探讨和交流。

记者在大会现场发现，参会代表中不乏中国教师的身影。广东外语艺术职业学院科研处处长、小学英语教育研究所所长林红教授告诉记者，自己是第一次参加IATEFL年会，对本届年会充满期待，希望能了解到更多的关于教师培训和小学英语教育的最新理论以及经验。

据悉，本次IATEFL年会包括4场主旨发言、450场报告会和工作坊以及海报展示等。除了在大会现场参会的代表，另有约40000名用户参与了大会在线网站harrogate online的讨论，该网站同时还提供了本次年会的视频、文字和图片等全方位报道。

开场的主旨发言人是IATEFL前任主席、英国教育专家Tessa Woodward教授，她在发言中对于教师的life cycles（职业生涯周期）进行了案例访谈分析，并提取了一些关键词进行描述。Woodward认为，从教1至3年的教师处于Survival and Discovery（生存与探索）阶段，从教4至6年的教师处于Stabilization（稳定）阶段，从教7至18年的教师处于Experimentation and Reassessment（实验与重新评价）阶段，从教19至30年的教师处于Serenity and Conservatism（平静与保守）阶段，而从教31至40年的教师则已处于Disengagement（脱离）阶段。

Woodward的发言引发了现场专家及教师的浓厚兴趣。重庆大学外国语学院院长李红教授告诉记者，本次大会开篇让人耳目一新，不重学术而重人本。中国教师目前面临的最大问题就是焦虑，既来自专业发展方面，又来自自身生活方面。他们面临学历、科研、生活、语言素质、课堂驾驭、学生及家长期望等多重压力，并要在这些压力中把握平衡。由于没有时间互相交流，他们不得不忍受职业带来的孤独感。为此，重庆大学外国语学院自主探索了一条教师发展的新途径——组建教师自主发展团队。该团队完全是开放式的，没有行政干预，不定期举行活动，讨论个人发展、学术发展以及课堂组织等各方面问题。教师成员可以在此倾诉烦恼、寻求帮助。

第二场主旨发言来自国际著名想象力教育头牌大家Kieran Egan。Egan教授介绍了关于儿童心智发展的四种理论:socializing（社交）, accumulative privileged knowledge（积累特定的知识）, psychological development（心理发展）, cognitive tool acquisition（认知工具习得）以及对understanding（理解力）的研究。他详细介绍了提升语言理解力的主要认知工具:story, metaphor, rhyme, joking and humour等。Egan教授在发言中列举了许多案例，使其艰深的学术内容让与会的普通教师都能听懂，而且理解地清楚、准确，印象深刻。

发言结束后，华中师范大学北京研究院副院长鲁子问教授深有感触地告诉记者，语言教学是培养想象力最直接、最经济的方法。但它是否是最有效的方法还需要我们去努力研究。鲁子问希望今后能联合一些语文教师在全国推广想象力教育，为民族创新培养更多新生力量。

如何激发学生的学习动力是英语教师面临的重要问题。来自英国的日本裔学者Ema Ushioda带来的第三场主旨发言“学习动力来自哪里?”引发了与会者的思考。Ushioda认为，学习者的学习动力不是来自于外部如教师和家长强加的力量，而是来源于学习者自身，是一种自我驱动力。另外，学习动力不是凭空产生的，而是受社会因素影响的。教师需要将其置于社会化背景中，通过既定的社会规则，巧妙激发学生的自主学习动能。

记者在大会现场与多位中国教师代表交流时发现，教师们认为本次年会发言更多关注实践层面，为各国英语教师互相交流实践经验提供了良好平台。例如，英国文化协会中国区英语教学项目总监胡达伟以及英语项目主管欧阳文介绍了与中国教育学会外语教学专业委员会合作在中国开展英语教师培训项目的情况，引起了中国教师的关注。

合肥师范大学外语系主任范东生教授参加了一场关于教师专业发展中如何运用叙述性研究的会议。叙述性研究是指通过叙述即讲故事的方式来进行研究的方法，与行动研究和反思性教学紧密相连。会后范东生告诉记者，国内不少骨干教师已开始做行动研究和反思性教学，但还有部分教师不太清楚如何来做，甚至只是“为做而做”，而没有跟教学目标和教师发展相结合。如何利用叙述性研究，从课堂教学中提炼出与教学思想相关的内容，将其应用于课堂教学，与教学目标和理念相结合，目前这方面的研究还较少。造成这种现象的原因之一是教师的“分数压力”和评价机制，如何激发教师对行动研究和反思性教学的兴趣和动力值得进一步探讨。

部分主旨发言人发言提要

Tessa Woodward : professor at Hilderstone College

题目:The Professional Life Cycles of Teachers

简介:As we come together in Harrogate for this IATEFL conference, we will be attending talks and workshops, panel discussions and social events over several days. We will find ourselves in rooms with teachers of all kinds... young ones and not so young ones, those from different countries and cultures and with different mother tongues. There may be times when we wonder why one person is getting so aerated about a particular topic or why another person seems so optimistic or pessimistic about the whole learning and teaching endeavour. This plenary may possibly help us to make sense of this for we will look at some research that has been done into the life cycles of teachers. What are the concerns of a teacher who has just started in the job? How do these differ from those of someone who has been in the field for a few years? Or for many, many years? You will be offered a possible framework, based on number of years in the job, collated from several thinkers in the field of life cycle research. Together we will ask questions from the TESOL teacher’s point of view and finally will ponder the implications of the framework for ourselves, our colleagues and indeed for IATEFL Harrogate conference goers!

Kieran Egan: professor at Simon Fraser University

题目:Students’ minds and imaginations

简介:In this talk I will offer a rather new way of thinking about the process of students’ cognitive development. It focuses on the kinds of “cognitive tools” or learning toolkits students develop as they grow up in a society like ours. In schools and in most currently dominant psychological theories of development, short-shrift is given to some of the most powerful learning tools students have available to make sense of their world and experience and the languages that surround them. We tend also to think of the imagination as something of an educational frill—something to try to engage after the hard work of learning had occurred. I will try to show that focusing on central features of students’ learning “toolkits” makes it clear that the imagination is one of the great workhorses of learning, and that we ignore it at the cost of making learning more ineffective than it should be and much schooling more tedious than it need be.

Ema Ushioda: associate professor at University of Warwick

题目:Socialising students’ motivation and autonomy in the English language classroom

简介:Motivation has traditionally been regarded as something that teachers ‘do’ or ‘give’ to learners through a variety of motivational techniques or strategies. However, current theory and research suggest that for effective and autonomous language learning and language use to take place, motivation needs to come from within and be internally regulated, rather than externally regulated by teachers, parents or other social forces. Yet, social processes are pivotal in mediating the healthy internal growth and self-regulation of motivation. Understanding this complex relationship between social and internal processes is vitally important if we want to develop our students’ motivation from within, and enable them to sustain and regulate their own motivation. In this talk I will explore the nature of this relationship and analyse its practical implications for the classroom. In particular, I will draw on recent developments in educational psychology where there is increasing recognition that motivation is not necessarily achievement-oriented but value-based and identity-oriented, as reflected in a growing literature on motivation and identity. I will link these developments to current theories of autonomy in language learning, and discuss how classroom practices that promote autonomy can contribute to socialising adaptive values, identities and motivational trajectories in our students, as they engage in the sustained process of learning and using English.