Blog: Serious doubts about current pedagogy

Bunwaree contemplates the possibility of introducing oral examinations at CPE. Another proposal is to recruit assistant teachers who will understand and help teachers who are not able to engage children of different levels of ability in their lessons. This paper intends to analyze the feasibility of the project, and the practical problems they may give way to.

Why does Bunwaree want to introduce oral tests at CPE? He knows very well that there is a shocking lack of pedagogical interactivity in our classes - chorus answers, responses by yes or no,or by monosyllabic words characterize teaching at CPE level, because it is very easy to run a teacher dominated class. Unions will say that the curriculum is too heavy to allow time for constructive interaction between teacher and pupil or between pupils. Without a strong oral component in class, the child lapses into passive reception and many get lost in the meanders of this silent listening because the child, after a few minutes, is unable to follow the teacher. The teacher's obsessive urge to complete the syllabus makes him give less importance to the reaction of the child to what the teacher is explaining. The oral is like a window open to the workings of the child's mind.

Bunwaree wishes to have an oral component of testing in examinations because he knows that unless something is examined, it does not find a place in the teachers list of taught concepts, or skills. Songs, poems, crossword puzzles found in the child's textbook are neglected because examination papers do not contain these ingredients. What will oral tests assess? Will they test lingual competence, knowledge of concepts, knowledge of the world in which the child lives? Or will oral tests assess the child's reading habits. Let us understand the advantages of the introduction of oral tests.

'This is an opportunity to encourage all our children to read fiction. Why doesn't the ministry prescribe a simplified story book in English, French and Asian languages so that the oral test evaluates the child's reading? We have a golden occasion to make reading because an essential, and not optional learning exercise.'

Oral tests will force the teacher in class to interact with his pupils orally and the habit will nurture a new breed of children who are confident defenders of their opinion. The habit of oral reaction will train the child to participate actively in the lesson. It will become the teacher's responsibility since standard 1 to elicit oral responses from children.

The oral test may include the assessment of linguistic skills in foreign languages and the knowledge of certain current documentary facts in an optional language - English, French or Kreol.

The greatest disadvantage will be the administration of the examination. I have observed many oral examiners who, themselves, have serious handicaps of fluency, who cannot pronounce words correctly. Can we have reliable examiners in the number needed?

It will be left to the Ministry to decide the use to be made of the marks scored in oral tests. Will they be added to the marks of written paper or will they stand alone?

If the teacher on the behest of his recalcitrant union leader neglects the oral component only a few will have an inherited advantage. They are  those children who have the benefit of free social intercourse, and  are extroverted, and comes from homes where children interact with parents on a wide range of subjects and activities. Here again birth and the accident of birth will separate those who succeed from those who fail.

Another reform Bunwaree is the creation of the post of Teaching Assistant in Primary schools. This is done in imitation of a practice in UK that has been abandoned. Mother's army and variants have been serious attempts made by UK to attenuate the problems arising from teaching a class of mixed abilities. Generally it has been found out that in such classes the weak are the losers because too many forces exert a pressure on the teacher. The need to deliver results, the compelling necessity of covering the syllabus, the tyranny of parental needs - all these weigh heavy on the teacher who loses patience and leaves many casualties on the battlefield.

What are the functions of a Teaching Assistant? He plays a supportive role and acts within the framework of the main teacher's lesson in favour  of those children who are potential and habitual losers within the system. The T.A{Teaching Assistant} must work in total harmony with the protagonist by accepting the lesson plan of the main teacher. Is there anything called a lesson plan in our schools? Or is it a list of notes highlighting the content of the text?

A lesson plan is the engineering plan of the lesson. It indicates the various stages of evolution of the lesson, defines the scaffolding used, anticipates the challenges of the lesson to weak students and ends with the evaluation of the learnt outcome. Does such a plan exist? No. most senior teachers rely upon their millennial practice to run a lesson almost automatically irrespective of the children taught. The T.A must discuss with the main teacher the evolution of the lesson and must be told where he can intervene to assist weaker pupils. Whom will the teaching assistant help and how? The assistance given must be individualized. Every single weak student has specific deficits and one teaching assistant must help every child according to his target.

It is also possible that the Teaching Assistant is made to teach non examinable subjects. This will be catastrophic because when no examination looms like a terminal threat, the child cultivates a lackadaisical, indifferent attitude to the subject. The Enhancement Programme works in cases where the child is repeating the lesson in the textbook in a more creative manner. It would be excellent if Visual Arts Health and Physical Education, Reading, and curricular activities were done at school in order to diversify the curriculum. It is unfortunate that the Ministry turns a deaf ear to the changes that are carried out in the school timetable. As the child completes his four years, he is made to understand he is in a race and his view is narrowly geared towards the examinable subjects. The std 4, and 5 timetable in many cases shows periods that are in reality converted into subjects examined at the end of the year. The product of our Primary schools is an intellectually limited child unless at home he benefits from the opening to the world parents have. A Teaching Assistant who teaches non examinable subjects will, no doubt radically transform the timetable.

Bunwaree must take off the blinkers he usually wears in his obsession with academically justified reforms without assessing the sustainability, effectiveness of the proposal in the class. The minister has been a student, but he has not been subjected to the category of teachers we have now. There are brilliant ones, but on the average the teacher in any part of the world has become over bureaucratic. Such a teaching lot need to be supported by a management structure that can monitor the happenings in the class. Teaching has a wealth of possibilities of monitoring only if the leader exercises his right to knowing what is happening in his school, and making every teacher accountable to him according to set goals. The absence of concern of our school leaders about what is happening in class is a depressing reality. If we want to make a proper use of teaching assistants, we must revitalize the inner soul of our system.