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

CAROL BARNARD & JOHN BURGESSUniversity 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 pupils1 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. 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).

ii. 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

1 We will take the term developing bilingual pupils to mean those pupils for whom English is an addition to the one or more home/community languages they already speak, and for whom English poses some level of difficulty in their mainstream education.

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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” schoolsi.e. those with significant numbers

of developing bilingual pupilsreceiving language support

principally for “Type B” schoolsi.e. those with insignificant numbers

of developing bilingual pupilsreceiving language support

95-6

Programme 1

Topics:(i) cultural, linguistic, educational aspects

(ii) "common codes" LAC pedagogical approach

schools: 4mainstream teachers: 20

lang support staff: 10

-

96-7

Programme 2

Topics: as in Programme 1

schools: 5mainstream 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

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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 1The cultural, linguistic and educational backgrounds of developing-bilingual pupils inthe 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 2A "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.

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Input material:spoken

discourseand/or

written texts

Processing "Ideational frameworks"

Visual representations

Output material:

spoken discourse and/or

written texts

Listeningand/or

Reading

Thinking, speaking &

writingin 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 information-carrying 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).

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1 Language 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

2 Integrated 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

3 Oracy (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

5 Receptive 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

6 Productive 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.

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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 onthe 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

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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:A Positive attitude, awareness, or actionB Non-committal, not sure, or not confidentC Negative attitude, or lack of awareness or actionr (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.

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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 1Multicultural 38 5 43 33 1 34 12 1 13 90Teaching/learning 62 7 69 40 1 41 14 1 15 125Impact of INSET 82 15 97 40 2 42 10 2 12 151Teacher 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 61Relationships: MS/LS 16 1 17 6 0 6 6 0 6 29

Group 3 Management 14 8 22 26 6 32 19 7 26 80Dissemination 32 4 36 35 6 41 7 0 7 84Totals 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 1Multicultural 42.2 5.6 47.8 36.7 1.1 37.8 13.3 1.1 14.4 100 13.8Teaching/learning 49.6 5.6 55.2 32.0 0.8 32.8 11.2 0.8 12.0 100 19.2Impact of INSET 54.3 9.9 64.2 26.5 1.3 27.8 6.6 1.3 7.9 100 23.2Teacher 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 9.4MS/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 12.3Dissemination 38.1 4.8 42.9 41.7 7.1 48.8 8.3 0 8.3 100 12.9Totals 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

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A B C A B CGroup 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.

4.2 Context

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

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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,

1. Certainly at one stage English staff felt [that] they had to justify their existence purely through English, and that language across the curriculum was somehow offering themselves as slaves to the curriculum.

Another later reason for the loss of impetus was that the National Curriculum and related concerns have taken teachers’ attention away from the principles of language across the curriculum per se, among other issues which are or might be perceived by teachers as important. Many of our interviewees commented particularly on the burdensome nature of the work associated with nationally imposed systems, and its fatiguing effect on their general effectiveness and attitude. One MST commented

2. There is an enormous inertia in teaching because we’ve just had so much to deal with, and people just say “Oh, just another initiative” and it’s very difficult to get them to realise the value of it.

Similarly, a teacher expressed doubt about the value of a formal language policy in a school, wondering

3. Are a lot of these things that are documented to the high degree they are – are they ever really looked at? There’s a lot of paperwork goes on that’s a waste of time.

Indeed, only one of the schools seemed to have a written language policy, even here two of the teachers interviewed were not aware of its existence; one who was aware of it had little faith in it and supposed it was due for review. Three of the other schools had one in development in some way.

On the other hand, many aspects of the current educational climate may be seen as working in support of the principle of language across the curriculum. A recent QCA document, for instance, recommends that

The senior management team leads and gives a high profile to language and literacy in the school’s strategic plan (QCA, 2000, p.5).

It also makes the point (p.4) thatIn the past, in many subjects in the secondary curriculum, there have been moves to reduce the language demands, particularly in writing, as these were seen as barriers to pupils. In the longer term this is likely to be counterproductive… Helping pupils with the language of the subject will, in the end, promote progress in the subject.

Our respondents testified to this greater awareness of the significance of language across the curriculum. For instance, one of the managers said

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4. Mathematicians are confronting language and taking pains to try and train the students up.

A MST of a subject other than English commented that5. The pupil knowledge of language has quite a big effect on their level in

terms of opportunity of success.She went on to explain how in her subject she helped foster this knowledge.

Related to this, in the interviews with managers and with mainstream and SEN staff particularly, there were many echoes of prevailing national educational concerns centring on language and the curriculum. There was profound worry about problems of literacy (taken to include oracy, and seen as part of the underachievement of boys), and a lack of general knowledge amongst the pupils they taught, particularly at the beginning of Key Stage 3. 21 different comments were made by 13 different interviewees – both teachers and managers – expressing these concerns.

Language support for bilingual pupils

To return to the historical perspective, the movement to provide the best possible support for the language development of bilingual children gained its own momentum somewhat after the language across the curriculum movement had begun to fade. It was given succour by the Swann Report (DES, 1985), and produced publications such as Brumfit et al (1985), Bourne (1989), and Levine (1990). It also led to the establishment of NALDIC, the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum.

Central to the latter day beliefs of this movement was that of co-operative or partnership mainstream teaching, as promoted and discussed in works such as Bourne & McPake (1991), Cowie et al (1994), and Thomas (1992). Ideally, a LST and a MST would work together at all stages of the process of teaching the subject, bringing to it their own specialist skills and knowledge. The belief was that this would be more beneficial than the (by then politically unacceptable) option of withdrawing the developing bilingual pupil from the mainstream for even limited periods. Similarly, it would be preferable to the option of “withdrawal-in-the-mainstream” (Burgess & Carter, 1996), where the MST would take responsibility for the bulk of a class while the LST would work in the mainstream lesson, but only with the one pupil or small group of pupils targeted as needing language support. Indeed, it was claimed (e.g. in Bourne & McPake, op.cit.) that partnership teaching would be beneficial not only for the language development of the bilingual pupils, but for that of all the pupils.

We heard from several practitioners – both MSTs and LSTs – that despite the effort required, it is indeed worthwhile to establish and maintain effective mainstream partnerships. Further, there is an in-service training pay-off to good partnerships. Two Science teachers working in the same Type A school clearly valued what they had learned from a good partnership, one of them directly involved in it, the other learning vicariously from it. The first, commenting favourably on her current understanding of techniques for helping the children to focus their while-listening skills, and asked if this was something she had learned from the INSET programme, said

6. It’s probably something I would have been doing anyway; that was something that [my LST partner] suggested – I mean I would never have

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thought of doing that but it’s something she suggested you could do rather than actually get them to write a load of questions and answers.

The other Science teacher was more explicit, perhaps because she was conscious that she had been benefiting from a working relationship to which she had been making no direct contribution:

7. I think working with [language support] staff makes you aware that there are strategies and things that you can develop. I saw that [the LST and the MST quoted above] were developing work materials and I used those in my lessons.

By contrast, a couple of LSTs seemed to be less enthusiastic in believing that MSTs might gain from working with LSTs. One said

8. I don’t think we [LSTs] are a big influence on them [MSTs] at all.Another LST was also guarded:

9. I think something would have rubbed off but unfortunately it’s the people who are already on that wavelength who sort of pick things up.

Some LSTs, on the other hand, appeared to regard mainstream partnership quite warmly. One claimed that it can foster a critical-friend relationship:

10. I support one class taught by a senior member of staff [who] once asked me to do a sort of critical analysis of his teaching, which was a great act of trust.

But of course, as the same LST said, this depends on personalities and working styles:11. It comes down to individuals. If you get a particularly understanding

teacher in any subject you can work with them: I mean I support in German and History and all sorts of things and it works anywhere with the right combination.

She later indicated that it also depends on the partners being aware of the importance of each other’s contribution:

12. Sometimes if a teacher has a text that they’re going to present one way or another and I see that this text breaks down into wonderful tree diagrams, I say to the teacher “Can I teach this text to the class?” So I teach the lesson and I bring out all the things that I want to bring out. But at the end of the lesson I’ve realised that I’ve done my thing but there are other things that other teacher does much better than I do. So maybe the best that can happen there is [that] some kind of balance comes out.

Another LST, recognising the difficulty of achieving what she called “equal partnerships” (which are rare, as noted by Leung, 1993), demonstrated that they are attainable given the right conditions:

13. Because there isn’t the planning time built into anything to do it. But when I’ve managed to actually get a free period at the same time as somebody I’m working with, it has worked better.

Alongside this range of support for partnership in the mainstream, we also found evidence that withdrawal, sometimes over a fairly extensive period, is still seen by some language support teachers to have benefits for children who are newly arrived in England. One of the LSTs we quoted above arguing in favour of partnership teaching also expressed a view that was supported by the two LST colleagues present in their group interview:

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14. When they arrive they spend a lot of time with us – just with us – so their assessment isn’t just a case of a test or a morning – it may take a term. So when we talk about these kids to other teachers we tend to know them pretty well.

Implications of the convergence of the two movements

We might conclude from the above evidence that one aspect of the professional context (in the borough in question, at least) seems to have been a mixture of delivery of language support working within, and contributing to, a culture of developing practice in language across the curriculum. The two movements may be seen to have been converging in this positive sense.

However, there was potentially a more negative aspect to the convergence of the two principles in the larger political context: the INSET programmes themselves might be seen as an attempt to transfer responsibility for the development of bilingual pupils’ language ability from LSTs to MSTs across the curriculum. Central government had over a number of years been changing the mechanisms of financing such provision: from direct grants to LEAs under Section 11 of a Home Office Act, through a period in which language support agencies had to bid for central funding from the DfEE, to the current system in which the funding is passed to the schools which use it to buy in provision from such agencies. This political context of shifting sand had naturally led to a feeling of insecurity in the world of language support provision as regularly expressed in various publications by NALDIC. Therefore LSTs might fear that the INSET programme itself, by enabling MSTs to support developing bilingual pupils, was part of a conspiracy to do away with their contribution altogether. An attempt was made to avoid this by involving them in the training. However, as one of the managers explained,

15. The decision to return to the original mainstream participants – through [Programme 3] – that is maybe when [LST] staff might have felt that the thing was moving away from them.

Nevertheless, the language support agency’s contribution to the training programmes was highly significant, and, as we will suggest in 4.4, teacher-training and education itself may be one of its most significant activities in the future.

4.3 The impact of the INSET programmes

In analysing the data in this category, there was a risk that positive attitudes may have been influenced by the interviewees’ knowledge that the interviewer had been involved in the planning and delivery of the programmes. On the other hand, the interviewees often gave evidence to support their positive attitudes, so that this complaisance effect was reduced. In fact, in the initial analysis of the data for our earlier paper discussing principally the impact of the pedagogic principles (Barnard & Burgess, 2000), we had graded the comments as follows:

A showing support for the principle and evidence of applicationB showing support for the principleC showing awareness of the principle, but not positive support for itD lacking support for the principle

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E denying support for the principleThe report in section 4.3.2 is largely based on that analysis.

4.3.1 Management issues

But first let us look at the schools’ management culture surrounding the programmes. Overall, teachers’ and managers’ comments had seemed rather hesitant about Management (in group 3 in our analysis). Indeed when we looked at the attitudes of the schools’ managers towards the training programmes there was considerable variation, not necessarily depending on which type of school (Type A or Type B) they were in. Some had been closely involved in their organisation and in the dissemination of what had been gained from them, others more remote and with only vague understandings of the overall purpose or impact.

Let us look first at three managers in charge of training in Type B schools. We will call them Managers 1-3. Managers 1 and 2 had clearly been involved in the dissemination procedures in their schools following the programme. (In both cases, the dissemination sessions had, with our permission, used our materials which we had introduced during the main INSET programme.) Manager 1 referred to the dissemination as follows:

16. I am not a language specialist – I have not done language courses other than the [language] awareness session which was totally mind-boggling to me – and I understood the intellectual reasons behind it.

This enabled her to see the problem of mainstream teachers with a great deal of sympathy:

17. I could see certain ways in which it could be used, but I’ve then got to find the time to actually make a moment within the course to try it.

At the same time, she shared the essential language-across-the-curriculum notion that18. You’re not just a History teacher any more or a Geography teacher, you’re

actually a teacher in the wider sense of the word. I think slowly that may be beginning to get through, and I think that’s one thing this course may well have done.

Because Manager 2 was a language specialist, she was aware of the central issues covered in the programme. Interestingly, she noted how their dissemination activities had drawn attention to a significant teaching/learning issue in addition to the central linguistic points for which they had been designed:

19. Two of our Special Needs assistants were in my group and they deliberately just kept their hand up in total silence. They made the point that a percentage of the class – little girls particularly or shy little boys – are just like that, and that you’re attending to either the naughty ones or the ones – “I’ve done it, I’ve done it” – whether they’ve done it correctly or not…

These two managers also seemed to monitor work across the curriculum quite effectively, both mentioning work in other curricular areas than their own. For instance, Manager 2 cited both Science and History teaching and learning as examples of good practice in oral work and in extended writing skills.

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At the other end of the spectrum, Manager 3 seemed at best rather hazy, at worst simply to have misunderstood, when talking about the purpose of the INSET programme:

20. To get the children in the school more aware of the problems that bilingual students – multilingual students – have when they’re not speaking the indigenous language… I think those were the ground rules on which we set the whole thing in operation.

Even though she was charged among other things with INSET, and even though sufficient time had passed since the end of the training, she had not really followed up the programme in any way, and clearly regretted this. Asked about her school’s teachers’ response to the training, she said:

21. I’ll hold my hand on my heart and say I’ve not really spoken to them about it.

This was evidently because meeting the needs of bilingual pupils was not seen as very significant in the work of the school:

22. We don’t have many [developing bilingual] students… So I don’t think it would be seen as a particularly big issue really.

On the other hand it seemed to be part of a larger problem: that an overload of responsibilities was preventing this manager from monitoring what was going on in various departments of her school. On considering whether her ideals about pluralist social tolerance and understanding were shared by the school as a whole, she said

23. I’ve no way of knowing really.

As one might expect, the managers in the Type A schools were more evidently aware of, and in some cases involved in, the training. Let us call them Managers 5 and 6. Manager 5 was sufficiently aware of the significance of the issues to give a great deal of weight to the INSET programme:

24. When our staff embarked on the GEST training for bilingual learners we saw that what is good for bilingual learners is good language development per se… We saw the GEST training as a vital component for every one of the eight faculties. In fact we had two members in some areas embark on that training, and then it became sort of cascaded down and went to the whole of that faculty.

She saw it, indeed, as “very much a starting point for the development of the language policy” which she saw a need to develop.

Unfortunately however, she regretted having had insufficient opportunity to follow up the programme:

25. It’s difficult to comment with any sense of conviction because I would have had to focus on an evaluation which we haven’t undertaken, and I’m now feeling really guilty.

She later amplified this, apparently setting herself a task, as follows:26. The course is an influence; even this conversation this morning will have

an influence in the school. And when I meet (for example, I’ve got a heads-of-faculty meeting this evening), I’m sure in the near future someone’s going to be saying to me “Well, where are we with our own school literacy programme?” and I’ll be interested to know “How has the bilingual training that we undertook contributed to that?”

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This manager’s regret was apparently a positive sign of her overall level of awareness. For instance, about the outcomes of the training, she was able to say:

27. Areas that were most positive to my thinking were certainly the Humanities area, and is it a coincidence therefore that we have an initiative with English and History, English and Geography? Another area of huge enthusiasm was Science.

Similarly, she had been sufficiently aware of the dissemination to report on its organisation quite positively:

28. The dissemination was fine because we designated staff development time for that. It was recognised that if you’ve spent twenty five hours or whatever training staff with these skills it’s only right and proper you provide time for other colleagues to share that.

Manager 6 participated in a group interview, along with three language support teachers working in her school. Although she made relatively few contributions to the discussion, she demonstrated an awareness of practice across the curriculum, and a positive attitude towards the work of those language support teachers:

29. I’d like to think that [language support] staff have been fully – or as fully as possible – brought into the school – accepted as integrated within the school community.

4.3.2 The impact on participating teachers’ practice

Generally speaking, the impact on teaching and learning seemed positive. As we reported earlier (Barnard & Burgess, 2000), one of the most encouraging findings was that the mainstream teachers particularly felt they had gained a great deal from the programmes, and that they expressed enthusiasm for both the components: the cultural background and the pedagogical principles. Most of the MSTs claimed that their teaching methods and the learning outcomes had been enhanced by the language processing insights. On the other hand, relatively few were able to identify modifications to subject content to take account of multicultural issues.

Just under 80% of their comments expressed support for the pedagogic principles, and over 67% of these included evidence from the teachers' own experience or materials. Many of the interviewees recognised that putting the principles into practice effectively, particularly when they were relatively new, was time-consuming. Many of their reservations were related to issues like a lack of preparation time. But some of the mainstream teachers saw the techniques we were proposing as positively time-saving in the long run, in that they enabled learners to learn effectively, to take possession of the subject and the language that expresses it. A Science teacher, for instance, said the following about an experiment-based lesson:

30. When we got to the stage where they were just telling you what to do – you know they were using the correct names for the equipment and things - cos we'd spent that time on the language and sequencing.

By far the most significant of the principles proved to be those under the headingsLanguage across the curriculum

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Integrated pedagogic modelReceptive skillsProductive skills

Language across the curriculum

62 comments were made relating to this. The majority of these (63%) were expressions of support for the idea, particularly at teachers' own individual level. For instance, a mainstream teacher said

31. I think it's easy to think of yourself as a subject teacher but I think when you do focus on the language like that you can see that the concepts are more accessible to the children – so I think ideally I would like to see myself as a teacher of language.

Several teachers saw ways in which the proposed pedagogic principles benefited all pupils, not just developing bilingual children, helping them to develop their language ability and learn the subject. A Science teacher in a Type A school went so far as to claim benefits right across the ability range. She found (perhaps initially to her own surprise)

32. that all the children that have used [the worksheets] have grasped the ideas that you’re trying to get across a lot easier, and I’ve even used them with brighter children as well.

She went on to say that there were benefits for “low ability students” too.

On the other hand, of 17 comments made about the development of whole-school policies, 11 were to the effect that schools were not establishing LAC policies across the board (in line with what we have noted above), and that where language issues were being taken into account alongside subject content, it was usually much more strongly visible in certain departments (usually the English department) than in others. A teacher told us

33. Within this school it's seen very much as part of the English department - I mean this is very much an English department initiative.

Integrated pedagogic model: significance of tasks

67% of the comments about the principles of linkage and the usefulness of "ideational frameworks" showed enthusiasm for them. These are best exemplified by the following quotations from three mainstream teachers: one of Science, and two of English.

34. We do use grids and so on and tables as springboards for their oral work too -because they might brainstorm and actually fill in as a group - and again because they've got a framework there it's easier and they all chip in - because it is simply a grid you know - they're not put off by the fact that anybody's got to sit down - if they've got to record it's a tick they're recording.

35. Using the grids and things - you know it's so appropriate to doing experiments and things that you can use it just on a day-to-day basis really.

36. I used it with a book I used with Year 8 - and I used a flow diagram. We read a chapter - put a flow diagram on the board and immediately they were able to access the information.

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Receptive skills

86% of the comments about the need for learner-training demonstrated that teachers strongly perceived this, and the majority of these felt they could address that need after attending the INSET course. A Science teacher explained a technique she had used:

37. I've done a thing with the video where they've had a list and what they've had to do is put the number in order as it's appeared.

But teacher development was crucial here too. Addressing this need to focus receptive work implied reviewing resources such as worksheets. For instance, a teacher of IT and Geography said

38. I enjoyed looking again at resources and seeing how better to structure them and make them more accessible to my pupils.

Productive skills

Over 81% of the comments about groupwork and the importance of guidance were positive. Speaking about a lot of the pupils she teaches these days, a Science teacher claimed that

39. They can't transfer what they're saying into written work but these sheets that we've used have actually helped them to do that.

The same teacher also recognised the value of collaborative groupwork for the practice of speaking skills:

40. They're actually speaking when they're working out the answers in their pairs.

Other pedagogic principles

Some of these were addressed by only a few of our interviewees. Where they were addressed, however, it was usually because of the particular enthusiasm of the interviewee. For instance, the principle of the encouragement of independent learning through the use of the integrated pedagogic model was supported very powerfully by a mainstream English teacher, as follows.

41. It gives them a much greater sense of achievement if they've unlocked something in that poem for themselves than if they've just had it explained to them – their self-esteem shoots through the roof.

The ideas that spoken and written language are each a good medium for noticing and practising aspects of language form did not excite much support. This is perhaps not very surprising, for two reasons. One is that MSTs tend to see literacy, for instance, as the ability to associate the spoken word with the written word. The other is that their attention is clearly much more on the value of language to communicate their subject than on the systems within the language itself. Of only 7 comments on our principles, however, 5 were supportive. In fact, with reference to spoken forms, one of the Science teachers we interviewed volunteered that, in the mode of a language teacher, she drills difficult technical terms:

42. Quite a few of the children have problems saying the words so I get them to repeat it back to me now which I would never have done before - I'd have thought that would have embarrassed them - but now I get that child to say it

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and then I say "Everybody say it now" - which is something I picked up on the course.

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The advantages of variety of source material were noticed in all of the 5 comments made on this theme. A History teacher gave the example of how she had used a video about the First World War, and had designed tasks to focus the pupils' listening.

The principle of productive skills practice for all pupils to take possession of the language of the subject was accepted in 5 out of 6 comments made on this topic. A mainstream English teacher, acknowledging the value of the use of “ideational frameworks”, reported the following:

43. I did something with finding quotes – it was a quote-quest where they had to fill in grids and things and they were using the Shakespearean language without even realising it – people were saying "Have you found Thou art a villain?" – and I could hear it all the way around the room and it was brilliant – they just didn't realise they were actually doing it so they weren't frightened of speaking it aloud.

Very few comments were made - certainly fewer than we would have hoped - on the topic of pupils' need for practice in producing extended discourse. On the other hand, 4 of the 6 comments made were supportive of the principle. A Science teacher extolled the virtues of the relationship between the use of "ideational frameworks" (which she refers to below as spending that initial time) and the pupils' ability to produce appropriate extended writing. She was comparing the conventional approach adopted by Science teachers with the one she had developed from attending the course and from learning from her partnership with a LST:

44. If you think how long it takes [conventionally] for them to do the experiment with them keep asking you - then they've got to write it up and they keep asking you - whereas if you spend that initial time they just get on with it.

The fact that she had gained this from her partnership with a LST is evidence of the benefits of such collaboration as we argued in 4.2 above. This MST’s general confidence level seemed high, perhaps partly as a result of the partnership. A senior manager commented that the mainstream teachers who were most likely to take on the responsibility of supporting their pupils' language development are those who are already “confident” and “comfortable” in teaching their subject.

The idea of exposure to sophisticated non-simplified subject material received less support than we would have liked; just over half of the comments (4 out of 7) demonstrated an inclination to simplify material that the children were to read or listen to, rather than simplifying the tasks that give them access to it. For instance, a History teacher said

45. With a very low ability group my use of language changes totally - everything'sa lot slower and much more basic.

Again, a Science teacher said46. I for one have become less reliant on text books that we buy in assuming that

children can read them - and I tend to use them now only the barest minimum amount of time.

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An idea that met with hardly any support from anyone interviewed was that of the differentiation of tasks according to learners' needs; this was certainly because it was seen to require a great deal of preparation time.

Multicultural matters

The programmes’ content on cultural and religious heritage and orientation was appreciated most amongst interviewees in Type B schools, perhaps because they felt they had more to learn about these issues than their colleagues in Type A schools. One interviewee said

47. The most helpful thing was the information about other religions and cultures.

However, the multicultural content of teaching approaches and materials seemed to be near the top of hardly anyone’s mainstream agenda. A manager with an avowed interest in such things declared herself to be “struggling” to think of examples, despite the fact that within the LEA an officer and inspector had been appointed with a “brief” to develop a “multicultural perspective in the curriculum”. In two Type B schools, specific subject areas were cited as being ones in which it was supposed such approaches and materials were used: Geography, MFL, English, History and Science. In general terms, however, there was a feeling that, as another manager put it,

48. Most people would agree that [it] was a reasonable goal for any community [to have] an empathy with other communities or an understanding of other cultures.

In a Type A school, where we might expect a greater awareness of multicultural issues, a Science teacher was able to cite a rare example of how the curriculum has been deliberately modified to take account of the geographic origins of some pupils’ families:

49. We’ve got one or two things. I mean they’re so tiny. I mean when we’re doing about genetics – there’s a disease that’s very common in Asia – it’s a genetic disorder – which we never used to mention, but now we use that as one of the examples.

She went on, however, to admit that this is an area where there is a need for further development:

50. That is something we need to do because something like a third of our pupils are British Asian [and] quite a lot of them feel school’s nothing to do with them.

In the same vein, she was honest enough to admit that she did not know about the “multicultural packs” that a LST in the school described as existing in the English department.

This vagueness of awareness was echoed in another Type A school where there were multicultural materials only “in theory”. In this school, a History teacher was forthcoming about the reticence of her department to grasp the nettle about the social “divide” that she obviously perceives:

51. To balance things out we do a course based on British history but then also based around sort of really Moslem-stroke-English history, and the biggest groans don’t come from the pupils from either side of the divide but from the staff who find difficulties in teaching it and getting the points across.

On the other hand, she maintained that she herself was aware of the value of this curriculum content for the pupils:

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52. I find it brings alive the Asian pupils – they really get stuck in. It’s staggering how certain kids who have been pretty anonymous prior to doing the new course [are] all of a sudden at the top of the class, interested in History. It’s as if they feel they’ve been given a fair bite of the cherry really.

She went on to indicate that she felt that this pupil-value justified the departure from what she saw as the National Curriculum requirements for History.

However, if this last teacher seemed keen to recognise the social cultures of her pupils, she was unique in our sample. In the third Type A school, a Maths teacher made reference to “the background of numbers” in her teaching, and to the limitations of the practice of her department:

53. When we write exam papers ourselves we just slip in the names – Imran etcetera – but I would say that was more or less the extent of what we do.

The use in school, and even during lessons, of the pupils’ home languages was the subject of some differences of opinion. 75% of comments on this were favourable, though it has to be said that most of this approval was for teachers' use of the home language to establish and maintain contact with the pupils, rather than use by the pupils themselves. A difference of opinion was experienced even within one of the schools, where one member of mainstream staff claimed that it was considered appropriate to encourage the pupils to use their home language during their formal learning time, while another declared it inappropriate. There was apparently a need here for the school to debate the issue internally and to come up with some commonly applicable practice.

Other instances of what we might call multiculturalism were at school management levels. A Type A school claimed to have “trips” and “visitors”, e.g. Imams, and to be making positive efforts to ensure equal opportunities in employment at all levels in the school. In two different Type B schools, it was recognised that racism was a problem in their catchment area and even amongst some of the non-teaching staff. In one of these, attempts had been made to pay respect to ethnic minority traditions in the form of a “Shalwar Kameez Day” and an Indian dance session one lunchtime.

4.3.3 The impact through dissemination

Dissemination was one of the “group 3” categories of comments where there was a noticeable degree of uncertainty or lack of confidence amongst interviewees. In some schools there was a clear willingness to disseminate the ideas within and across departments, often using training materials based on those we had used during the courses. This was usually to be seen against a consciousness of the need for further staff development: for example, one mainstream teacher who had run an INSET day with members of her own faculty recounted the following experience.

54. We developed on that day some working materials - staff went away and trialled those - then we came back together and discussed whether they'd been a success or not and revised ideas because we found that quite a few members of staff - although they might have tried those ideas - because they'd not been on the [original] course - it's not as much in their mind if you know what I mean.

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There was, however, a fairly widespread reluctance to step beyond the boundaries of one’s own faculty to spread the ideas in other curricular areas, mainly because the teachers found it difficult, as one might expect, to transpose themselves into another curricular specialism. A Science teacher in a Type A school had seen in the dissemination an opportunity to share with her colleagues the techniques she had developed first in partnership with an LST and then in the INSET programme she attended. Her initial purpose was

55. to grab the imagination of our department because we’ve got one or two people that don’t really like to take on ideas readily. I did a gobbledegook thing about lighting a Bunsen burner. [But] if you went along and did that with the History department they’d say “What’s this got to do with History?”

This type of reticence led to preference expressed by a couple of teachers for INSET delivered to the whole staff of the school, or to a cross-section of it, by an “outsider” (Alderson & Scott, 1992), and then translated by the participants to their own contexts, just as in our programmes. They compared this favourably with the “cascade” effect in which they were engaged.

They also found it difficult to concentrate what they felt they had to tell their colleagues into much smaller spans of time than we had had on the initial programmes. They usually had a maximum of one training day as compared with the five devoted to the initial programmes.

Inevitably, as exemplified in the last quotation above, the teachers found some of their colleagues more receptive than others, but one of the factors which helped them promote the pedagogic ideas was their conviction that they were of value to all pupils, not just to developing bilingual children.

Sadly, partly because of the problems described above, and partly because of the more deep-rooted and time-consuming contextual factors discussed in 4.2, most dissemination programmes had either not got going at all, or had fizzled out by the time we conducted the interviews.

4.4 Further development

We have seen above how some teachers wished there could be a widening of the type of INSET they had experienced to reach a broader section of their professional community. This view was shared by one of the managers, who was conscious that our research itself might act as a stimulus to the generation of more programmes. The relative success of this programme as compared with others was demonstrated by one of the teachers:

56. You often go on courses and know sort of ninety per cent of what they’re trying to tell you, but I picked up a lot of new things which I wasn’t expecting.

This success was, we believe, largely due to the fact that the language support agency was able, because of its experience in the schools, to identify what was needed and to design a suitable programme accordingly. Although this was nowhere explicitly stated, it was strongly implicit in the positive attitudes of the kind we have reviewed

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in this paper. Therefore it would seem advisable for the language support agency to continue to play a major role in the future provision of INSET.

One parallel way in which the agency can continue to contribute to good in-service educational practice is through the partnership teaching which, as we have seen, does work well in some schools. The perceived expense of this approach can be offset if it is seen as an investment in teacher development.

Pre-service training is an area, we suggest, in which the language support agency staff could be more formally involved than they have traditionally been – perhaps as members of mentoring teams working with pre-service trainees. One of the managers in charge of training in her school referred to an episode with a pre-service trainee whose “mind was blown” by his application, after consulting one of the programme participants, of the kind of worksheet design that had been developed during the programme.

5. Summary and conclusion

Although the INSET programmes may have succeeded best where they were preaching to the converted, e.g. those who had been involved in good partnership teaching, there seems little doubt that the overall effect of the programmes was positive. School agendas have been guided, or at least, nudged towards greater recognition of the big issues of what we might call language across the curriculum through language support for developing bilingual pupils. Individual teachers’ practice has developed to take account of the same issues.

More dissemination and development would be beneficial, and we have suggested that the language support agency – both in the borough we looked at and in other boroughs – should be engaged in this. Adequate time should be devoted to any further programmes designed for such further development. Furthermore, we suggest (echoing Bourne, 1997) that good collaborative MST/LST partnership teaching is in itself an excellent, if expensive, medium for development through practice.

Despite the frustrations of INSET work, both for the trainee and for the trainer, this series of programmes seems to have been reasonably successful. At the very least, it and our follow-up research seem to have provoked thought and activity in the participating schools of the kind that the designers of the programmes would have wished for.

References

Alderson, J.C. and Scott, M. (1992) Insiders, outsiders and participatory evaluation, in J.C. Alderson, & A. Beretta (Eds.) Evaluating Second Language Education, pp. 25-58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Barnard, C. (1996) Training for Mainstream Secondary Teachers in the Needs of Bilingual Pupils. Unpublished MEd dissertation. University of Manchester.

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Barnard, C. & Burgess, J. (2000) The impact of INSET for mainstream teachers in supporting the needs of bilingual pupils, in M. Beaumont & T.A. O’Brien (Eds.) Collaborative Research in Second Language Education, pp. 149-163. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books.

Barnes, D., Britton, J., Rosen, H. & the London Association for the Teaching of English (1969) Language, the Learner and the School. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

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Burgess, J. (1995) Language support across the curriculum: paper presented at International Standing Conference for the History of Education, 17th Annual Conference, Berlin, September. Mimeograph: Language & Literacy Group, Faculty of Education, University of Manchester.

Burgess, J. & Carter, I.G. (1996) Common codes for mainstream ESL support across the curriculum, System, 24/2, pp. 211-222.

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Department of Education and Science (1985) Education for All (The Swann Report). London: HMSO.

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Appendix 1Interview schedule for secondary teachersSection A: Whole school • Does your school have a language policy?• Has the school's awareness of language issues in the curriculum developed since the GEST-funded

programme(s)? If so, how has this developed?• Has the school's awareness of cultural and community issues beyond the classroom developed since the GEST-

funded programme(s)? If so, how has this developed?Section B: Department • Does the department you work in have a policy or strategy for supporting bilingual pupils?• Has this developed since the GEST-funded programmes?• Do your department's teaching materials have a multi-cultural dimension?• Has this developed since the GEST-funded programmes?Section C: Individual teachers • Time has elapsed since the GEST-funded programme(s) that you attended; how do you now feel about the

approaches investigated during the programme(s)?• Have your feelings about these approaches changed since the programmes? If so, how?• Have you used the methodology presented during the programmes in your teaching? If so, how?• Has your teaching strategy or style developed since the GEST-funded programmes? If so, how?• Have your teaching materials developed since the GEST-funded programmes? If so, how?• Has the programme influenced your approach to the following, and if so, how?

listening; speaking; reading; writing• Have you had the opportunity to influence any of the issues raised in earlier parts of this interview within your

department and/or school? If so, how?Section D • Is there anything else you would like to say?

Appendix 2Interview schedule for secondary senior managersSection A: Whole school • Does your school have a language policy?• Has the school's awareness of language issues in the curriculum developed since the GEST-funded

programme(s)? If so, how has this developed?• Has the school's awareness of cultural and community issues beyond the classroom developed since the GEST-

funded programme(s)? If so, how has this developed?Section B: Departments • Do individual departments have a policy or strategy for supporting bilingual pupils?• Has this developed since the GEST-funded programmes?• Do individual departments' teaching materials have a multi-cultural dimension?• Has this developed since the GEST-funded programmes?Section C: Individual teachers • Time has elapsed since the GEST-funded programme(s) that some of your colleagues attended; how do you

think they now feel about the approaches investigated during the programme(s)?• Is it your impression that their feelings about these approaches have changed since the programme(s)? If so,

how?• As far as you know, have they used the methodology presented during the programmes in their teaching? If so,

how?• As far as you know, has their teaching strategy or style developed since the GEST-funded programmes? If so,

how?• As far as you know, have their teaching materials developed since the GEST-funded programmes? If so, how?• As far as you know, has the programme influenced your colleagues' approach to the following, and if so, how?

listening; speaking; reading; writing• Have your colleagues who attended the programmes influenced any of the issues raised in earlier parts of this

interview within their department and/or the school? If so, how?Section D • Is there anything else you would like to say?

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