18 - Individual and organizational learning: exploring the psycho-social dynamics of change

Summary

Introduction

Some problems in language teaching seem more than mere technical puzzles; they present us with conundrums that provide a window onto important aspects of learning and development. Earl Stevick often couched his problem-solving musings as riddles. Here is a sampling:

Riddle #1: failure and success

Why do some language students succeed, and others fail? Why do some language teachers fail and others succeed? What may the learners and teachers of foreign languages hope to succeed at, anyway? How broad, how deep, and how wide may be the measure of their failure, or their success?

(Stevick 1980: 3)

Riddle #2: methods

In the field of language teaching, Method A is the logical contradiction of Method B: if the assumptions from which A claims to be derived are correct, then B cannot work, and vice versa. Yet one colleague is getting excellent results with A, and another is getting comparable results with B. How is this possible?

(Stevick 1996: 193)

In my work as a language teacher and teacher educator, I have wrestled with these riddles and I have benefited significantly from Stevick's approach to teaching and learning – indeed, from the model his life has provided of teacher as learner. Early on in my career as a teacher educator, I was confronted by the fact that the teachers in my classes expected me to guide them in selecting from the competing claims of the dominant methods and materials even though I believed these were choices they had to make for themselves (Clarke 1982). I therefore found myself in the paradoxical position of a guru who advised young teachers to be wary of gurus (Clarke 1984).

The issue of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ applies to more than language teaching, of course, and permits us to ponder a broad continuum of possible responses to life's challenges. On one extreme we have the technical issues of how we get through the day – in teaching this means attention to materials, methods and techniques – while on the other extreme we have the more philosophical domain of core values and principles – questions that in language education go beyond language competence and touch on universals of power and privilege.