To what extent do you think the “KommUNIkation”-workshops helped you in your development as a teacher?

Oh it definitely took me from muddling through, to someone who knows more or less, you know, what could happen [laughs]...I mean, it was a first step. It was clearly - it wasn’t like I had the feeling “Oh my gosh, now I’m ready for... to call myself a teacher and full stop, you know, no, not like that, but it was clearly a first step in professionalizing my teaching.

There is not such a thing as being a “teacher and full stop” in her professional ethics. Thus,

171 She teaches Spanish, and German is her students' first language.

172 Of course we rely on self-reported data.

being given a chance to introduce new theories or trying to accomodate them in her

“interpretive frameworks”¹⁷³ represents a challenge but constitutes learning for her (cf. next section “Attitude towards students’ learning”) and results in a commitment to her teaching practice:

[Interview A54: 318] I keep going back to it, you know, even if it doesn’t work at first I kind of think it over and it becomes a part of repertoire in some cases.

A last feature of the learning attitude that characterises the first subgroup of teachers is illustrated by teacher N51, who at the end of the interview was asked – as were all the others teachers – if she wished to add something that had not been said, and she promptly answered that the interview had led her to self-knowledge, which echoed her need and goal of becoming increasingly self-aware as a teacher:

[Interview N51: 242-5] Q.: Is there something that you would like to add and say?

Yes, I want to say that is was more interesting than I expected.

Why, what did you expect?

Yes, it was quite spontaneous, thus in a certain sense it has been a process of self-knolwedge¹⁷⁴. This attitude is quite emblematic of this first subgroup, which seems to welcome any opportunity as a learning and reflecting experience.

The other teachers of the second subgroup (B282 and I312) also seemed to be aware of the necessity for life-long learning, as teacher I312 exemplarly expresses:

[Interview I312: 125] I don’t think it’s experience when you do the same thing for ten years.

However, the teachers in this subgroup approach newness in their field with reservations.

Teacher B282 does wish to “be on top of things”, but her critical attitude seems to minimise her openness:

[Interview B282: 107] to generally be on top of …. um whatever is discussed in the world of language teaching, not necessarily saying that I would follow every fashion but [laughs]…

The word ‘fashion’ applied to language teaching refers to the methods or theories of teaching as being rapid transitory just as with fashion, which is popular in a particular time and place

173 This seems to parallel what Myers & Clark (2002: 51) claim about teachers’ accomodation attitude.

174 C’è qualcosa che vorresti aggiungere e che vorresti dire?

Sì, voglio dire che è stato più interessante di quello che mi aspettavo Perché , cosa ti aspettavi?

Sì, […] è stato abbastanza spontaneo, quindi in un certo senso è stato un processo di autoconoscenza.

but likely will be forgotten after a short while. Her remark summarises in few words the characteristics of an information flood, a rapid succession of methods and paradigm changes in the language teaching field, with the ensuing problem of teachers’ destabilisation, which language teachers have to face. At first glance, it could sound similar to “skeptisch sein”, like that of teacher P73, but there are substantial differences: in teacher P73 the target of the scepticism is herself, while in teacher B282 it is the successive newness. Teacher B282 seems to draw the conclusion that a critical stance is necessary to cope with the various fashions in the course of time.

This could be seen as an artifact of the interview, with the teachers’ need to position herself as critical. However, other occurrences of her mental reservation that surfaced every now and then during the interview suggest that “reservations” are a trait of her attitude towards professional learning. Some of these examples follow:

[Interview B282: 140] Q.: Have you ever participated to a training for language teachers where you felt that your ideas or your own teaching philosophy contrasted with the ones being presented?

Not necessarily the ideas, it is just that you sometimes wonder how – as you are not necessarily teaching in an ideal world [laughs], how well something would really work when you tried to do more or less the same thing. You know some things just look very wonderful and then you think: Would I have x, y or z….

[Interview B282: 223] I can try and, if not keep abreast, but stay in contact with my field, with language teaching.

Although the teachers all wish to keep abreast of the professional debate, for the second subgroup of teachers the difference seems to be in their attitude towards newness. They ultimately rely on their teaching experiences and less on the incorporation of input from the outside (new theories or new methods, etc), while the first subgroup displays an unprejudiced stance towards newness, which has a striking similarity to the openness advocated for qualitative research. Quoting Schütz (1974), Kruse (2010: 21) for example, explains one of the most important principles in pursuing qualitative research, “Verstehen [ist] stets ein Fremdverstehen”. According to this principle, “understanding” equals “understanding other perspectives” and this awareness very clearly resonates in the open attitude of the teachers in the first subgroup.

A further difference in the teachers’ attitudes became obvious between the two subgroups in relation to the teachers’ position on getting things done, on translating intentions into actions.

Whereas the teachers in subgroup 1 were looking for challenges and reported experimenting and trying new things in their teaching, they never mentioned the effort involved during the interviews. For the second subgroup the effort stands out in the foreground.

This result is very apparent for teacher I312, who mentions several times, in the entries of the questionnaries and during the interview as well, how much work it takes to integrate new ideas into her teaching:

[Entry I312; Q335: 1-3] dass es viel Arbeit ist, mit Zeitungsartikeln zu arbeiten

[Interview I312: 55] I’ve used film [she refers to a workshop about using videos], but Lernstationen I couldn’t use because it’s too much work. You know.

Even her professional goal to publish reveals itself as too effortful, and she capitulates when realising how difficult it could be.

[Interview I312: 67] But this is such a daunting task I don’t know how I’m going to go about doing that.

For the teachers in subgroup 2, the effort ensues in the teachers’ avoidance of time-consuming implementations, such as development of activities or experimentation with innovating concepts presented in the workshops.

One possible explanation could be that the teachers in the two subgroups have different strategies at their disposal. As illustrated in the “Strategic profile of the teachers” (Chapter 4.2.2.2), the teachers in subgroup 1 use specific meta-cognitive and social-affective strategies, M6 (EXECUTION STRATEGY) or S-A 3 (SELF-ENCOURAGEMENT) for example, which seem to render the professional development task more manageable. This could explain why the effort involved in implementing new ideas in their teaching was not mentioned, not because teacher professional development is an easy task, but because they can metabolise it through their strategies. As a consequence, what stands out is their enthusiasm for their job, rather than the extra work implied.

In contrast, the teachers in subgroup 2 do not have effective strategies to cope with the development task at their disposal: they perceive the work load implied when they try to implement new (but time-consuming) ideas (both use the strategy C3 INFERENCING), but seem to rely solely on handouts and “recipes” (teacher B282) or on help from a supervisor (teacher I312) for their development:

[Interview B282: 60-61] Q.: What could be done to make them [the workshops] more effective/useful for you?

Hmmm… let me think. What is always very good is if you can take away some documentation of it, if there are handouts, which quite often there are but not, not necessarily.

Overall, as far as their attitude towards their own professional learning is concerned, the two teachers of subgroup 2 display similarities with the teachers in the group “without own learning goals”.

Self-responsibility vs. delegating behaviour

A consequence of this self-critical attitude is that the teachers in subgroup 1 are more attentive than the others to what triggers their learning or to the way they are “instructed”. The best example of this attitude is illustrated by teacher A54:

[Interview A54: 102]