4.5 How does English First Additional Language teacher‘s participation and what they
4.5.1 Collaboration and networking
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had learnt a lot from the visit to a school in a different context. He indicated that being a member of the cluster had helped him with providing better resources for his learners, and exposed him to teaching and learning contexts that were different from those he was familiar with. This was alluded to by many of the teachers in the two clusters.
Key research question 3
4.5 How does English First Additional Language teacher’s participation and what
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I’m sure teachers have already indicated to you in their interviews that I’m not always present in their meetings. So I make use of the skills and knowledge of senior markers and senior teachers to develop their colleagues. That is what professional development is about anyway.
She indicated that teachers only needed her input in policy related questions that only she could have answers to, otherwise she always encouraged them to help others and be each other‘s mentors. I experienced this kind of interdependence among teachers when observing a cluster meeting where the subject advisor was not present. One teacher asked the cluster coordinator if he could ask the subject advisor to do a workshop on how they needed to teach certain short transactional texts. Other teachers responded by suggesting they set a date when they were going to do such a workshop amongst themselves. The teachers reminded each other that there were teachers in the cluster who were highly experienced to conduct curriculum workshops within their cluster, and that as a cluster they needed to just tap into that expertise. There was a brief discussion on the issue and teachers then agreed on the date, and some volunteered to facilitate the workshop. This was evidence of the teachers‘ ability to work collaboratively within a cluster and supported their claim of how they had developed professionally in their networking collaboration endeavours.
In another cluster meeting the subject advisor encouraged teachers to ask each other for help. She also reiterated that collaboration should not only be practiced within teachers of the same grade, but across all the grades. Mr Nzama further added that, he had started the culture of asking other teachers to come to his class and help him on some assessment standards that he was not so confident to teach to the learners. He added that he learnt the importance of collaboration from attending cluster meetings and he argued that he saw this as a cheap and simple way to develop teachers within a school and even with teachers from other schools. He indicated that although there were teachers in his school
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who were uncomfortable with sharing with other colleagues, some teachers welcomed his initiative:
I started this year to work as a unit especially from grade ten to twelve. Because I am not a jack of all trades, I requested one lady to come and teach summary writing skills,
I know I’m not good in teaching summary writing. She knows I’m good in short stories so she said I must go and assist her in grade eleven.
This was his way of encouraging teachers to work collaboratively, which he indicated he saw as part of professional development. Another teacher mentioned that teaching was not an individual work, but a team effort and felt that clusters contributed to professional development by encouraging teachers to work as teams in their schools. Other teachers also agreed with him and said that it was important for teachers to try and work as teams in their schools because when the grade twelve results came out, it does not only become an issue of the subject teacher, but the whole school becomes criticized and looked at by everyone, hence the importance of teamwork in schools. This was further emphasized by Mr Maphanga when he mentioned that:
You might find that maybe when it comes to poems I’m not good, yet in need to do some poems ….we need to come up with some sort of integration asking certain individuals, certain teachers from grade nine, ten or whatever, as long as I know that the teacher is an expert when it comes to poetry. That’s one thing I’ve changed, that’s what other teachers in other schools are doing.
In the documents that were given to teachers in the meeting that was held at the beginning of the year, there was also a list of all the combined cluster members contact details that was generated by the subject advisor. The subject advisor mentioned that she had generated and included this list of teachers contact details in order to encourage relations amongst the teachers.
Teachers also indicated that being in clusters gave them an opportunity to network with teachers from other schools. This networking helped them in a number of things in their work as teachers and contributed to them developing professionally. Evidence of
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networking that was discussed in the interviews was that of a particular teacher from previously disadvantaged school who approached teachers from well-resourced schools.
In one such instance, a teacher from a poorly resourced school requested to take his learners to an advantaged school to watch the film ―Nothing but the truth‖, which was a prescribed novel for grade twelve. He indicated that his learners‘ were welcome to go to the school and watch the film and this really helped the learners as it improved their understanding of the drama. Teachers also indicated that networking helped them to also compare the pace they were going with their own leaners to that of teaches from other school, as mentioned by Miss Mbona below:
The teacher will contact you and find out what is going on in your school, how far have you gone in this topic, are your children comfortable with this?
And then we shall share all these things.
Teacher mentioned that before they participated in clusters they did not find it easy to collaborate and network with other teachers, and regarded their participation as having contributed to their professional development in this regard.