5.4 SABELO’S TEACHING
5.4.4 Interview with Sabelo
5.4.4.1 The philosophy of teaching
140
work and gave explanations to those who had difficulties. After Sabelo had marked for two learners, he made the following remark to the entire class:
Make sure you read the question and you understand it. It’s very important that you understand the story very clearly so you know what is going on. And most people fail to answer a problem not because they are not able but because they did not understand it. They just read through the problem without understanding it.
In the above extract, Sabelo was trying to emphasize that learners should read a problem with understanding. He went on to read the problem aloud for learners with some few clarifications. Before he could start marking learners’ work, his time elapsed. He stopped them from going on working on the problem and told them that they should finish the problem at home. Learners were also given the rest of the exercise in their Pupil’s Book as homework. The lesson took about 60 minutes duration time.
141
Interviewer: You describe an example for me when one of your lecturers at college talked about learner-centred teaching.
Sabelo: I will pick one I remember most of the time when a child is fed with information the teacher is responsible when feeding the child with information. The child is easy to lose the information.
When the child is doing the learning on his own it is hard to forget what he has done.
In the above conversation, Sabelo seemed to be comparing teacher-centred teaching to learner-centred teaching. He acknowledged that learners do not forget information that was taught to them using learner-centred teaching hence he seemed to have an understanding of what this approach was.
Furthermore, the researcher asked Sabelo on the teaching methods that were used by his lecturers when he was still at college. And he responded by saying that:
Most of the time the lecturers will be doing the work.
When he says the lecturers will be doing the work, it seems he was referring to the lecture method of teaching. Hence, his submission was that he was often taught using the lecture method at college.
To find out more about Sabelo’s teaching philosophy, I asked him to describe for me the meaning of learner-centred teaching. And this is how he responded to my question:
I think learner-centred teaching is when the teacher is not the master of the class. But the learners are given the opportunity just to learn from themselves and one another and learning from one another and learning by doing the learning by themselves than by being fed by the teacher. And the role of the teacher in learner-centred teaching is observing the learning and helping the learners to do their learning.
From his description of learner-centred, Sabelo seemed to have a right framework of what it was. He articulated it well. During his lesson he emphasised that learners should work in groups and report their findings. Right at the beginning of his lesson he asked them to form groups and whilst teaching he insisted that they should discuss the tasks in their groups. Despite his instruction, in some groups learners never discussed the tasks in their groups (for example Figure 5.31). In that group, members were observed watching one
142
particular learner solving the problem. When Sabelo went passed that group he never bothered himself to ask them why they were not discussing the problem.
And he never bothered to get some explanations from the group members let alone from the learner who was working out the problem. But in one of his groups, there was some discussion of the task. Basically Sabelo did not make any intervention among the groups who were either having a learner working alone whilst other members were watching or that group whose members were discussing. But when I asked him about the role of the teacher in learner-centred he gave me the following response:
The role of the teacher in learner-centred teaching is observing the learning, guiding and helping the learners to do their learning.
In his description of learner-centred teaching, Sabelo also mentioned that the teacher was not the master of the learning process. However, he was seen dominating the class especially during his lesson introduction. That happened when groups could not give him any responses. Here, he started teaching whilst they were in their groups, giving them explanations. That was contrary to his assertion that the teacher is not the master of the teaching process in learner- centred practices.
During my interview with Sabelo, I further asked him about the teaching method he used when I observed his lesson.
Sabelo: Mmm…. it was sort of learner-centred, I was giving the pupils some time to discuss as discussing will be helping each other.
And others will see ways of solving particular problem.
Though some aspect of his teaching was learner-centred but Sabelo would now and again use question and answer method especially when he wanted responses from the learners. Here, he wanted responses from individual learners whilst they were in their groups which were not a group effort. On another note, indeed Sabelo encouraged his learners to discuss during his lesson presentation.
Furthermore, he emphasised that every learner should be part of the discussion and that no one should be quiet. Perhaps in some groups learners were not discussing the task. Sabelo seemed to acknowledge the value of learner-centred teaching but he would sometimes conduct a whole class session using a question
143
and answer method especially when he got inappropriate responses from the learners.
An interesting aspect of his lesson was when groups reported their solutions of the problem that he had given them. Instead of reporting what they found as a group, each group representative would write a mathematical sentence on chalkboard based on their interpretation of the problem and conducted a question and answer session using his/her peers to help him/her find the answer.
The question and answer session was either on addition or subtraction or multiplication depending on how the group members interpreted the task.
Sabelo supported the question and answer session that was conducted by the group’s representative such that he told the other learners that they should not respond spontaneously but raise their hands. Sabelo’s teaching seemed to be consisted with his belief that learners should be given some time to discuss a problem. According to him, their discussions helped each other to see how the task was solved hence he allowed them to do the discussions when they ought to be making presentations. When I asked him why he used the question and answer method in his lesson he said:
I just wanted to let them be part of speaking.
Thus, Sabelo believed that learner-centred teaching is learner-learner interaction throughout the lesson even when they had to do presentations. And during the interview he acknowledged that he normally used learner-centred teaching in most of his Mathematics lessons.
Sabelo also seemed to believe that he owned the Mathematics despite his earlier assertion during my interview with him that in learner-centred teaching the teacher was not the master of the class. After all the groups had done their presentations, he never gave learners a chance to debate the correctness of their peers’ solutions. Sabelo did not moderate learners’ inappropriate working and solutions by way of giving them immediate feedback. In that way the learners would be in a position to discover their mistakes and misconceptions. Instead he took control of the class, conducted a question and answer session in sought of the solution of the problem. That showed Sabelo’s ownership of the content at the expense of the learners. However, dealing with learners’ misconceptions
144
by asking them provoking questions based on their responses and giving them timeous feedback would place ownership of the content to them.
During my interview with him, I also wanted to know the challenges he encountered when using learner-centred teaching. He replied by saying that My experience is that learner-centred approaches at times some lessons will demand materials that are sometimes then hard to get then you have to improvise at times. Most of the times it has not been that bad.
I noted that during his teaching, Sabelo never used any teaching material apart from chalk, chalk board duster and chalk board. He did not even make improvisation as he alluded above in my conversation with him.
From the foregoing, I noticed that Sabelo’s understanding of learner-centred teaching is not consistent with his teaching practices. Though he seemed to articulate the philosophy well but some aspects of his teaching are not consistent with it. He believed that in learner-centred practices there had to be learner- learner interaction throughout the lesson when at some instances the teacher had to make some intervention. Also, Sabelo had some ownership of the content wherein he did not allow learners to co-construct meaning especially during the time when there were group reporting. Perhaps he was moving towards it. He had only been teaching for two years, so he has to still develop in that regard.
As a young teacher he was taking steps towards transforming the class into learner-centred teaching one and he was also reflecting on where he falls short and acknowledges that he was not there yet.