4.2 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.2.5. Theme 5: Lecturer role
Participants’ responses show that they play different roles in their teaching, according to different propositions (assessor, instructor and facilitator).
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P1: “The primary role in class is to facilitate learning … I prepare four poems to teach so I walk into a lecture hall with four poems that I have prepared and by the end of the lesson I’ve only taught two poems.”
P2: “Absolutely you have to be an instructor, you are a facilitator but you also have to be an instructor in terms of explicit teaching, you can’t facilitate if students don’t know
… The students are going to write a test and an exam on your section, time shouldn’t be the driving force but it also has to be considered.”
P3: “I just see my role as not being somebody who is standing in the front with the knowledge and just filling in empty vessels … then one has to be an instructor…
absolutely there is no way around that I pretend I’m not working towards content.”
P4: “I am there as a facilitator which is why most of the time I favour my students…
That is possible, it’s always there, you can’t as a teacher just be there without giving instructions … I am not driven by the content… students must understand that it’s all about getting the content so that they would move to the next level.”
P5: “We cannot compete, why we are learning, we compete in exam because everybody is writing for the distinctions as well, but in the actual learning I believe in facilitating the groupwork … I ask them to discuss and ask them to present and then I can also add.
In that sense I am not the fountain of knowledge.”
P3 asserted that “absolutely there is no way around that I pretend I’m not working towards content”. This is in line with P2 when she mentioned that “the students are going to write a test and an exam on your section, time shouldn’t be the driving force but it also has to be considered”. In addition to the above, some lecturers are driven by the content, according to their responses and attitude towards teaching time. However, some participants responded contrary to this, as P1 stated that “I prepare four poems to teach so I walk into a lecture hall with four poems that I have prepared and by the end of the lesson I’ve only taught two poems”.
In addition to this, P4 asserted that “I am not driven by the content:” (assessor role). Moreover, P2 as well as P4 agreed that they also play the role of instructors in their teaching to maintain order and discipline. P2 asserted that “absolutely you have to be an instructor” and P4 noted
“that is possible it’s always there, you can’t as a teacher just be there without giving
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instructions”. In addition to this P3 affirmed that “one has to be an instructor” (instructor role), while P1 stated that “the primary role in class is to facilitate learning”. This is in line with what P3 stated as she asserted that “I just see my role as not being somebody who is standing in the front with the knowledge and just filling in empty vessels”. P5 agreed with P4 in that “I am there as a facilitator, which is why most of the time I favour my students”
(facilitator role).
(Gul & Rafique, 2017; Hoadley & Jansen, 2013; Khoza, 2013b; Maharajh et al., 2013; Vikash, 2014a) indicated that lecturers play different roles when teaching their modules, depending on how they view teaching and learning. However, studies indicated that despite themany roles lecturers may play in their classes, the most important role is to transmit knowledge to their students (Balbay et al., 2018; Liu et al., 2013; Maharajh et al., 2013). Furthermore, studies indicated that the lecturer role may be viewed in three propositions: assessor, instructor and facilitator. As a result, when the lecturer plays the role of an assessor, he/she may be driven by content, for example, aiming to cover the content in a stipulated time period regardless of whether students understand or not. The assessor role causes English lecturers to use written strategies to decolonise the curriculum because content covered in the module is specified in the written documents (course outline, templates) (Ayers, 1992; Khoza, 2013a; Thijs & Van den Akker, 2009b). Furthermore, when playing the role of an instructor, English lecturers uses a lecture-centred approach to teaching, which makes lecturers act as the only one who gives information, which points to students then being taken as empty vessels (Alam, 2013; Freire, 2018). The instructor role causes lecturers to use habitual strategies to decolonise the curriculum because they teach through their personal beliefs and preferences (Beeman- Cadwallader et al., 2014; Freire, 2018; Ganser, 2002; Khoza, 2014).
Studies revealed that when the lecturer plays the role of the facilitator, he/she uses a student- centred approach to their teaching, which puts students at the centre of teaching and learning (Gul & Rafique, 2017; Hoadley & Jansen, 2013; Peterson & Lorimer, 2012). Furthermore, (Ganser, 2002; Maharajh et al., 2013) indicated that lecturers are to facilitate the teaching and learning process rather than giving all the information to students, to ensure that students learn to understand through social interaction with others. The facilitator role causes English lecturers to use verbal strategies to decolonise the curriculum since students are given the opportunity to contribute in the teaching and learning process (student-centred teaching) (Grant-Skiba & Orwa, 2018; Kirk & MacCallum, 2017).
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Participants’ responses show that English lecturers see themselves primarily as facilitators in their lecture venues, which is in line with what was revealed by the literature. As a result, all the participants (P1, P2, P3, P4 and P5) indicated that they do not see themselves as carriers and givers of information to students, but they are there as facilitators. On the other hand, lecturers also affirmed that they automatically have to be instructors to ensure order and discipline, but they allow students to learn for themselves. However, only P2 and P3 asserted that they were definitely driven by content, because it is a fact that students will be tested at the end and they are not to fail their sections. Contrary to this, P1 and P4 indicated that they are not driven by content at all; P1 emphasised that what matters is not how much content he has taught but that the students master the section he has taught, no matter how small it is. In addition, it was also indicated that for him to cover small portion of work does not matter, but what matters is that students have learnt something rather than rushing to finish the syllabus.
Findings revealed that all lecturers believed in playing the role of facilitators in their teaching which encourages students to learn on their own through social and cognitive constructivism (student-centred teaching). This suggests that lecturers used verbal strategies to decolonise the English Major 420 curriculum since strategies were derived from students’ opinions and beliefs. In this case students were given a chance to share their ideas about teaching and learning and other social issues. Moreover, the findings also revealed that lecturers also acted as instructors and as educational leaders in the lectures, which sought them to control group discussions, time used as well as activities during teaching process. This suggests that lecturers also used habitual strategies because before coming to class they already had ideas of what they wanted to achieve or to pass across through the lesson. On the other hand, the findings also indicated that two lecturers acted as assessors as they were driven by the content they want to finish in a specified period of time, while another two participants disagreed with this. This suggests that only two lecturers were driven by written strategies to decolonise the English curriculum which sought them to cover the content stipulated in the written documents (templates, course outline) on time. However, the English Major 420 course outline (2018) was silent regarding the role the lecturers are to play when teaching the module.