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In-service teacher development:

Some basic principles

Article in ELT Journal · July 1995

DOI: 10.1093/elt/49.3.252 · Source: OAI

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David Hayes
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 In-service teacher
development:
some basic principles
David Hayes

This paper looks at experience gained from the Rural Primary English
Programme (RuPEP) in Sabah, Malaysia, and the Project for the
Improvement of Secondary English Teaching (PISET) in Thailand. In both
countries, especially outside the major towns, there are few opportunities
to use English, and motivation to learn the language is limited. Classroom
teaching methods are often unimaginative and heavily teacher-centred,
further depressing learner interest. Top-down directives mandating curri-
culum change have led RuPEP and PISET to attempt to ameliorate the
situation through in-service teacher development, aimed at improving
teaching and, thereby, learning in schools. Most of the teacher-develop-
ment sessions they organize are led by trainers who are themselves
practising teachers of English.

The paper explores the procedures used in teacher development which are
common to RuPEP and PISET, and the principles underlying them. It
attempts to show how resistance to change among teachers can gradually
be overcome if, as Prabhu (1987) puts it, their ‘sense of plausibility’ is
engaged with regard to what constitutes effective teaching and learning
activities. The paper also tries to draw lessons from the experience of both
organizations by compiling a list of basic principles which might be
relevant in the establishment and operation of similar INSET programmes
elsewhere.

Introduction Bailey (1992: 255) has noted that ‘more has been written about change
among pre-service teachers-in-training than about teachers in in-service
contexts’. This paper sets out to help redress this imbalance by looking
at principles of teacher development and change underlying two in-
service projects funded by the Overseas Development Administration
(ODA) of the British government in partnership with the Malaysian and
Thai governments.

RuPEP The Rural Primary English Programme has operated in the Malaysian
state of Sabah since October 1986. British support in the form of full-
time advisers has gradually been phased out, and since June 1991 the
programme has been run entirely by teachers and officials of the Sabah
Department of Education.

PISET The Project for the Improvement of Secondary English Teaching is a

nationwide scheme. Initiated in 1985 with a lone British adviser and
restricted coverage, it was extended in scope year by year until in 1990 it
252 ELT Journal Volume 49/3 July 1995 © Oxford University Press 1995

articles welcome
 had a complement of four advisers, who assisted in project work
throughout the country. British government input in paying for these
advisers effectively ended in August 1992, and the programme is now
run entirely by Thais.
Limited British follow-up assistance to both projects continues in the
form of consultancies and workshops, with topics of discussion identified
by the respective education departments.

Common ground The two projects are different in many respects, not least in the
between the two educational levels with which they deal; the main differences are
projects organizational, and therefore not the concern of this paper. Their aims,
their underlying philosophies of training, and, to a lesser extent. their
teaching methods have many similarities. Both projects operate in areas
where there is intense concern over the generally low levels of learner
achievement in English. The most commonly cited reason for this is the
lack of any perceived need for the language on the part of the learners.
especially those outside the major cities or towns, where there is
virtually no opportunity to use it. In contrast to this perception.
however, both the Malaysian and Thai governments, recognizing its
international role, have asserted the need for English as a strong second
language in their countries. Both projects are thought to be highly
effective ‘on the ground’ (as viewed by outside consultants and
evaluators, as well as the education departments involved) in dealing
with this situation by addressing basic classroom issues of teaching and
learning behaviours.

Aims and RuPEP was devised in response to a realization in Sabah that teachers in
organization of primary schools. especially those in schools outside the three major
RuPEP towns, were not implementing the English syllabus for the national New
Primary School Curriculum, or Kurikulum Baru Sekolah Rendah
(KBSR), in the ways the designers had intended. The new curriculum
involved a radical departure from previous teaching methods, in
transferring the focus from the teacher to the learner, and requiring
learners to engage in meaningful activities which entailed using English
for genuine communicative purposes (Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia
1982, 1983).

The problem It was found that although teachers were teaching the content of the new
curriculum, they were doing so in the old style; lessons were ‘lockstep’,
teacher-centred, and with heavy emphasis on choral repetition and
formal grammatical exercises. This problem had been foreseen in an
account of the UNESCO-sponsored development of the curriculum
when it was still at the experimental stage:
It is highly predictable that in one way or another, overtly or covertly,
old teaching practices will find a way of prevailing, at least to some
extent. Adaptations will be made in the new curricula by teachers
trained in the old style so that they can utilize their past skills,
economize on time and effort, and remain with activities that have
Principles of in-service teacher development 253

articles welcome
 brought them comfort and reward in the past (Adams and Chen 1981:
166-7).
The problem was again foreshadowed by the same authors when they
spoke of the success of the experimental project:
Apparently, one of the reasons for the present success of the
‘Improved Curriculum’ project is the degree, intensity and kind of
care and attention given the teachers by the Curriculum Development
Centre project staff. Clearly, it will be extremely difficult to sustain a
similar guidance system with the pilot school teachers and virtually
impossible with the larger teaching force beyond, should national
implementation follow (ibid.: 161-2).
The strategy to implement the new curriculum was, indeed, unable to
provide the kind of sustained support that had accompanied success in
the earliest stage. It consisted of no more than an orientation course for
teachers of each year group, and the nature, scope, and content of the
course were determined centrally. Every state sent a number of
specialists for each subject on a course in Kuala Lumpur where, in
effect, they received ‘the message’ about the new curriculum for their
subject. Once they were back in their states, they organized courses to
pass the message on to key personnel from each educational division.
The key personnel, in their turn, organized courses for teachers. In a
week-long course for teachers devoted to the entire curriculum for each
year, English would be allotted only seven training hours.

The role of RuPEP The Rural Primary English Programme was initiated in an attempt to
provide just the ‘intensity and kind of care and attention’ that had
characterized success in the experimental schools’ efforts to change
teaching and learning behaviours - though without the same support
from Curriculum Development Centre project staff. RuPEP is over-
whelmingly school-based, with minimal staffing in divisional education
offices, where a small resource bank of teaching and training material is
located. Although originally conceived by others as a direct teacher-
training programme, when appropriate consideration was given to
sustainability, and the need to involve teachers at the grassroots level, it
soon evolved into a teacher development programme, with a major
focus on the training of trainers.

Aims and PISET grew out of an earlier in-service teacher-training project whose
organization of general aim was to develop and improve ELT in Thailand. To some
PISET extent, it built on a tradition of INSET, which it sought to systematize
and extend to all areas of the country. However, unlike its predecessor,
and unlike RuPEP, the training element of PISET operates out of fixed
English Resource and Instruction Centres (ERICs) based in schools in
every province. These centres were opened in phases, beginning in 1985;
new ones continue to be established, since provinces with large numbers
of schools have recently been split to provide greater provision for
teachers.
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articles welcome
 The location of ERICs is decided by all secondary school directors in a
particular province. They are staffed by a manager and two or three
assistants - all selected from the teaching cadre of the host school. These
staff are not always allowed a reduction in their usual teaching load to
compensate for the extra training duties, so advisers encourage the
involvement of as many of the school’s English teachers as possible in
the work of the ERIC.
Individual ERICs report to a central PISET authority based in Bangkok.
but they have a large measure of autonomy, especially in terms of course
organization, timing, and content, to enable them to respond to local
needs. Central PISET authorities contribute a small amount of funding,
but host schools have to allot further, larger amounts to enable the
centres to run effectively. Autonomy does not mean isolation, however,
and links are actively encouraged between ERICs to facilitate the sharing
of ideas and materials, as well as to provide support.

The role of PISET As already indicated, PISET was set up to improve the general standard
of teaching and learning in secondary schools in Thailand. Recently,
however, the Department of General Education has drawn up a new
curriculum for all subjects which emphasizes a problem-solving. process
skills approach to learning rather than teacher-centred, lecture-type
transmission of information. In its realization for English teaching, this
new curriculum might be said to be making official a process that had
already begun on ERIC training courses. albeit in a small way. But what
has been happening parallels the introduction of the new curriculum in
Malaysia, where subject supervisors travel to Bangkok to be informed of
the requirements of the new curriculum. returning to their regions to
organize courses for key personnel from the provinces, who then run
courses for teachers from groups of schools. Curiously enough, it seems
that the amount of time an ordinary classroom English teacher can
expect to receive in training to enable him or her to make the
changeover from a traditional lockstep teaching methodology to a
problem-solving, process skills approach is seven hours!
On the surface there seems no reason why this approach to
implementation of the new curriculum should be any more successful
at classroom level in Thailand than it was in Sabah. The majority of Thai
teachers, though they may be expected to make radical changes, will not
be given adequate training. I therefore anticipate that the ERIC
network will be used increasingly as a ‘remedial’ training agent for the
new curriculum.

Principles for Both programmes attempt to bring about quite radical changes in
teacher teacher behaviour, and there is a sense in which they are promoting a
development move from the ‘undesirable’ to the ‘desirable’, an objective determined
by official decisions, over which teachers have no influence.
How, then, can we deal with this situation? How is it possible to bring
about a radical alteration in teaching styles? Below I set out some
principles that may guide us.
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articles welcome
 1 Change is a slow process.
As Adams and Chen (1981) recognize, teachers are comfortable with
the teaching strategies they have previously employed - often for many
years - and see no real reason to alter them. What guarantee can be
given to them, in any case, that the new methods are any ‘better’ or
more effective than the old? There may also be a conscious, or
subconscious, rationalization against change, an awareness that to adopt
the new is to deny the validity of everything that has gone before.
Prabhu (1987: 105-6) explains the processes at work:
The threat to existing routines can make many teachers reject
innovation out of hand, as an act of self-protection. Alternatively, a
strong sense of plausibility about some existing perception may make
some teachers see the innovation as counter-intuitive and look on its
implementation as pedagogically harmful. If rejection itself appears to
be too great a risk (in view of acceptance by colleagues or official
sponsorship) teachers may take on the new routines while rejecting
the perception behind them, thus making them mere routines from
the beginning. Or they may dissociate perception from practice,
operating with the perception in contexts in which perceptions are
seen to be relevant, such as professional discussion, but operating
without it in the classroom.
With the new curricula in Malaysia and Thailand, open rejection is not
an option for teachers. It is indeed ‘too great a risk’. In both countries
the curriculum is officially sanctioned and, to use the terminology of
Chin and Benne cited by Kennedy (1987) a ‘power-coercive’ strategy is
therefore at work. However, ‘rational-empirical’ strategies of providing
information and attempting to convince teachers of the intrinsic merit of
the new curricula have had limited success.
Given that a new curriculum must be implemented, how, then, can it be
done? If ‘power-coercive’ and ‘rational-empirical’ strategies do not
work, we need to acknowledge a second principle.
2 Normative-re-educative strategies offer the best prospect of securing
changes in behaviour.
Kennedy (ibid.: 164) explains that, underlying ‘normative-re-educative’
strategies, there is
the idea that people act according to the values and attitudes
prevalent in a given society or culture, and that accepting change may
require changes to deep-seated beliefs and behaviour.
These strategies seek to examine deep-seated beliefs, together with the
principles underlying an innovation. They are concerned with the active
participation of teachers in change, and they point to a third principle.
3 All teacher development activities should be classroom-centred.
The activities should be seen as having direct relevance to teachers’
everyday school situations. It would help if some sessions were given by
trainers with first-hand experience of confronting the issues raised by
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implementing an innovation, or of examining teaching and learning in
classrooms. The sessions should be essentially practical. Though practice
is informed by theory, an understanding of theory alone is insufficient as
an agent of long-term change. Teachers need to be able to see the
impact of the proposed innovation on daily classroom procedures if it is
to have any validity. Holding development activities in schools also
raises their status. All PISET and RuPEP teacher development activity
takes place in secondary and primary schools respectively, rather than in
education offices or colleges: this indicates respect for the school
environment rather than downgrading its importance.

4 Teachers should be involved in the preparation of courses

This is a difficult principle to live up to, especially when a new, officially
sanctioned curriculum has to be implemented. Within RuPEP the
‘involvement’ has often been reduced to asking teachers which topics
they would like to see dealt with on subsequent courses. There is greater
scope within PISET and some, but by no means all, courses are
preceded by meetings of heads of English departments. for example, to
discuss proposed training (the heads are expected to have consulted with
their own teachers beforehand). The intensity of courses within
PISET - the preferred day-release model lasting over a period of two
or three months - obviously gives room for collaborative development
of the teacher development programme.

5 Trainers should themselves be teachers.

Teacher development activities should be derived from classroom
experience, but as Duff comments:
One of the inadequacies of much teacher-training activity throughout
the world is that the trainers actively stop being teachers, and are
training others to do something that they themselves no longer do. It
is only common sense that you should practise what you preach, but
training of others must be grounded in one’s own practice and not in
in some dessicated prescription deriving from almost forgotten - and
even sometimes very limited - experience (1988:lll).
Selecting practising classroom teachers as trainers gives immediate
validity to the development proceedings. Trainers are able, in effect, to
say ‘I have tried this for myself and it works’. Teachers on the course
recognize that what they are being asked to consider is grounded in the
experience of a colleague, and is not the abstract theory of a ministry
official or university lecturer, far removed from ordinary classrooms.
There may, of course, be other problems deriving from this peer-
training, such as status, for example; the question of trainer development
also needs to be tackled.

6 Training methodology should be largely task-based and inductive.

I have already noted the failure of rational-empirical courses in Sabah to
produce the officially required changes in teaching-learning behaviour.
In my own area of responsibility in Thailand, observation of courses held
in ERICs before trainers received any trainer development revealed
Principles of in-service teacher development 257

articles welcome
 that they usually followed transmission models. That is, trainers simply
exemplified a series of techniques or activities for various skills, then
provided written handouts which detailed the steps for carrying them
out. Little effort was made to get teachers to consider the rationales or
principles underlying the use of particular classroom activities, or to
encourage specific teaching-learning behaviour - why teach in one way
rather than another? Teachers therefore left courses with no greater
understanding of the teaching-learning process than when they went in;
improved analytical skills would have enabled them to continue to
develop as teachers, but all they were offered was a series of one-off
activities or techniques. This in turn seemed to be behind the kind of
complaint one often heard from trainers that ‘we keep giving them
courses but they still teach in the same old way’.

How. then, can a ‘sense of plausibility’ about a new curriculum, and new
teaching and learning behaviour, be engendered? I would now like to
examine the principles underlying task-based and inductive teacher
development sessions.

7 Training/development sessions should value participants' existing

knowledge.
Wright, echoing Prabhu, and Adams and Chen, comments that:
Too often teacher educators assume teachers to be in a state of
pretheoretical or atheoretical ignorance before they embark on such
[INSET] programs; yet participants have most likely built up theories
over years of actual experience in the classroom. The role of teacher
educators might better be to make these theories explicit during the
course. (1990: 92)
In practice, this means that sessions should give participants an
opportunity to talk about their perceptions of the teaching-learning
process, and provide guidance in understanding its theoretical under-
pinning. This approach could be used to attack the teachers’
perceptions, but the process does not necessarily have to work like
this, and should not. PISET and RuPEP have found that existing
perceptions are often based on long-established routine, the principles
of which have largely been forgotten, or on the modelling of personal
school learning experiences. However, there have been also many
instances of teachers offering reasoned support for adhering to ‘old’
methods. The function of any course, therefore, must be to examine
positive aspects of the existing and the innovative methodology, and to
seek to demonstrate to participants that the new approach has
something to offer. By recognizing that an existing perception is valid,
participants will be more readily disposed to experiment and attempt to
accommodate the new in their daily classroom practice.

8 Teacher development activities should raise awareness of the teaching-

learning issues behind the innovation, and give opportunities for in-depth
analysis.
If one wants change to occur it makes sense to give the implementers of
258 David Hayes

articles welcome
the intended change the opportunity to fully understand it. However,
Ellis (1986: 92) cautions against predicting the outcome:
The assumption that underlies the use of awareness-raising practices
. . . is that the practice of actual teaching can be improved by making
teachers aware of the options open to them. and the principles by
which they can evaluate the alternatives. It is not known to what
extent this assumption is justified. Do teacher educators. in fact, really
influence what teachers do in the classroom by making them think
about the principles and practice of teaching in sessions remote from
the classroom?
In this. however. Ellis also provides what both RuPEP and PISET
believe to be the key to altering practice. That is. that sessions should
not be remote from the classroom’, and teachers should be asked to do
more than just think about the principles and practice of teaching’.
Sessions should provide models of the new practice, or introduce
problems connected with it which have a direct connection with the
classroom. Teachers need to be able to see the innovation in practice (in
‘live’ demonstrations. on video. listening to audio-tapes, examining
tapescripts, in the form of lesson plans and teaching materials, etc.): they
need to be able to relate this experience to their own knowledge of
teaching and learning: they need to be able to take apart and put
together again the models of practice, to examine an issue from every
aspect; they need to be able to uncover the principles underlying any
proposed change in practice and relate principles to practice: above all
they need to be able to extend knowledge gained from such an in-depth
analysis to other, comparable, teaching-learning situations.
9 Teacher development sessions should enable teachers to form general-
izable conclusions about the topic under review.
It is not enough for teachers to analyse a particular classroom activity in
order to be able to say, for example. ‘This communicative activity has
the following features . . . ‘. They need to be able to extend what they
have discovered. to be able to say, ‘Communicative activities. in general,
share the following features . . '. This would reveal that they have fully
understood the principles upon which a teaching-learning activity is
based. RuPEP and PISET teacher-training sessions have at their core a
number of generalizable teaching-learning points related to the topic
which teachers will be able to deduce through in-depth analysis. This, in
effect, is theory derived from analysis of practice.
10 Sessions should give participants an opportunity to put into practice
what they have learnt in a non-threatening environment.
If we are to engage teachers in new teaching-learning behaviour they
have to do more than just think about’ the principles and practice of
teaching: they have to be given an opportunity to try things out for
themselves. This can take the form of micro-teaching or peer teaching,
lesson planning, the making of visual and other aids. and so on. Initial
attempts to come to grips with new ideas are best carried out away from
the teachers’ own classes, so that there is no loss of face involved should
Principles of in-service teacher development 259

articles welcome
 things go wrong. It has to be clear that this is a form of practice, and not
an examination; a process in which all the teachers can share, and offer
each other support. The progression from practice to theory to practice
should be a rewarding learning experience. In coming full circle in a
session, we hope to bring teachers to a deeper understanding of some
aspect of a new method, idea, or technique, which they will be
encouraged to implement in their own classes, secure in the knowledge
that what they are doing has pedagogic validity and is based on sound
principles. Of course, this does not mean that teachers will whole-
heartedly adopt change overnight: for the new to mesh with, or indeed
to supplant the old, requires constant monitoring and adjustment of
perceptions.
11 Teacher development sessions should offer opportunities for partici-
pants to share knowledge and ideas.
Teacher development should encourage collaboration between trainers
and teachers, but perhaps just as importantly, among teachers
themselves. Participants usually bring a wealth of ideas and experience
to in-service sessions and sufficient resources to solve most problems
that arise. Emphasis should therefore be given during the session to
group-work tasks which allow this knowledge, hitherto restricted to
individuals, to be shared by all in the resolution of common questions
and problems.
12 Every effort should be made to provide follow-up for courses in
participants’ own schools.
In RuPEP, courses, classroom observation, and counselling have always
gone hand in hand. Practical problems in PISET have tended to prevent
such extensive follow-up, though visits by ERIC managers to other
schools, where they have been released from their regular teaching
duties, have been very successful. Within PISET, therefore, alternatives
have had to be considered. Where two or more teachers from one school
attend a course, for instance, peer observation has been encouraged.
Day-release courses also offer abundant scope for self-appraisal as part
of in-school tasks from week to week.
Whatever form the observation takes, and whether in Thailand or
Malaysia, we have had to start by changing participants’ perceptions of
the whole purpose of lesson observation. There has been an unfortunate
tradition of all lesson observation being an inspection or formal
evaluation of one’s performance, and inherently judgemental. Our
intention was for lesson observation to be supportive, since observers do
not come to criticize but to assist, to share their experience, and also to
learn from the teacher being observed. In this way we hoped to promote
lasting change, and to provide continuing support for teachers in the
long process of gaining a sense of plausibility about the new teaching-
learning behaviour which, in reality, they have no choice but to accept.

Conclusion In this paper I have tried to set out some basic principles of in-service
teacher development programmes which seek to promote radical

260 David Hayes

articles welcome
 changes in teachers’ and learners’ classroom behaviour: In the case of
RuPEP and PISET, these changes address the problems of declining
English language proficiency caused by low motivation to learn, and
cannot be expected to occur overnight. Educational planners have to
recognize that the process of altering teachers’ perceptions, so that
innovations are implemented through conviction founded on under-
standing, is a slow one: changes are unlikely to occur until teachers
realize that the innovations will provide benefits both to themselves and
their learners. Teachers therefore need to be given the tools to enable
them to understand their existing and the new classroom practice, and
the skills for continuing development in collaboration with their peers. It
is important that the trainers who lead them in this process should be
their teaching colleagues.
Another important lesson to be derived from the experience of RuPEP
and PISET is that the activities of the organization at local level are what
matter most. Teachers and trainers at the grass roots must have a sense
of ownership of the programmes in which they are involved. In this way,
development can continue, and the ‘sense of plausibility’ that is crucial
to the effective implementation of any change can be achieved.

Received April 1994

Note Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia. 1983. Buku

This is a modified version of a paper on teacher Panduan Khas: Bahasa Inggeris, Tahun, Dua.
and trainer development originally presented at Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.
the First International Conference of the Malay- Kennedy, C. 1987. ‘Innovating for a change:
sian English Language Teaching Association, teacher development and innovation’. ELT
Kuala Lumpur, May 1991. Journal 41/3: 163-70.
Prabhu, N. S. 1987. Second Language Pedagogy.
References Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Bailey, K. M. 1992. ‘The processes of innovation
in language teacher development: what, why
and how teachers change’ in J. Flowerdew, M.
Brock, and S. Hsia (eds.) Perspectives on Second The author
Language Teacher Education. Hong Kong: City David Hayes is a lecturer in TESOL in the
Polytechnic of Hong Kong. Department of International Education, School
Duff, T. 1988. ‘The preparation and development of Education, University of Leeds. He has an MA
of teacher trainers’ in T. Duff (ed.) Explorations from the University of Lancaster and is working
in Teacher Training. Harlow: Longman. towards a PhD in INSET and the development of
Ellis, R. 1986. ‘Activities and procedures for teachers’ professional knowledge. He has taught
teacher training’. ELT Journal 40/2: 91-9. English as a first, second, and foreign language in
Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia. 1982. Buku the UK, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sri Lanka, and has
Panduan Khas: Bahasa Inggeris, Tahun Satu. been involved in teacher and trainer development
Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka. in Malaysia, Thailand, and the UK.
Principles of in-service teacher development 261

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