n

beyond language learning

This article explores what teachers and teacher trainers working overseas
can learn by being returned to the role of beginner students of a new
language, especially when their 'teacher' may be someone who has never
taught English before, or who is still in training. In the former case, the
experience is closer to acquisition, and promotes understanding about
differences between acquisition and learning; in the latter case, with a
trainee teacher, the learning experience is shown to be a mutual one,
where the trainee-as-teacher and the teacher-as-student both gain new
insights. The issues that emerge relate to the native/non-native divide, and
also to the importance of cultural awareness in teaching and training. The
arguments are based on first-hand personal experience rather than on the
results of controlled experiments: nevertheless, the conclusions are gen-
erizable to many teaching and training contexts, and lead to specific re-
commendations for training and development activities.

There have been a number of studies of language learning for teachers

as a path to greater awareness about learning, from Golebiowska (1985)
to Tinker-Sachs (1996). They vary along a number of parameters,
consisting of the setting, the type of teacher involved, whether the
learning is individual or in a group, and the use of diaries or journals.
What the writers all share is a conviction that foreign language teachers
need to experience or re-experience what it is like to be a foreign
language learner, whether at beginner or other levels. The experience is
generally found to be a positive one, particularly in the case of Rivers
(1983), Schumann and Schumann (1977), and Lowe (1987), where the
teacher or group of teachers volunteered to enter the learning situation.
However, Golebiowska, and Waters et al. (1990), who describe the use
of foreign language lessons as a built-in part of pre-service training, both
express their own and their trainees' dissatisfaction with the potential
artificiality of this type of language lesson. Waters also touches on the
very real danger that trainees may not share our basic assumption, as
trainers, of the value of experiential learning.
Of these studies, only that of Tinker-Sachs draws attention to the benefit
for the trainerin her case, the chance to see how her students put into
practice the methodology they learnt on her courses, when teaching her
Cantonese as a vacation project. The present account shows what
teachers, trainers, and trainees can learn from comparable types of role-
reversal.

ELT Journal Volume 54/3 July 2000 Oxford University Press 2000 265
 Background Many native English-speaking EFL teachers who go abroad to work
become language learners or language improvers. They can usually find
classes and experienced teachers for the major European languages, but
trained teachers may be harder to find if they are working in the
environment of a less frequently studied language. There are likely to be
fewer local people with experience of teaching their own language as a
foreign language, and also fewer supporting materials. Thus, the
determined language-learner will often end up with an unconventional
or untried teacher, and the teaching encounter may well produce
unexpected benefits for both parties.
Circumstances have brought me into this situation on numerous
occasions, originally as a relatively inexperienced teacher, and later as
a trainer. I want to begin by describing the process of learning from non-
teachers, and then in more detail that of learning from trainee teachers,
in order to draw out the implications for teachers and trainers learning
foreign languages: that is, how to bring about the productive reversing of
roles. The lessons learnt point towards language learning for teachers as
a discovery tool in the process of teacher training and development.

A publication called My Personal Language History (Harris and

Savitzky 1988) presents short accounts by adult literacy students in a
London ESOL class of the part bilingualism or language variety has
played in their lives, in terms of raising their language awareness.
Adapting this, I shall briefly refer to relevant sections of my own
language learning history, in four different countries, as case studies on
which to base the following discussion.
1 Polish: I acquired much of what I know of this language with the help
of a 'non-teacher' who spoke no English. I regularly visited her, with my
small children, to get washing done, and the learning resulted naturally
from our absorbing conversations. In other words, it came about as a by-
product of our meetings, rather than as a result of a conscious decision.
2 Albanian: in Albania, many years later, my first teacher was a bright
student of Albanian, recommended as an expert on her own language;
her lack of teaching experience was thought to be irrelevant. She
lectured me on Albanian grammar, and I learnt almost nothing.
However, I began to understand better the prevailing views about
language and language teaching in that culture: a language was
knowledge to be imparted, so this was best done by a specialist, who
would also teach the most prestigious, refined version, even if this was
not much use for surviving on the street (an attitude I have frequently
encountered elsewhere in Eastern Europe). Fortunately, I eventually
found the equivalent of my Polish washerwoman: we had transactional
conversations, including arguments about money, which gradually
evolved into friendly chats about almost anything.
These instances of acquiring language by communication were voluntary
and informal, arising out of a friendly and relaxed relationship, but they
also took place at regular times, had clear boundaries, and involved
266 Barbara Hyde
restricted and much-repeated vocabulary. I offer them partly because
they gave me first-hand evidence for Krashen's theory of language
acquisition: my interlocutors were naturally doing what Krashen says
teachers should:
'When we 'just talk' to our students, if they understand, we are not
only giving a language lesson, we may be giving the best possible
language lesson, since we will be supplying input for acquisition.'
(Krashen and Terrell 1983: 35)
More importantly, they point towards my main theme, which is how
language learning and cultural learning can both be unexpected by-
products, often in contradiction to the expectations of conventional local
authorities, i.e. teachers or academics.
In these Polish and Albanian cases, I was a teacher becoming a learner.
Later, as a trainer, I could draw on my experience, and so help others in
a teacher training or development context to reflect on theirs (as
recommended below).
The next two examples show mutual learning, where the 'teachers'
benefit, as well as the language learners.
3 Hungarian: teaching methodology to students in a teacher training
college, with other British teachers I arranged to have Hungarian lessons
from some of our own students. Here was the perfect exchange: we
taught them methodology, they used the techniques they had learnt to
teach us, not English, but their own language. On one level we were
learning Hungarian, doing pairwork, tackling listening with pre-listening
tasks, and so on; on another level, we were given an insight into how the
students used the methodology, and to what extent they had grasped it
or not, while they were engaged in a form of teaching practice which
enabled them to find out what worked and what did not. They usually
found that they had over-prepared, and tried to teach us too much. They
also gained insights into aspects of their own language which had never
struck them before, as they saw it through the eyes of foreigners.
It was instructive to compare these trainees with others who taught us
Hungarian, such as a young teacher of English who, although trained,
had not been through an updated course informed by new ideas. She
would miss what, to us, were obvious communicative opportunities, so
that, for example, she would ask one person to read out both parts of a
dialogue. Although she was aware of certain tenets, such as 'speak in the
target language', and 'use authentic materials', she applied them
inappropriately to our level by giving us complicated grammar
explanations in Hungarian, and newspaper articles to read and translate
into English. We were the first class she had taught Hungarian, and it
was possible to see, in the unselfconscious strategies she fell back on,
exactly how she had been taught.

Teachers as learners: beyond language learning 267

 4 Lithuanian: after the Hungarian experiment, I was ready to try the
same thing again with yet another language, and luckily found other
native speakers wanting to learn Lithuanian, who had access to trainee
English teachers. Whereas our Hungarians had been relatively
sophisticated third or fourth year students, the Lithuanian trainee was
an unpractised first year student. Some of this untried teacher's habits
which weas his studentstried to break included the following:
- the tendency to say too much, too fast, in Lithuanian
- correcting our halting attempts too assiduously
- (particularly frustrating) supplying several synonyms when asked for a
Lithuanian word, instead of sticking to one word
- saying the English phrase slowly and clearly, with repetitions, instead
of doing the same with the Lithuanian item we were trying to learn.
When teaching vocabulary, this student would also tend to suppress an
everyday colloquial expression in favour of a more formal version, which
we did not find helpful. This issue is complicated in Lithuania by the
recent movement to 'Lithuanianize' the language by purging it of
'Russianisms', some of which are in everyday colloquial use. We evolved
the system of adapting English teaching materials, for example
Elementary Communication Games (Hadfield 1984) to Lithuanian, in
order to carry out communicative tasks and dialogues. Other more
grammar-based exercises we devised did not work so well, as we did not
yet have sufficient awareness of salient distinctions in Lithuanian
grammar. But even these confusions were a learning experience for
our teacher.
(For convenience, in the forthcoming discussion, these six casesPolish,
Albanian (two teachers), Hungarian (two teachers) and Lithuanian
will be referred to respectively as 1, 2a and 2b, 3a and 3b, and 4.)

Language These extracts from a personal language learning history, in the first two
countries acquiring language from native informants, in the second two
awareness learning in a more structured way and involving trainee teachers,
suggest the sort of unplanned agenda of learning that takes place in such
circumstances, over and above the actual process of language learning.
I list the main areas of such learning here, and discuss them in detail
below, with examples. Some areas are more relevant to teachers, or
trainers, or trainees, as I indicate where necessary, but I think that most
are relevant to anyone involved in language learning and teaching:
1 Increased awareness of students' often unexpressed learning prefer-
ences and learning needs (mainly methodological issues).
2 Insight into local teachers' learning background: their learning of
English, how they were trained, and their educational culture (mainly
educational).

268 Barbara Hyde

 3 Seeing a language from the outside: teaching their own language helps
trainees to find out how a non-native leams it, thus (a) they find out
more about their own language, and (b) they find out more about
teaching, getting instant educated feedback from their 'students'
(linguistic and pedagogical).
4 Gain in inter-cultural understanding: participants in the role-reversal
gain a better understanding of key attitudes to language and language
learning, and related (mainly cultural) issues.

Awareness of A surprising discovery was that, as a beginner, I did not want to learn a
students' learning lot of new words, and had strong views about which words were worth
preferences learning. To a large extent, supermarket shopping in the post-communist
world, for example, no longer requires food words: in Poland, back in
the 1970s, shopping required quite extensive language skills.
Other needs
Content
i. The acquisition of whole strings, or fixed 'lexical chunks'; for
example, what to say when booking a taxi by phone, or directing a
taxi driver to an address,
ii. Common structural patterns, with the opportunity to say them again
and again, such as 'I want . . . , I don't want ...'.
iii. Metalanguage of the classroom: 'What does "x" mean?', 'More
slowly', 'Can you say that again', 'I've forgotten', 'I don't know', etc.
Especially face-saving devices for when the mind goes blank.
Interestingly enough, this need for structural repetition and restricted
vocabulary reinforces Gattegno's dictum 'much language, little vocabu-
lary' (1963: 34).
Method
iv. The opportunity to opt out, to have pauses and silences, to listen to
other students, to have variety of pace,
v. Revision, every lesson,
vi. Personalization: the opportunity to apply the new language to
oneself and others as soon as possible,
vii. Unshakeable patience and good humour from the teacher.
In the one-to-one situation of cases 1 and 2b, many of these needs were
naturally met, for example (vi), since the agenda was personal anyway;
whereas in 3a and 4, we students, as a group, often had to assert them
with our teachers.
Several of these learner needs, especially (iv) and (vii) are borne out in
other studies of role-reversal, for example Lowe (1987) and Rivers
(1983).

Teachers as learners: beyond language learning 269

 Insight into the The native-speaking trainer working overseas in teacher education, for
learning example in Eastern Europe, both with trainees and with practising
background of local teachers, needs to understand their educational background and the
teachers attitudes, or schemata, that this experience has helped to form. A new
teacher or student put into the unusual situation of teaching their own
language as a foreign language, as happened in cases 2a, 3a, 3b and 4, is
somehow off guard, and starts by operating at a naive level,
unconsciously reproducing how he or she was taught at school. One
example is the fondness for synonyms: the student is not presented with
just one word for the meaning, but a list, perhaps out of some urge to
provide completeness of knowledge. Whatever the explanation, it is a
practice which clearly ignores the need of the beginner for language that
is immediately useful, and nothing more.
Working with trainees as their 'student', the trainer comes to realize
with particular force what aspects of teaching they find most difficult:
handling beginners; handling differences of level in the same group;
checking that the learners have understood something; keeping their
language simple; using context to convey meanings of words and
structures. (Although, in cases 1 and 2b, my non-teachers found little
difficulty in coping with a beginner.)
The trainee 'teacher' becomes both a conscious and an unconscious
informant, which helps trainers to a better understanding of the
educational culture, and specifically of the language teaching back-
ground, of the teachers they work with. This can help them to plan and
present methodology courses more sensitively and appropriately.

Seeing a language The opportunity to see the differences in a language when viewed from
from the outside two perspectivesas a native and as a foreign languagecan be quite
illuminating. For example, if the young teacher is challenged when
attempting to use an unhelpful technique, such as giving too many
synonyms, for example, he or she will be forced to reflect on why they
use it. They will also be able to identify better areas of particular
difficulty, where their own language is most different from English.
A further point relates to differences between teaching students who
have the same LI as the teacher, and teaching students with a different
LI. Most English teachers working in schools in their own country are in
the former situation, and indeed in recent commentaries on the non-
native teacher (e.g. Medgyes 1992), this is claimed as one of then-
advantages, in that they can explain grammatical points, for example, in
the mother tongue. The native English speaker is not able to do this, and
has to rely on the crude tool of the target language. However, there can
be advantages in not being able to explain grammar, and therefore being
forced to use other resources, such as inductive methods, to convey
meaning. The role reversal situation gives trainees this salutary
experience. They can of course try to use their second language,

270 Barbara Hyde

 English, but it is hard for them to do so for the purpose of complicated
grammatical exegesis, especially when they may not be very aware of
their own language.
Unfamiliarity with teaching students with a different LI may also
account for teachers' difficulties, already noted, in dealing with
beginners, since normally they would be able to use the shared mother
tongue for communication at the early stages.
I am not claiming here that same LI teacher/ student is better or worse
than different LI teacher/ student; rather, that it is useful to experience
the difference, and thus widen the trainee's repertoire.

Intercultural For both parties in the role-reversal, the significant extra-linguistic

understanding learning is one of cultural exchange. Each becomes an informant, often
by virtue of reacting in a way that surprises the other. I can only touch
briefly here on this large topic, but aspects of it that emerge in the
teaching exchange are:
- the different levels of control and dominance expected of the teacher.
Learner-centred approaches do not fit well with the idea of the
teacher as undisputed authority, however kind and parental they may
be.
- the different attitudes to which variety of language is most appropriate
to learn, related to cultural and national linguistic loyalties which are
very foreign to speakers of an unthreatened world language. Again,
cases 1 and 2b contrast with 2a and 4 here, perhaps because naive
informants do not share the slightly more 61itist views of those in
tertiary institutions.
- the different tolerances of incorrectness and fuzziness in language.
This may connect with ideas about language as knowledge, rather
than as a communicative medium.
- the problem for trainees when there is a lack of consensus on
methods, and even on grammar, between the local teachers, and those
of their foreign 'students'. Facing this helps them to make the
important shift from the 'one right answer' mentality to the tolerance
of apparently opposing viewpoints.
- different positions regarding the importance of process and product in
learning, for example, the value of experiential learning, as opposed
to a transmission model. These issues come up because they tend to
cause disagreements about the actual conduct and content of the
lessons, and broaden out into wider discussions which are informative
for both sides.
Recommendations In general, teachers and future teachers benefit from the opportunity to
reflect on the experience of being language learners, which should be
varied and ongoing.
More specifically:
1 It is helpful for trainers working in educational innovation projects to
research the local educational culture. One small-scale, qualitative
Teachers as learners: beyond language learning 271
 approach is to ask a local teacher or student to give them language
lessons.
2 Teachers on training courses, either pre-service or in-service, can be
asked to write and reflect on their own language learning history to
date. This can be structured to a greater or a lesser degree, according
to the age and experience of the trainees. It can also provide useful
material to use as contexts for later theoretical study in applied
linguistics (see My Personal Language History).
3 Wherever possible, trainees who are not native speakers of English
can be asked to find an English nativeTspeaker and teach them the
local language. This is already a common practice in countries like
Lithuania, and it can be organized into a structured project which will
help the trainee to learn, as well as to earn some extra income.
Conclusion As we have seen, there are a range of reasons why it can be a valuable
experience for teachers to become learners. The experiences I have
described, of trainers or teachers overseas genuinely needing a language
for survival purposes, avoid the potential artificiality that concerns
Golebiowska and Waters et al, since the trainees are engaged in the real
activity of teaching it. There just happens to be a pay-off for the teacher
or trainer, too, apart from the language.
This account of some learning experiments attempts to show how
learning or teaching in unconventional settingswhere roles are
reversed or changed in a number of waysand thereby undergoing a
kind of defamiliarization, can help teachers, trainers, and trainees to
gain an added perspective on language, on teaching, and on cultural
issues.
The kind of exchange described here also helps to bridge gaps of
cultural knowledge and professional experience between native and
non-native teachers. It does so by utilizing the power of experiential
learning.
Received July 1999
References Rivers, W. M. 1983. 'Learning a sixth language: an
Gattegno, C. 1963. Teaching Foreign Languages in adult learner's diary' in Communicating Natu-
Schools the Silent Way. New York: Educational rally in a Second Language. Cambridge: Cam-
Solutions. bridge University Press.
Golebiowska, A. 1985. 'Once a teacher, always a Schumann, F. M. and J. H. Schumann. 1977.
teacher'. ELT Journal 39/4. 'Diary of a Language Learner: an introspective
Hadfield, J. 1984. Elementary Communication study of second language learning' in Brown
Games. London: Harrap. et al. (eds). On TESOL 77. Washington DC:
Harris, R. and F. Savitzky. (eds.). 1988. My TESOL.
Personal Language History. ILEA Project,
Tinker-Sachs, G. 1996. 'Four approaches to in-
London: New Beacon Books.
Krashen, S. and T. Terrell. 1981. The Natural service and pre-service teacher education'.
Approach. Oxford: Pergamon/Alemany. Paper presented at Teacher Training/Teacher
Lowe, T. 1987. 'An experiment in role reversal: Development Conference, Bilkent University,
teachers as language learners'. ELT Journal Ankara.
41/2: 89-96. Waters, A. et al. 1990. 'Getting the best out of the
Medgyes, P. 1992. 'Native or non-native: who's 'language-learning experience'. ELT Journal
worth more?' ELT Journal 46/4. 44/4.
272 Barbara Hyde
The author
Barbara Hyde teaches at university in Kyoto, Literature and Linguistics. Her current interests
Japan. She previously worked for the British include educational change, humanistic
Council as a teacher trainer and ELT adviser in approaches to language learning, and language
a number of countries in Eastern Europe, and through literature.
before that in ESL in Britain. She has MAs in Email: blhyde@asahi-net.email.ne.jp

Teachers as learners: beyond language learning 273