Resumen de In-service teacher development: some basic principles
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 curriculum 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-development 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.
