Kathleen M. Bailey Autonomy and authority

The dynamic tension between language teachers’ professional autonomy and supervisors’ authority presents challenges for supervisors and teachers alike. This chapter considers autonomy and authority as the terms are used in supervision and language education. Specifically, we will explore the complex interaction between supervisors’ authority and teachers’ autonomy in making decisions and taking action. We will also examine the types of power at work in supervision, how and when teachers learn, and whether supervisors’ authority is genuine, delegated, or both. We begin with a case in which the supervisor must decide how much authority to exert and how much of a teacher’s autonomy to recognize and respect.

Case for analysis: The “teacher’s pet” issue You are the coordinator of an adult basic education program in a large city. Your duties include supervising the teachers who teach literacy, ESL, and citizenship for new immigrants. The program includes students from 40 countries, with the majority coming from Asia and Latin America, though there are also students from Africa, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Russia. One of the teachers speaks Thai fluently. He has the appropriate credentials for working in this program, including postgraduate training in TESOL and overseas experience. The teacher has worked at the school for eight years and has consistently received good to excellent student evaluations. He has also written materials and placement test items. Occasionally, he has given workshops about teaching Thai learners of ESL. One evening, three students (from Brazil, Greece, and Morocco) come to your office representing a larger group of students. They complain that this teacher is ignoring them and several other students. They claim the Thai students get all his attention. They say those students bring him Thai food and that he speaks Thai with them during the breaks. These three students also claim the teacher often speaks Thai in class if those students do not understand the instructions or explanations in English. The students who have brought the complaint want the teacher to speak only English in class. Otherwise they want to be switched to another class. You know these three to be hard-working students with good attendance records. You feel that you must take their complaint seriously, so you decide to talk to the teacher.

Autonomy in second language learning and teaching contexts

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, there was an increasing emphasis on student autonomy in language learning (see Little, 1991). Learners were encouraged to pursue their own goals for language acquisition. Needs analyses became routine procedures in syllabus design, and self-assessment was widely used to evaluate learners’ skills. The lockstep language laboratory gave way to self-access learning centers. Student centered teaching was promoted for curriculum development and lesson planning (Nunan, 1988), and the earlier emphasis on monolithic methods gave way to concerns about individuals’ learning styles and strategies.

Autonomous learners are self-directed. Knowles (1975:9–11) describes an educational climate conducive to self-directed learning as a warm climate in which the participants care about one another. It would be a climate of mutual respect and “conducive to dialogue” (ibid.:10) in which learners participate actively (ibid.) and are “clear about and secure in [their] respective roles” (ibid.). Finally, it would be “a climate of mutual trust” (ibid.). Although Knowles is discussing language learning, his key points are applicable to teacher development as well.

In autonomous learning, “students take some significant responsibility for their own learning over and above responding to instructions” (Cotterall, 1995:219). Autonomous learning can be coupled with formal instruction but in such a way that learners make important decisions and take steps to further their own progress: “Learners who are autonomous take responsibility by setting their own goals, planning practice opportunities, or assessing their progress” (ibid.).

Autonomy can be related to teacher development as well. In fact, at a time when there is so much discussion about language learners’ autonomy, it is surprising that teachers’ autonomy is emphasized so little (Blue and Grundy, 1996:245), but recently this topic has gained some attention in our field. For example, Nunan and Lamb’s (1996) book is entitled The Self-Directed Teacher: Managing the Learning Process. Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) begin their book with the idea that teachers should take responsibility for improving their own teaching. Likewise, Pursuing Professional Development: The Self as Source, by Bailey et al. (2001), is based on the idea that teachers can do a great deal to promote their own professional development.

This focus on autonomous individuals, whether they are language learners or language teachers, is consistent with some political and pedagogical changes in the late twentieth century. Following Hargreaves (1994), Corson (1995:7) describes “an almost universal trend away from things such as centralization, mass production, specialization, and mass consumption, including the standardized school systems that used to be the norm almost everywhere.” Conversely, he notes “an almost universal trend toward the development of flexible technologies that are developed and used in smaller and more diverse units, including a rapid increase in diversity among schools and greater devolution of educational control” (ibid.).

The idea of self-directed teachers stands in stark contrast to approaches to professional preparation and supervision that try to get teachers to follow a certain method (e.g., the historical case in U.S. government language schools). When we think of the traditional supervisorial role of inspector (Acheson and Gall, 1997) or Wallace’s (1991) classic prescriptive approach to teacher supervision, we can see that one characteristic of those approaches is the teachers’ lack of autonomy, contrasted with the supervisor’s extreme authority. (See also Goldsberry, 1988.) However, nowadays it is not uncommon for supervisors to work with teachers who wish to be quite autonomous. To paraphrase Cotterall’s prior comment about students (1995:219), there are teachers who take responsibility by setting their own goals, planning practice (or improvement) opportunities, or assessing their own progress.

Definitions of autonomy

Autonomy lies at the heart of teacher-supervisor relationships. The concept of autonomy relates to “the property of a state to be self-ruling or self-governing” (Boud, 1981:18). In education, autonomy is “the capacity of an individual to be an independent agent, not governed by others” (ibid.). For Benson and Lor (1998:3), autonomy is a process of individuals’ “active involvement in the learning process, responsibility for its control over factors such as time, frequency, pace, settings and methods of learning, and critical awareness of purposes and goals.” Timing and pace are important in any discussion of teacher-supervisor relationships. Even where teachers and supervisors share purposes and goals, their views of the time needed for learning a skill or acquiring knowledge may differ considerably.

Breen and Mann (1997:134) explain autonomy as “a position from which to engage with the world. . . . [It is] not an ability that has to be learnt . . . but a way of being that has to be discovered or rediscovered.” What an autonomous person thinks and does is determined by the individual and involves “choosing, deciding, deliberating, reflecting, planning and judging” (Dearden, 1972:46). However, complete autonomy, in which “the learner is totally responsible for all the decisions about his or her learning,” is rare (Dickinson, 1987:11).

The importance of individual autonomy may vary from one culture to another. According to Pennycook (1997:36), autonomy “has been central to European liberal-democratic and liberal-humanist thought,” where it has been defined as

both mastery over oneself (an internal, psychological mastery) and freedom from mastery exercised over oneself by others (an external, social and political freedom). Thus it is based on a belief in a developed self – a self-conscious, rational being able to make independent decisions – and an emphasis on freedom from external constraints – a sense of liberty bestowed by social and political structures. (ibid.)

Pennycook says this view of the autonomous individual “is a very particular cultural and historical product, emerging from the western model of enlightenment and modernity” (ibid.:38–39). He argues that autonomy is not achieved by handing over power or by rational reflection: “rather it is the struggle to become the author of one’s own world, to be able to create one’s own meanings, to pursue cultural alternatives amid the cultural politics of everyday life” (ibid.:39). Pennycook worries that promoting learner autonomy globally may be “yet another version of the free, enlightened, liberalWest bringing one more form of supposed emancipation to the unenlightened, traditional, backward and authoritarian classrooms of the world” (ibid.). Thus autonomy may be defined or valued differently in various cultures: “To encourage ‘learner autonomy’ universally, without first becoming acutely aware of the social, cultural and political context in which one is working, may lead at best to inappropriate pedagogies and at worst to cultural impositions” (ibid.:44).We should recall this point about cultural differences in our discussions of supervision as well.

Four “frames” for viewing organizations

The majority of language teachers work within an organizational structure. Organizations, including schools, universities, and other language programs, “host a complex web of individual and group interests,” according to Bolman and Deal (1997:163). These authors list the following propositions about organizations:

1.       Organizations are coalitions of various individuals and interest groups.

2.       There are enduring differences among coalition members in values, beliefs, information, interests, and perceptions of reality.

3.       Most important decisions involve the allocation of scarce resources – who gets what.

4.       Scarce resources and enduring differences give conflict a central role in organizational dynamics and make power the most important resource.

5.       Goals and decisions emerge from bargaining, negotiation, and jockeying for position among different stakeholders. (ibid., italics in the original)

By definition, supervisors and language teachers work together in organizations, so it behooves us to be aware of these propositions and how they influence our work and our relationships.

Bolman and Deal (2002) discuss four “frames,” or ways in which people view organizations. The first is the political frame, which emphasizes the idea that scarce resources cannot meet all the demands placed upon them. With this frame, schools are viewed as “arenas where individuals and groups jockey for power” (p. 3). In this view, the goals of the organization are determined by bargaining and compromise. The political focus sees conflict as a potential source of energy.

The second perspective is the human resource frame, which emphasizes the needs and motives of individuals within the organization (ibid.). It assumes that educational programs function best when employees have a supportive work environment. In this frame, “showing concern for others and providing ample opportunities for participation and shared decision making are among the ways to enlist people’s commitment and involvement” (ibid). Bolman and Deal say many principals work within this frame and use supervisory styles that involve teachers in daily decision making to give the teachers a sense of ownership over their work.

Third, the structural frame stresses the value of productivity and suggests that programs work best “when goals and roles are clear and when efforts of individuals and groups are highly coordinated through authority, policies, and rules as well as through more informal strategies” (ibid.). In this view people are held accountable for their responsibilities. It is a rational approach that values measurable standards (ibid.).

Finally, the symbolic frame emphasizes culture, meaning, belief, and faith. Organizations use symbols to promote group loyalty (ibid.). Such symbols “govern behavior through shared values, informal agreements, and implicit understandings” (ibid.). These symbols are preserved and conveyed through stories, metaphors, ceremonies, and so on. In this view, the educational program becomes a meaningful way of life “rather than a sterile or toxic place of work” (ibid.).

Autonomy within organizations

Although language programs are indeed organizations, they differ from industrial organizations that produce consumer goods. Teachers themselves (with a fair amount of variation around the world) are professionals with a particular knowledge base and repertoire of skills. Professions are organizations whose work is “highly uncertain and contingent, requiring professional practitioners to rely heavily on their individual skill and judgement within the norms of accepted practise for their particular professions” (Savage and Robertson, 1999:155).

However, professionals must often use resources that are owned by institutions they themselves do not control, including schools and universities. For example, most teachers do not “own” the buildings in which they teach their classes, or the audiovisual equipment they may use during lessons. These resources are typically owned by the educational organization. Although such organizations are designed to enable professionals to use their skills and their judgment independently, they “nevertheless pose problems because they are most often not owned by these professionals, and their administration is not entirely under professional control” (ibid.). This economic arrangement “creates the potential for conflicts between independent practitioners, who seek to preserve their authority and autonomy, and the administrators . . . who have responsibilities of their own” (ibid.).

Take as an example the autonomy and authority of physicians in the modern hospital system that has been studied by Savage and Robertson (1999). Complex institutions such as schools and hospitals typically establish standardized procedures, because “one of the main goals of these organisations is . . . to restrain people from exercising their individual judgement, since deviations from routine patterns may disrupt the entire flow of work” (p. 155). But these authors point out that “hierarchy and centralisation are inappropriate . . . when there is a substantial amount of uncertainty present in the production process” (ibid.). The difficulty is that in complex, client-centered organizations, some procedures must be standardized, while other actions require interpretation and expert judgment. For instance, in a hospital, medications must be administered as prescribed in order to be safe, but doctors must interpret patients’ symptoms and complaints. In schools, teachers must administer testing procedures uniformly to guarantee that different groups of students have equal time to complete the test. But teachers must also use their training, experience, and judgment to determine the content, sequence, and pacing of lessons for the benefit of diverse learners with varied skills and abilities. So the independent decision making of skilled teachers is a key part of their professional abilities (see Chapter 13).

An argument can be made that the standards movement leads to diminished teacher autonomy, since the articulated standards state what teachers should do. We will return to this issue in Chapter 10, when we consider the criteria used to evaluate teachers.

Autonomy, supervision, and power

Given this emphasis on the significance of the individual on the one hand and cultural differences in autonomy on the other, we must ask ourselves if there is still a role for language teacher supervision. Or is supervision an anachronism?

It is likely that the classic prescriptive approach (Wallace, 1991) is no longer optimal in many contexts (assuming it ever was). As we saw in Chapter 1, in that approach the supervisor is an authority figure who judges teachers’ work and who may serve as the sole source of expertise about teaching. In preservice training, according to Wallace, such supervisors provide novice teachers with “a ‘blueprint’ of how the lesson ought to be taught” (ibid.:110). In this approach, during discussions of teaching, the supervisor does the talking, and the trainee is expected to listen. The supervisor may even attempt “to preserve authority as a mystique” (ibid.).

Definitions of other key constructs

Power is an important concept in understanding autonomy. In a sense, power and autonomy are conceptual opposites. Power is defined as “the fundamental ability of one person to command some degree of compliance on the part of another person” (Daresh, 2001:187). Power is the “potential ability to influence behavior, to change the course of events, to overcome resistance, and to get people to do things they would not otherwise do” (Pfeffer, 1992:30). In other words, power is taking action that influences other action (Kiesling, 1997; Foucault, 1982).

At some level, supervisors have a certain amount of power over language teachers. On the other hand, language teachers also have a certain amount of power over their supervisors and others in their environment. For instance, teachers can resist or ignore supervisors’ recommendations for changes in their teaching. As Canagarajah notes,

We have to consider power as not necessarily exercised top to bottom; institutions like the school may serve to reconstitute power relations bottom up. At the micro-social level of the classroom, then, teachers and students enjoy some agency to question, negotiate, and resist power. (1999:211)

According to Corson (1995:12), power “can hardly be portrayed in an organizational flowchart . . . because no flowchart or diagram is sophisticated enough to represent the situational effects of language in creating the background to power.”

How does power relate to autonomy? Savage and Robertson (1999) say professionals often work in institutions (e.g., courts of law, hospitals, etc.) that they “do not own or manage . . . and that do not, in turn, own or manage them. In such settings, an important issue for professionals is to maintain professional authority and autonomy” (p. 161). For these authors, “Autonomy means that no one except another professional . . . can challenge the day-to-day decisions of a professional” (ibid.). Savage and Robertson contrast the rights and responsibilities of production workers in hierarchical organizations with those of professionals working in institutions. Such individuals are prepared to use independent judgment. “Autonomy represents the formal recognition of their individual responsibility to do so” (ibid.).

The terms authority and power are sometimes used interchangeably, but in fact their meanings are somewhat different. Authority is “a right granted to a manager to make decisions, within limitations, to assign duties to subordinates, and to require subordinates’ conformance to expected behavior” (Reeser, 1973:311). It is a question of position within a hierarchy. Power, in contrast, is the ability “to make others behave in certain ways and is available to most people in society, regardless of whether or not they have formal authority” (Daresh, 2001:188). Both power and authority are important in supervisors’ work, but how they operate depends on whether the organization views teachers as workers or as professionals. Authority means that professionals “possess command capabilities” (Savage and Robertson, 1999:161) that are not available to people outside a given profession. A view of language teachers as professionals recognizes that they possess specialized knowledge and skills that the general public doesn’t have. But in institutions with hierarchical structures, authority typically is “delegated from the top down, from owners through managers to employees” (ibid.:161–162).

Different types of power

Bolman and Deal (1997) see eight kinds of power functioning in organizations. These kinds of power are all relevant to the work of language teacher supervisors, though a supervisor will probably want to be selective about which type(s) to employ.

The first is position power, which is equated with authority (ibid.:169) and which is also called legitimate power – the control of one person by another based on official status. Position power is the idea that “the person exercising the power has a legitimate right to do so and is supported by a statement of policy, law, or even historical precedent and tradition” (Daresh, 2001:189). According to French and Raven (1960:616), legitimacy involves “some sort of code or standards accepted by the individual, by virtue of which the external agent can assert his power.” Supervisors’ legitimate power would be defined by their job descriptions, by role statements in faculty handbooks, and so on.

The second type of power is based on information and expertise. Bolman and Deal say that “power flows to those who have information and know how to solve important problems” (1997:169). French and Raven call this expert power. Its strength may vary with the perceived knowledge that one person attributes to another (1960:620–621). This is the “ability to influence others’ behavior based on special knowledge” (Daresh, 2001:190). In supervision, expert power depends on the teachers’ believing that the supervisor possesses expertise, including the skills and knowledge to be an effective language teacher as well as to be an effective supervisor.

The third type is called reward power (Bolman and Deal, 1997:169). It is based on the ability to reward someone. The person in power controls the likelihood that others will receive tangible or intangible rewards (French and Raven, 1960:613). Tangible rewards include raises, bonuses, promotions, or awards for service or excellence. Intangible rewards involve thanks, positive comments, and the supervisor’s demonstrated awareness of the teacher’s abilities.

The fourth, coercive power, is “the capacity of one person to provide punishment or negative consequences to another in a deliberate attempt to control the other person’s behavior” (Daresh, 2001:189). Coercive power is the logical opposite of reward power, as in the metaphor about the carrot and stick. French and Raven (1960:615) say reward power increases the attraction of one person to another, whereas coercive power decreases that attraction. Coercive power includes providing negative incentives (e.g., a critical report in a personnel file) or withholding positive incentives (e.g., refusing to recommend a promotion or a raise).

The fifth kind of power lies in alliances and networks: “[G]etting things done in organizations involves working through a complex network of individuals and groups” (Bolman and Deal, 1997:170). These authors state that managers who don’t spend enough time building staff relations may have trouble getting things done (ibid.).

The sixth type of power is access to and control of agendas. Some groups typically have more “access to decision arenas” (ibid.) than do others. Bolman and Deal add that when important organizational decisions are made, “the interests of those with a ‘seat at the table’ are well represented, while the concerns of absentees are often distorted or ignored” (ibid.).

The seventh kind of power is framing, or the control of meaning and symbols. Powerful people or groups in organizations can “define and even impose the meanings and myths that define identity, beliefs and values” (Bolman and Deal, 1997:170). Instituting a teaching award or graduation ceremony would be an example of this type of power.

Finally, there is personal power: “Individuals with charisma, energy and stamina, political skills, verbal facility, or the capacity to articulate visions are imbued with power independent of other sources” (ibid.). French and Raven (1960) call this referent power. It is “the tendency of other individuals to be attracted by and to identify closely with the person who exercises the power” (Daresh, 2001:189). In this case, the supervisor’s personality is significant. Referent power operates largely on an interpersonal level rather than on a professional level. It often exists in combination with the other types of power.

Other authors categorize power in different ways. For example, in his discussion of industrial workplaces, Welskopp (1999) identifies the power (1) to make decisions, (2) to implement and control, (3) to command hierarchical authority, and (4) to define and determine working conditions. Kiesling adds three other types of power to this inventory. Nurturant power is “the process of helping another, as in teaching or feeding” (1997:68). Demeanor power is “the power of solidarity . . . being liked, being ‘a good guy’” (ibid.). A person is using demeanor power “when others feel happy, entertained, involved” (ibid.), and so on. Finally, ideological power “ratifies certain traits as powerful [because it] is the process of power whereby ways of thinking . . . are naturalized into a community’s behavior” (ibid.).

Language is used to guide, resist, or mediate power: “For most everyday human purposes, power is exerted through verbal channels: Language is the vehicle for identifying, manipulating, and changing power relations between people” (Corson, 1995:3). This point relates to verbal interaction between teachers and supervisors, especially during pre- and post-observation conferences. (See Chapters 8 and 9.)

However, the power roles of supervisors have changed over time. Research on teacher learning has led us to challenge the view of teachers as blank slates – even very inexperienced preservice teachers – just as we have come to realize that even beginning language learners have a great deal of background knowledge and experience on which to draw.

Autonomy and self-regulated action

This point about supervisors’ power can be related to sociocultural theory. In discussing the ZPD, van Lier asks, “How do we, as caretakers or educators, ensure that our teaching actions are located within the ZPD, especially if we do not really have any precise idea of the innate timetable of every learner?” (1996:191). To answer this question, he says, “researchers in the Vygotskian mould propose that social interaction, by virtue of its orientation toward mutual engagement and intersubjectivity, is likely to home in on the ZPD and stay within it” (ibid.).

In sociocultural theory, what a person can do confidently and independently comprises an area of self-regulated action. According to van Lier, “beyond that there is a range of knowledge and skills which the person can only access with someone’s assistance” (ibid.:190). This material that is within reach, whether it involves skills or knowledge, constitutes the ZPD (ibid.:190–191). However, “anything outside the circle of proximal development is simply beyond reach and not (yet) available for learning” (ibid.). Learners can accomplish productive work in the ZPD by using varied resources, including assistance from and interaction with peers, as well as their own inner resources (ibid.:193). Figure 3.1 depicts these ideas.

Figure 3.1 Self-regulation and multiple zones of proximal development (van Lier, 1996:194)

In this framework, “a learner’s zone of self-regulated action can be expanded in a number of different ways, not only through the assistance of teachers or other experts” (ibid.:193). We can apply the logic of this framework to teacher learning as well. Figure 3.1 suggests that teachers have many resources besides input from supervisors.

Input, intake, and uptake in teacher learning

Supervisors should understand that teachers selectively process the advice they are given. If that information is incorporated at all, it will probably be applied when the teacher is ready to use it. An experience I had as a student teacher illustrates this idea. I remember struggling with classroom management and turn distribution in a university ESL course taught by Marjorie Walsleben, the cooperating teacher. Some students talked a great deal while others hardly spoke. Some of the Asian women were particularly shy about speaking in class, and when called on, they would answer very quietly. So I would move closer, to show my interest and encourage them to speak up. Marjorie did not interfere, but it was clear even to me that when I leaned in to hear the quiet students, many of the others would begin talking among themselves. Then she gave me a simple tip. She said, “You know, I have found that if I can’t hear a student well, it probably means the other students can’t either. So instead of getting closer, I back away from the student who’s speaking. It usually makes the student speak louder.” I was stunned. What a paradox!

At this point, I will borrow two terms from second language acquisition: input and intake. (See, e.g., Corder, 1967; Krashen, 1981, 1982.) These terms have important analogies in teacher learning and supervision: “Input in the L2 literature refers to the language to which a learner is exposed, either orally or visually (i.e., signed languages or printed matter) and is to be distinguished from intake, . . . which is the language that is available to and utilized in some way by the learner” (Gass, 1997:28). Gass points out that the term ambient speech is synonymous with input. It is the language that surrounds learners living in a second language environment. Intake, on the other hand, is that subset of the input that learners process in some way.

Pennington (1996) has also applied the notions of input and intake to language teacher development. She states that in teacher learning and change, input does not equal intake:

Rather, teachers take in only those aspects of the available input which are accessible to them. Accessible input refers to those types of information which the teachers are prepared to attend to because of a high awareness and understanding of the input coupled with favorable attitudes such as preexisting interest in or positive attitudes towards the form of input or the person giving the input, a strong recognition of a need for input or change, or a strong feeling of discomfort at a preexisting clash of values. (p. 340)

Pennington adds that “input for which teachers have low awareness, low understanding, or unfavorable attitudes is inaccessible input” (ibid.), and it “will consequently have little or no impact in the way of teacher change” (ibid.).

According to Slimani (1987), a third term, uptake, refers to the information or skills language learners claim to have gotten from lessons or other learning events, such as doing homework. Uptake refers to a conscious awareness of having learned something.

These three constructs have parallels in teacher learning. Supervisors should understand these ideas in terms of how we may (or may not) influence teacher development, particularly in relation to time. First, the feedback to which teachers are exposed parallels the input surrounding language learners. However, just because those concepts are available to be learned does not mean that they will all be internalized by teachers and become intake. The ideas that a teacher remembers having learned constitute the uptake. In other words, uptake has occurred if a teacher can recall a particular point at which learning took place. Thus, uptake is a case of meta-awareness – an awareness of becoming aware and learning something.

In the example about my cooperating teacher, I had seen Marjorie move away from students (the strategy was available to me as input), but I hadn’t understood her intent. Yet the advice that Marjorie gave me became intake and has shaped my teaching for nearly 30 years. Finally, my rendering of this conversation is an example of uptake. I clearly remember the moment Marjorie taught me how to get students to speak louder and how to build a sense of community in my classes. This anecdote leads to another key concept: the time to learn. Teachers, like language students, convert input to intake on their own schedules.

Time and teacher learning

Most learning occurs on the learner’s own schedule, in both language acquisition and teacher development. Supervisors are not fairy godmothers who can, with the wave of a wand, turn a frog into a prince. A better metaphor than the magic wand is the slow process of planting and nurturing a seed. Changes in teaching often need time to grow and flourish.

An illustration comes from Elizabeth Macdonald, who taught EFL in the Central African Republic. She had been trained in the audiolingual method, but the notional / functional approach was also covered in her Peace Corps training. Years later she wrote:

My Peace Corps technical trainer had told us repeatedly that . . . we did not have to use these approaches once we arrived at our post. In encouraging us to experiment with different techniques and activities, he had presented us with a model lesson using a notional / functional approach. . . .My second year, however, I realized that the notional / functional approach was applicable at an organizational level. . . . Using a notional / functional syllabus my second year was successful and enjoyable. (Macdonald, personal communication, cited in Bailey, 1992:275)

This comment illustrates the terms defined above. The notional / functional approach was available for some time as input to Elizabeth. She recalls learning about it during her Peace Corps training, and this recollection is an instance of uptake. Finally, when she was ready, she began to implement the concept, thereby converting it to intake.

Training and development

Freeman (1989a) contrasts two important processes: training and development. He defines training as a “strategy for direct intervention by the collaborator, to work on specific aspects of the teacher’s teaching” (p. 39). Development, on the other hand, is a “strategy of influence and indirect intervention that works on complex, integrated aspects of teaching [that] are idiosyncratic and individual” (ibid.:40), as shown in Table 3.1. The collaborator, as Freeman uses the term, is someone who helps a teacher learn. That person might be a colleague, a supervisor, a mentor, a peer coach, or the like.

Table 3.1 Comparison of training and development (adapted from Freeman, 1989a:42)

	Teacher Training: Process of direct intervention	Teacher Development: Process of influence
Characteristics of aspects of teaching focused on Constituent base Focus Criteria for assessing change Closure	Generally accessible; can be mastered through specific courses of action Knowledge and skills Initiated by the collaborator; work carried out by the teacher External; accessible to the Collaborator Can be within a fixed time period, once criteria are satisfied	Idiosyncratic and individual; maturation through constant attention, critique, and involvement of the teacher in his or her teaching Attitude and awareness Raised by the collaborator, but work initiated by the teacher Internal; personal to the Teacher Is open-ended; work continues until teacher decides to stop

Freeman’s comparison of training and development is related to autonomy and authority. He suggests that some teacher learning, especially at the level of knowledge and skills, can be initiated and promoted by a collaborator and addressed through training activities. However, although attitude and awareness issues may be raised by the collaborator, the teacher must do the actual developmental work in these areas. Therefore, it is important for supervisors to be clear about what constituent base of teaching may be involved in any given context.

Training and development relate to time and teacher learning. As Freeman notes, closure in some work, such as learning a new skill, can occur within a given time period, perhaps even on an externally imposed schedule. Other types of developmental work, however, are ongoing and may not be finished at a certain time.

Training and development are “two complementary components of a fully rounded teacher education” (Head and Taylor, 1997:9). Teacher training “essentially concerns knowledge of the topic to be taught, and of the methodology for teaching it” (ibid.). Teacher development, in contrast, involves “the learning atmosphere which is created through the effect of the teacher on the learners, and their effect on the teacher” (ibid.). Head and Taylor say development is related to people skills and to teachers being aware of their attitudes and behaviors. So, although there will be instances in which supervisors should call on training strategies, at other times development strategies will be more appropriate.

Freeman refers to training as a “process of direct intervention” (1989a:42) and to development as a “process of influence” (ibid.). These ideas are related to our discussion of autonomy, and particularly to the concept of time to learn. In areas where a teacher needs time to develop, the language teacher supervisor may be able to exert influence, but direct intervention may be minimally effective or even counterproductive. The wise supervisor will choose carefully in trying to influence teachers’ decisions and actions.

Autonomy in decision making and action taking

Supervision in industrial contexts typically involves overseeing workers on a production line. Factories and other production-oriented firms, say Savage and Robertson (1999),

are strong at executing known routines in which complex management teams oversee large-scale production and distribution processes of a repeated, consistent and planned character. Such routines tend to be measurable at various stages in production, and so are suited especially well to formal monitoring schemes. (p. 158)

However, “when production involves uncertainty and requires highly flexible adjustment of routines to tasks, then the benefits of knowledge synergy in a hierarchy come at a cost that is large in terms both of agency and of the poor collocation of knowledge” (ibid.). In such contexts, production “is very much a sphere of activity in which uncertainty and task variability are important, and in which rigidly pre-programmed routines work poorly” (ibid.). As a result, schools require professionals rather than assembly-line workers. And, like other professionals, teachers must “wield and apply a wide repertoire of routines to fit widely varying concrete circumstances” (Savage and Robertson, 1999:158).

As professional language teachers, we can practice autonomy in our actions, our decision making, or both. And, as teacher supervisors, we can influence both teachers’ decision making and their actions. For example, a preservice teacher may conduct group work alone but at the direction of the cooperating teacher. Although the cooperating teacher makes the decision, the preservice teacher carries out the action independently. In other circumstances the preservice teacher might conduct group work with the cooperating teacher’s assistance, no matter whose choice it was to do group work. There are also situations in which the cooperating teacher would turn the class, including the lesson planning, over entirely to the trainee. In that context, both the trainee’s actions and decision making would be autonomous.

One developmental process is for preservice teachers to assume greater responsibility for both making decisions about teaching and taking actions during teaching. Many practice teaching opportunities are created with a gradual transition in mind. That is, trainees often begin by observing classes, then help with parts of a lesson, and gradually take responsibility for more teaching, but with guidance from the cooperating teacher.

Both planning lessons and teaching lessons involve risk. Wallace notes that “the risk / cost factor is operational at several levels” (ibid.:89). What if the preservice teacher plans an inappropriate activity, or if an appropriate activity is planned well but poorly executed? One risk is the loss of precious instructional time, another the loss of the students’ interest or of the preservice teacher’s confidence and credibility. Figure 3.2, adapted from Wallace (1991), depicts “opportunities for varying degrees of safe experimentation” (ibid.) on the increasing cline of risk as teachers in training take on more responsibility for actions and decision making. For example, trainees’ observing usually precedes their microteaching, “a teaching situation [that] has been reduced in scope and / or simplified in some systematic way” (ibid.: 92).

The ranked activities in Figure 3.2 run from minimum risk or cost to the students and the trainee to fully “individual autonomous professional interaction” (ibid.). However, the reality of teaching is much messier than these neat boxes would suggest. When I have used this figure with teacher educators and supervisors, there has often been considerable debate about which activities are riskier than others. For instance, some people have felt that microteaching to one’s peers is much riskier, in terms of the potential threat to the teacher’s confidence, than microteaching with real pupils. Others have argued that the possible loss of face involved in team teaching is much riskier than is individual teaching. Presumably Wallace’s ordering had more to do with the possible risk to the learners, for example, in terms of clarity or instructional time. What is clear is that different teaching activities seem to carry different potentials for risk, depending on who is considering those activities.

Degree of risk / cost	Activity	General Category
	Observation / analysis of lessons on film	1.       Data collection / analysis activities
Minimum	Observation / analysis of live taught lessons
	Analysis of lesson transcripts
	Draft exercises Draft lesson plans	2.       Planning activities
	Microlessons (nonrecorded)	3.       Microteaching activities
	Microteaching (group preparation)
	Microteaching (individual preparation)
	Microteaching (peer group)
	Microteaching (real pupils)
	Extended microteaching
	Supervised teaching	4.       Supervised professional action
	Auxiliary teaching	5.       Shared professional action
	Team teaching
Maximum	Individual teaching (NB varying degrees of autonomy)	6.       Individual autonomous professional action

Figure 3.2 Sample of training and teaching activities categorized according to putative risk / cost (Wallace, 1991:91)

Risk-taking is involved in choosing between alternative courses of action, when the result of the choice is not clear. The choice entails an element of possible loss or failure. With teacher learners, as with language learners, the opportunity to take risks must be available if any growth is to occur. In working with novice teachers, cooperating teachers and trainers may wish to start cautiously, limiting the risk. Still, preservice teachers need opportunities to try out new things and then reflect on their success (or lack thereof).

In contexts where in-service teachers (those who are already employed) are recognized as professionals, they typically have a greater range of autonomy in both their decision making and their actions than do teachers in training. Professional teachers typically plan and carry out their lessons with relatively little input from others, unless the teachers themselves seek such input. Of course, if we enter into a team teaching arrangement, we trade some of our autonomy (in both our decision making and our actions) for the numerous benefits of such a partnership.

Figure 3.3 Teachers’ autonomy in decision making and action taking

The range of language teachers’ possible autonomy in both action taking and decision making can be plotted as overlapping continua, as in Figure 3.3.

Any particular teaching context can be plotted on this diagram. For in-service language teachers, most decisions and actions would fall somewhere in the upper left quadrant, because in-service teachers generally have a great deal of autonomy both in making decisions and in taking action. For novice teachers in student teaching assignments, many decisions and actions would fall in or near the lower right quadrant, with the novice teacher’s actions and decisions moving further left and upward as the novice gains skill and confidence.

Figure 3.3 reveals possible sources of tension in the relationships of supervisors and language teachers. Consider the following comments of a supervisor to a language teacher:

1.       “What would you like to work on next time I visit? I’ll be happy to observe whatever you choose to teach.”

2.       “You decide what areas you want to work on, and write your lesson plan. Then I’ll help you conduct the class.”

3.       “As you plan your lessons, you must think of some ways to increase the opportunities of the students to talk during class.”

4.       “You need to decrease the teacher talk so the students will have more opportunities to talk. Be sure to incorporate this point in your lesson planning. Next time I visit, I want to see you using more group work and less lecturing.”

Each comment represents a particular quadrant from Figure 3.3. For instance, statement 1 leaves both the decision making and action in the teacher’s hands. Statement 4, in contrast, removes both the decision making and the action from the teacher’s control.

Typically, a language teacher supervisor observes in order to give feedback on teaching behavior. “Although this approach does focus on teachers’ classroom behavior, it does not show how teachers can make their own informed teaching decisions . . . because the supervisor takes on much of the responsibility for selecting, observing, and offering feedback on teachers’ classroom behavior” (Gebhard, 1991:740). Gebhard (1990b:517) also points out the problem of decision making in the classic prescriptive approach. He says a serious problem with this model

is that it forces compliance with the supervisor’s prescriptions, thus keeping the decision-making with the supervisor. In this model, teachers are not provided opportunities to develop decision-making skills. . . . [D]ecisions about what and how to teach are quite often framed by the supervisor’s perceptions about what needs to change in the teacher’s teaching.

Here is an example of Gebhard’s point from his own work as a teacher (1984:502–503):

One day a person I had never seen before walked in and sat down as I was in the process of teaching a reading lesson. I was trying out a few new ideas and wanted to see the consequences of not going over vocabulary before having the students read. Instead of presenting vocabulary, I was having the students read a story several times, each time working on a different task such as underlining words which described the person in the story or crossing out words they did not know. The supervisor sat in the back of the room taking notes, and I became nervous. After the class . . . she smiled and whispered that she would like to meet with me at her office. . . . At this meeting, she opened by leaning over, touching me on the arm, smiling and saying, “I hope you don’t mind. I’m not one to beat around the bush.” I sank a little further into my chair. She proceeded to tell me that I should always write difficult vocabulary on the board and go over it before the students read aloud to help them with pronunciation, and that in every class there should be a discussion so that the students have the chance to practice the new vocabulary.

This advice was highly prescriptive. The supervisor preempted the teacher’s decision-making autonomy. And had she visited his class again, to evaluate how well he carried out her advice, she would have been exerting control over his actions as well.

Glickman et al. (1998:107) associate high supervisor decision making and low teacher decision making with the directive model of supervision. In contrast, they relate equal teacher and supervisor responsibility for decision making to a collaborative model of supervision. Finally, they relate high teacher decision making coupled with low supervisor decision making to a nondirective supervisorial role.

Authority

There are three major types of authority, according to Daresh (2001). The first type is traditional authority. In this situation, “people accept the control of others because it is assumed that those ‘others’ have some sort of traditionally legitimate absolute right to exercise that authority with no challenge” (Daresh, 2001:191). The second is charismatic authority, which is “based on the assumption that the leader has some gift or even supernatural powers” (ibid.). Finally, legal authority is “derived from laws, policies, or statutes” (ibid.:192).

What is authority? We can talk about a person of authority or a person who is an authority on a certain subject. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the terms power and authority are sometimes used interchangeably, but there are key differences that supervisors need to understand. Of course, a person can have both power and authority or neither or authority without power or power without authority. We will now examine how some of these ideas relate to the work of language teacher supervisors.

Genuine authority and delegated authority

The first point to make is that a language teacher supervisor may have only delegated authority – a matter of appointment. Such a supervisor may lack genuine authority, in the sense that he or she does not possess the knowledge and skills needed to perform the supervisor’s role successfully. Or the supervisor may have earned genuine authority in language teaching, through some combination of education and exemplary experience. This part of authority derives from expert power (French and Raven, 1960; Daresh, 2001).

The best-case scenario is that a person is officially appointed to a position of authority and also possesses the required skills and knowledge to be an effective supervisor. This person has expert power, can wield reward, coercive, and legitimate power, and may also possess referent (i.e., personal) power.

The worst-case scenario is a person who is officially appointed as a supervisor, but lacks the needed skills and knowledge to be an effective language teacher supervisor. In other words, this person does not possess expert power, but may wield reward power, coercive power, or both. Clearly, people working as language teacher supervisors, or aspiring to do so, should have genuine authority, based on training, knowledge, skills, and experience. However, many language teachers are put in supervisory positions without proper preparation to take on that new role. This situation highlights the distinction between two types of knowledge and skills that a language teacher supervisor needs. First, a supervisor needs to be a successful language teacher and possess the knowledge base and skills expertise to talk knowledgeably with teachers. But there is also a knowledge and skills base associated with being an excellent supervisor. Some of these supervisorial skills overlap with those of being an effective language teacher (e.g., communication and organizational skills), but some do not. (For instance, an excellent teacher may be able to explain grammar rules to learners but not be able to provide constructive criticism to a teacher.) For this reason, an excellent language teacher may or may not be an excellent supervisor.

It is important to keep in mind that “the supervisor, simply due to position of authority, does not automatically know what is best for everyone” (ibid., 1998: 142). This point is the distinction to be made between delegated authority (legitimate power, in French and Raven’s [1960] terms) and genuine authority (expert power).

A person with only formal or delegated authority may have trouble getting people to cooperate: “A critical concern in assessing a supervisor’s potential power rests in the appreciation of how much a supervisor can motivate others to do something” (Daresh, 2001:194). Someone who lacks functional or genuine authority may have to rely on reward power or coercive power to get things done. A person who lacks both genuine authority and coercive or reward power may have no effect whatsoever.

Selectively using directive control behaviors

There are times when a language teacher supervisor must simply exert control. Doing so entails employing directive control behaviors. These are behaviors that supervisors use with teachers when “there is an assumption that the supervisor has greater knowledge and expertise about the issue at hand” (Glickman et al., 1998:144). However, teachers can only be expected to comply with plans imposed by supervisors if they respect the supervisors’ judgment. “The supervisor must demonstrate and convince the teachers of this superior expertise” (ibid.). This “superior expertise” entails not only supervisorial skills and knowledge, but also the ability to do the work one supervises – in our case, language teaching. These authors add that if the supervisor has line authority (also called “position power”) over teachers,

it is more difficult to separate teacher compliance due to respect for the supervisor from that due to a perceived threat to job security. The line supervisor might believe teachers are following orders because of his or her superior knowledge, but the teachers might actually believe the supervisor is an ignoramus. (ibid.)

In other words, if a language teacher supervisor has coercive power, teachers’ compliance with directives may not be evidence of the supervisor’s presumed expert power.

Glickman et al. note (ibid.:151) that “since directive behaviors raise issues of power, respect, expertise, and line and staff relations,” they should be used with caution. These authors state (ibid.) that there are five contexts in which it is appropriate to use directive behaviors:

1.       When teachers are functioning at very low development levels.

2.       When teachers do not have awareness, knowledge, or inclination to act on an issue that a supervisor, who has organizational authority, thinks to be of critical importance to the students, the teachers, or the community. . . .

3.       When teachers will have no involvement and the supervisor will be involved in carrying out the decision. If the supervisor will be held totally accountable and the teachers will not. . . .

4.       When the supervisor is committed to resolving the issue and the teachers are not. When decisions do not concern teachers, and they prefer the supervisor to make the decision. . . .

5.       In an emergency, when the supervisor does not have time to meet with teachers.

So there are specific circumstances in which directive control behaviors should be used. But employing such behaviors to accomplish a particular goal is not the same as assuming the role of a directive supervisor (in Freeman’s [1982] or Gebhard’s [1984] terms), or exclusively using the classic prescriptive approach (Wallace, 1991).

Supervisors’ roles in teacher empowerment

Murdoch (1998, Establishing Effective Supervisory Relations section, paragraph 2) notes that progressive organizations try to empower trained teachers “to become reflective practitioners, capable, eventually, of independently satisfying the learning needs of their students, developing their own classroom teaching skills, and taking a large degree of responsibility for their own professional development.” But what does it mean to say that we wish to empower teachers?

To empower someone is to provide that person with the knowledge and skills that give him or her a certain amount of power in given circumstances. One can also empower oneself by garnering such knowledge and skills. As an example, teacher research and action research have been promoted as means of teachers’ empowerment (see, for example, Edge and Richards, 1993).

Presumably, anything a supervisor does to help language teachers improve their effectiveness and their job satisfaction would be empowering. However, the situation is not that simple. In the supervisorial relationship, empowering teachers is partly a question of control. By this I mean that in the typical interactions between language teachers and supervisors (e.g., scheduling and conducting classroom observations, discussing lessons, conducting evaluations), the balance of power can vary dramatically from teacher control to supervisor control. The issue of variable power is implicit in all the figures presented in this chapter.

We should distinguish between short-term and long-term empowerment. In the short term, supervisors can empower teachers by having them schedule observations instead of imposing a schedule on them. (This seemingly minor point will be explored in Chapter 5.) In conferences, supervisors can empower teachers by listening more than talking. In short, by practicing the classic collaborative approach rather than the classic prescriptive approach of supervision (Wallace, 1991), supervisors can help empower teachers in the short term.

Over time, incorporating more democratic and collaborative processes in supervision can lead to teacher empowerment, but will not necessarily do so. Empowerment is both a process and a potential end-state, or product; a journey and a desirable destination. I don’t know whether a teacher can reach a certain goal and suddenly say, “Aha! I am empowered!” (as if achieving academic and professional nirvana). It seems more likely that empowerment is ongoing and fluid and that empowerment as an outcome waxes and wanes, depending on the context. There are many situational, systemic variables that influence the extent to which teachers feel empowered. These include (but are not limited to) factors beyond the supervisor’s control, such as benefit cuts, shifts in national language policy, changes in administrative personnel, and so on.

With regard to autonomy and authority – the dual themes of this chapter – the empowerment of language teachers depends in part on supervisors recognizing that effective and professionally prepared teachers should have a great deal of autonomy, in both the decisions they make and the actions they take. (It is in working with less effective or marginal teachers that supervisors face challenging questions about teachers’ autonomy.) Likewise, teacher supervisors must not abuse the power and authority they have. If the goal of language teacher supervisors is to “refine the process of teaching and improve the effectiveness of the results of schooling” (Alfonso et al., 1984:17), then empowering teachers is consistent with this goal.

Concluding comments

This chapter considered the dynamic tension between teachers’ autonomy and supervisors’ authority. We considered various kinds of power that individuals might wield, as well as different meanings of authority. And we contrasted delegated authority and genuine authority derived from knowledge and skills. We also borrowed the terms input, intake, and uptake from second language acquisition research and applied them to teacher learning. We added the concepts of accessible input and inaccessible input to teachers (Pennington, 1996).

Time and teacher learning are related to autonomy. Teachers, like language students, learn at their own paces and on their own schedules. Supervisors must remember that some learning occurs quickly and some takes a long time.

Autonomy and authority also involve risk, in both the decisions teachers make and the actions they take. Supervisors’ intervention in teachers’ decisions or actions can range from welcome help to unwelcome intrusion. Although supervisors are sometimes justified in using directive control behaviors, supervisors can also help empower language teachers.