Abstract:
Based on the understanding of the metaphor and on
representation
concepts, this study investigates implicit metaphors which
were categorized in order to reveal the representations that the
teachers
have of their own role. The data were analyzed according to the
thematic
contents proposed by BRONCKART (1997) in his methodological proposal
for linguistic analysis. The reflections are based on data obtained
from a
questionnaire answered by one group of Brazilian State School
English
teachers who are participants in a program of continuing education.
Keywords: education; implicit metaphors; representations;
EFL teachers'
roles.
Introduction
This article1 analyzes Brazilian State School English teachers'
metaphors in order to understand these teachers' representations
of their role.
We decided to focus on the study of metaphors because we believe
that it is a
powerful instrument to dive into teachers' representations
of themselves.
According to RITCHIE (2002), MARKGRAF & PAVLIK (1998), DENZIN
(1992),
and CONNELY & CLANDININ (1994), teachers express themselves
to describe
their teaching act using metaphors that represent their thoughts
and conceptual
system.
This paper originated in the analysis of teachers' discourses
because
according to LAKOFF & JOHNSON (1980), the concepts by which
our thought
is governed are not only related to the intellect, but they also
direct our daily
activities. Such concepts can be emphasized via language; thus,
it can be said
that metaphors exist linguistically because they exist in the
conceptual system
of each one of us.
Our
enterprise presupposes that if teacher educators have a better
perception of teachers' tacit knowledge, the courses they
design will suit more
appropriately the teachers' needs in real life. We expect
to help other teacher
educators use the study of metaphors to enrich their instruments
to explore
teachers' minds.
THEORETICAL
BACKGROUND
1. The use of metaphors
According to MUNBY (1986),
Metaphors are a way to discover something about teachers'
beliefs or
knowledge from the perspective of the teachers themselves. It
is important
to capture the thinking of teachers in their own language. Metaphorical
language is employed to give tacit knowledge voice.(MUNBY, 1986,
p.198)
This idea is central to this paper, since its objective is to
attempt to
analyze the teachers' beliefs that are present in their
metaphors, which are "a
compelling alternative to conventional and formalistic approaches
to the study
of teacher cognitions." (MUNBY, 1986, p. 197)
However, there are many different views on what a metaphor is.
Therefore,
it is necessary to say that this work is based mainly on the
concepts proposed
by MUNBY (1986) and ZANOTTO (1995). According to MUNBY (1986,
p. 199),
"Metaphor is a process by which we encounter the world
and metaphors offer a
different way of perceiving reality." ZANOTTO (1995) believes
that through
metaphorical thought we can see different beings and establish
bridges between
them. MUNBY (1986) also argues that metaphors are a tool to
discover something
about teachers' beliefs from their perspective and in
their own language.
These points support our proposal of analyzing teachers'
speech in
order to establish some bridges between their beliefs and their
practice. Our
aim is to be able to open some paths to shorten the distance
between their
beliefs and their practice, so that we can adjust the teacher
education course
curriculum to the teacher's needs.
According to TELLES (1997, 2005), the study of metaphors offers
us a
method of research and reflection. EISNER (1991) and CONNELLY
& CLANDININ
(2000) think that this method seems to reveal the landscape
teachers live and
work in.
Although "metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not
just in language
but in thought and action" (LAKOFF & JOHNSON, 1980,
p. 3), we cannot deny
that "each metaphor clarifies some aspects of the concept
and hides partially
others." (LAKOFF, 1985: 59). Having this in mind, we researchers
must be
careful in the metaphor mapping and analysis, and we must also
consider
more
than one instance (MARGOT, VINZ, DOWNING and ANZUL, 2001) while
trying to make sense of the data that we are analyzing.
TELLES (1997, 2005) reminds us that in the analysis of teachers'
implicit
theories, researchers and educators should pay attention to
the metaphorical
content of teachers' speech.
In light of all that was mentioned above, we decided to focus
on the
teachers' speech and to carry out our analysis we based
ourselves on two
essential concepts: implicit and explicit metaphors.
2. Implicit and explicit metaphors
As it has already been said in the Introduction, based on linguistic
evidences we can consider that most of our conceptual system
is of metaphorical
nature. For this reason, there have been many researchers, such
as DIAMOND
(1999), MARKGRAF & PAVLIK (1998), MELLO (2005) and TELLES
(1997,
1996, 2005), among others, who have identified the metaphors
that structure
our thoughts and actions through either explicit details in
the considered
statements or interpretations of the statements when inserted
in a larger net of
meanings.
Thus, we can say that metaphors are expressed implicitly and
explicitly.
If the referent is not expressed in the same clause, the metaphor
is called
implicit. When the literal referent of a metaphor is expressed
in the same clause,
it is an explicit metaphor.
In our study, for the first case we established a form of coherence
among
the thematic contents (BRONCKART, 1997) in the clauses in order
to reach
the implicit metaphor. It is important to emphasize that the
analysis of implicit
metaphors involves an additional cycle of inferences among clauses
or between
clause and context (STEEN, 1999). For the explicit metaphor,
it is necessary
to understand the clause and this is based on strategies of
grammatical analysis.
GIBBS (1999) alerts us to the need to distinguish between the
initial
(immediate) reactions that the reader presents in relation to
the metaphors,
and the subsequent (deeper) reflection. He emphasizes the distinction
between
the process of metaphors' identification and the product
as a result of the
reader's search, considering that the more an investigator
reads a text and
thinks about it, the more metaphors he tends to find.
In that same direction, GIBBS (1999) emphasizes his concern
for the
decisions that the reader makes due to his great knowledge about
the researched
area and about the people whose speech is being examined. STEEN
(1999)
confirms that the recognition of an expression as metaphorical
depends
significantly on the understanding that the reader has of the
context taken into
account.
As the analyzed data basically presented implicit metaphors,
we have
concentrated on them for our discussion.
3.
Representations
As well as metaphors, representations (MAGALHÃES, 2003)
have been
thoroughly studied and researched in the several theoretical
frameworks related
to teaching and learning. The representation concept considered
in this paper
is based on social-discursive interactionism, a theoretical
frame that understands
human actions as products of socialization, which is historically
and culturally
located (BRONCKART, 1997).
In this theoretical framework, representation is not understood
as
something fixed, but as something marked by the communication
situation in
which the human being is inserted, and mediated by language.
Thus, different
discursive formations constitute the language actions in the
human being's
interactions with different speakers in distinct contexts. Considering
the context
of teacher education in this paper, we agree with MAGALHÃES
(2003), who
understands the representation concept as
a chain of meanings constructed in the constant negotiations
between the
participants of interactions and the understandings, expectations,
intentions,
values, beliefs, and truths referring to the theories of the
physical world: the
norms, values and symbols of the social world and the expectations
of the
agent regarding himself as a subject in a particular context.
Representations
are always constituted inside socio-historical and cultural
contexts and are
also related to political, ideological and theoretical matters;
therefore, they
are related to truths and self-understanding, which determine
who has the
power to speak on behalf of whom, which discourses are valued
and whose
interests they serve." (MAGALHÃES, 2003)
For us, it is important to interpret the teachers' representations
about
their teaching actions so that we can understand the connections
that they
establish between the different meanings in their thoughts and
those governed
by their daily social and cultural situations.
It is interesting to recall what LAKOFF & JOHNSON (1980)
state: that
the concepts which govern our thoughts are not just related
to the intellect, but
they also navigate in our daily activities. However, they are
not always conscious.
Such concepts are materialized through language and we can,
in this case,
say that the metaphors emerge because representations are present
in the
conceptual system of each one of us.
4.
Theoretical background for the analysis
The fact that we are working within social-discursive interactionism
makes
us believe that language plays a key role in the understanding
of human actions.
For this reason, we have analyzed the data according to the
theoreticalmethodological
model proposed by BRONCKART (1997). Among the aspects
dealt with by this model, we decided to focus on the thematic
content of the
teachers'
speech.
The thematic content is visible in the general plan of the text
and is
characterized by a group of information that emerges from the
linguistic choices
of the agent-producer. It is important to emphasize that the
information contained
in the thematic content is based on the representations built
by the agentproducer.
The thematic content can refer to the representations or to
the agent's
knowledge that is related to the objective world (the state
of existent things), to
the social world (the interpersonal relationships, recognized
as valid by the
individuals in a cultural context) or to the subjective world
(the individual's
experiences and feelings, revealed to or hidden from other individuals
in the
community).
As the information belongs to the three worlds, it is available
in the
agent-producer's memory before he begins the verbal action
and it is constituted
in agreement with the experiences that the agent-producer have
in the world of
life.
The three worlds mentioned by BRONCKART (1997) offer us roads
to
identify the representations of the agent-producers. The three
worlds can be
better understood in the example below, extracted from the speech
of a teacher
who collaborated in our research:
The didactic text (refers to something in the objective world)
is more adequate
to the students' needs (refers to something based on social
norms, that is,
to something in the social world), many times it is more updated,
but there
are many texts found in textbooks that are good, in my opinion
(refers to
personal impressions of the agent-producer that exist in his
subjective
world).
METHODOLOGY
1. The context
This research is set within a reflective teaching education
program which
aims at educating state school English teachers so that they
become reflective
and critical. The objective of the course is to create spaces
and situations in
which the teachers can think about their actions in order to
understand them,
never in an isolated way, but always inside the social-political-cultural
context
in which they are inserted.
Thus, we can say that the focus of the reflection work helps
the teacher
to find a conscious answer to the question: "what interests
do my actions
serve?" (MAGALHÃES, 2003).
The teacher education program involves three institutions: Sociedade
Brasileira de Cultura Inglesa, a large and non-profit language
teaching
organization which sponsors the whole program and offers a language
improvement course; the Catholic University of São Paulo,
where the reflective
course
Reflection on and in Action: The English Teacher Learning and
Teaching
is taught; and the State of São Paulo's School System,
where the teachers
who attend the program work.
2. The data
The data for our study were the answers to a questionnaire that
was
given to the teachers - from now on teachers-students - on the
first class of the
course Reflection on and in Action: The English Teacher Learning
and Teaching.
This course lasts 214 hours; it is composed of 12 modules and
is taught in
three semesters.
For our study, we decided to analyze the answers given by 10 teachersstudents
out of a group of 36 teacher-students who started the course in
February
of 2001.
3. The teacher-student
The teachers-students who attend the course Reflection on and
in Action:
The English Teacher Learning and Teaching are all Brazilian State
School English
teachers. All the participants in this research hold a teaching
graduation
certificate. Their teaching experience ranges from six to twenty-six
years. Most
of them have a very heavy teaching load, ranging between twenty
and forty
teaching hours per week. Their classes are very large (about 40
students in
each class).
4. The questionnaire2
The questionnaire was composed of fifteen questions and aimed
to
reveal the teachers-students' views on: their educational
background; the role
of English teaching in the Brazilian State School System; the
relationship
between teachers and students; the teachers' reflective
process; the textbook
and the content of the classes they give (See Appendix).
5. The process of analysis
At first, we looked at the answers given by the teachers in the
questionnaire to find explicit metaphors in them. However, we
soon realized
that
these metaphors were not present in a significant number for
our study
and we decided to search for implicit metaphors in the teachers'
discourse.
We tried to group the data in many different ways, and after
we had
identified the representations present in the groups, we started
to search for
metaphorical categories indicating teacher's role.
The procedure that was chosen would also allow us to identify
metaphorical categories indicating student's role and
activity's role. However,
this study focuses only on the metaphorical categories related
to teacher's
role.
The answers to the questionnaire were analyzed according to
the
categories proposed by BRONCKART (1997). The table below organizes
the
way in which we analyzed the data:
DISCUSSION
OF RESULTS
Perhaps, it is important to say that the metaphors constructed
by us
are based on the work of MARKGRAF & PAVLIK (1998). In their
work, the
metaphors of the teaching-learning process in popular film images
are presented
and they fall within three categories: Teaching as Dogmatic
Task Mastering,
Teaching as Heroism and Teaching as Intimacy.
The first one involves the teacher as a harborer and disseminator
of
doctrines and the learner as a passive, humble and empty-ended
recipient of
ideas. There is an authoritative teacher-learner relationship
and the students
are
supposed to master the subject as it is understood and conveyed
to them
by the teacher.
The second one involves the teacher as a role model and a leader
who
rescues others from danger (in the case of the education scenery,
the teacher
rescues the students from ignorance and also inspires them to
become disciples)
as if he had a large mission similar to God's mission.
Finally, the third one
involves the teacher as a close friend, a mother or a father
or, in some cases, a
very attractive person who "seduces" the students.
Guided by MARKGRAF and PAVLIK's (1998) three categories,
we
decided to name our categories according to the data we had
and to our teachersstudents'
culture. That is important to say because for us, none of their
three
categories applies to the way our teachers-students see themselves.
For this
reason, we named our five categories as follows: the GATE KEEPER,
the
PARTNER, the RESEARCHER, the GUIDING STAR and the IF TEACHER.
In order to present parts of the teachers-students' discourse
that support
the categories created and also to explain the reason why they
were created,
we decided to draw pictures and charts for each metaphoric representation
found in the data.
1.
The gate keeper
The traditional teacher metaphor is described in Figure 1. By
traditional
we mean the type of teachers whose conception of knowledge is
related to a
package one puts in the other one's mind. We also mean
by traditional the
teachers who consider that their role is to keep the students
quiet and passive
so they can absorb all the content the teacher brings to the
classroom.
From this image of "tradition" one can notice that
the teachers'
representations are "To teach, I need to know lots of
things to transfer to my
students", "I need to be authoritarian" and
"I need to put many things into the
students' mind".
These three representations are closely related to the teachers'
conception of knowledge and of language learning process. Therefore,
if they
believe knowledge is a package/object to be passed on, they
believe they have
to study very much because first they have to put things into
their own mind in
order to have things to pass to the students.
The teachers may also believe they need to be authoritarian
because
they consider themselves the ones who have the truth the students
need to
get.
When talking about the metaphor of Teaching as Dogmatic Task
Mastering, MARKGRAF & PAVLIK (1998, p. 76) poses ".
without teachers,
learners posses no "real" knowledge, no capacity
for thought, and no propensity
for reflection and abstraction". In our study, the teachers-students
feel they
have to take many courses, so that a great amount of truths
is obtained and
passed to the students' mind.
The
most important characteristic of this metaphor is the emphasis
on
the content. However, as described in Figure 2, the way content
is described
by the teachers follows different directions. In their point
of view, content may
be grammar, textbook, authentic text, skills and themes connected
to the
students' reality. However, it is always a teacher-centered
approach, since he
or she is the one in charge of choosing the "right"
direction. We can also see
that grammar points and the book are still the most important
things in the
teachers' practice.
2.
The partner
According to the data analysis, we can say that the Partner
Teacher
considers that his/her role involves having a good affective
relationship with his/
her students, allowing the emergence of a close relationship
by means of
behaviors that involve dialog, as well as considering his/her
student as an active
participant in the teaching-learning process, that is, a voice
that must be heard.
The metaphor of the Partner Teacher was considered by us based
on
the teachers' representations of their own role and of
their students' role. The
teachers believe that knowledge can only be built in a harmonious
atmosphere
between students and teacher, and this is the most important
characteristic of
the Partner Teacher.
3.
The Researcher
A possible question here would be why we named the metaphor
"researcher" if being a researcher is an attitude
a teacher should have anyway.
We decided to do this because the analysis of the data revealed
that the teachers
attend courses, seminars and workshops, read books and magazines
and talk
to colleagues about their jobs. They do these things to become
better
professionals and that is why we decided to give the name of
"researcher" to
this attitude of pursuing knowledge.
However, the teachers never mentioned the word "researcher"
and we
could observe that when they go to the events they mentioned,
they look for the
results of other people's research. We believe the teachers
should and can be
real researchers themselves, which means they would start having
their own
ideas, studying them and creating a new tacit knowledge based
on their own
findings.
Besides,
we believe that if they start having their own ideas, they will
become more confident on themselves and less dependent on others'
recipes:
the right, perfect and ready answers for their difficulties
in the classroom. Figure
4 illustrates the researcher metaphor.
4.
The Guiding Star
The guiding star metaphor helps us view a unique quality in
the teachers:
the image they have of themselves as guiding stars. We believe,
and we include
ourselves in the statement that follows, that we teachers hope
to make a
difference in our students' lives. In our study, the teachers
mentioned they
would like to be the door to their students' future, meaning
that the English
language would help their students achieve a better future.
They also mentioned
the wish to be the key to the students fulfillment of their
professional goals.
Figure 5 pictures the situation:
5.
The if teacher
We decided to name the metaphor as the IF TEACHER based on what
GRAVES (1996, p. 12-38) says about the "if only syndrome".
She explains it
by saying that "effecting changes requires both recognizing
what can be changed
and accepting what cannot. Some examples of the If only... syndrome
are: if
only we had technology, if only we had quieter classrooms, if
only our student
were motivated. This syndrome can obstruct change as firmly
as the Yes,
but... syndrome, for example: yes, but that will never work
in my setting."
In our findings, we could observe that the idea present in what
the
teachers said was "If I had this, I would be able to do
that." For this reason, we
decided to label our metaphor the IF TEACHER. Some of our examples
are: If
I could photocopy these activities, I would give better classes.
If my students
were more polite, I would be able to teach better. If the director
were tougher, I
would have more silence in the class.
Organizing the data about the if teacher, we could separate
the
information we had as follows:
In general, we can picture the teachers' metaphors of their representations as follows:
The
metaphor mostly present in the teachers's discourse were
the Gate
Keeper and If Teacher. The least applied was the Guiding star.
With this result
in mind our final comments are presented.
CONCLUSION
Bearing in mind that "Metaphors lived by teachers, the
way they
construct their own work and the stories they retell signify
more deeply to us
about what is happening in their professional lives than any
other measurable
behavior is able to reveal" (Eisner, 1991), we tried to
construct some meaning
based on the teachers' metaphors in order to reveal part
of the landscape they
live in.
Figure 7 shows that teachers are concerned about considering
the
students as part of the teaching-learning process and about
reflecting on their
practice. But they also think they must be a package of knowledge
and they
must make the students become another one; they believe they
lack many
things to succeed in their teaching movement. As for this last
comment, we
can reveal part of the teachers' role by taking as point
of departure an analysis
carried out by MENEGHETTI (2001) when interpreting the entrepreneurs'
practice.
According to MENEGHETTI (2001), when entrepreneurs start to
reflect
on their administrative or financial problems, most of the time
they start doing
it by analyzing things the government does or does not do. Next,
they start
complaining about their employees and finally they say they
cannot work and
make the business improve because they have many problems concerning
their families.
When the entrepreneurs make such an analysis they become an
object
in the situation and are not able to solve the problems themselves.
This idea
can be seen in the figure below:
MENEGHETTI
(2001) proposes that the first questions have to be
addressed to the entrepreneur and only after solving the problems
concerning
him/herself
is it possible to go to the other levels. If he/she does so,
then he/
she becomes the subject of his/her action, which is eventually
open to changes.
By using the same criteria, we tried to analyze the teachers
taking into
account mainly the data from the If teacher metaphor. When the
teachers analyze
their practice having in mind that the problems they face are
related to other
people's business, and say "this happens because
of the principal, students,
government, lack of technology, etc.", they become an
object in the action;
thus, they are unable to decide and promote changes. This can
be seen in the
Figure that follows:
We
would like to end this paper by saying that if the teachers
are
mostly the GATE KEEPER and the IF TEACHER, it is not their fault.
According
to MAGALHÃES & CELANI (2000), Brazilian teachers
in the late '90s reflect
the educational picture of the country in terms of lack of preparation
deriving
from the type of pre-service courses offered in most universities,
the different
type of student that they have to deal with, the change in institutional
support,
etc.
As we finish this work, it seems possible to perceive relevant
aspects
related to the teachers' education, particularly regarding
the course Reflection
on and in Action: The English Teacher Learning and Teaching.
We could observe that the work we developed enables the teacherseducators
to distinguish a new starting point for the reconstruction of
their
practice, since the knowledge of the representations the teachers-students
have of their own roles and of the roles of their students points
to specific needs
of these teachers. As shown by the figures and charts presented
above, these
needs are related not only to instructional aspects or knowledge
acquisition
aspects, but above all, to personal aspects, as these teachers,
in this stage of
the work, feel they are objects of the educational system.
Thus, teachers-educators will be able to re-establish the routes
of the
course, emphasizing aspects directly related to the constitution
of the social
subject,
based on the reflective sessions that take place at the beginning
of the
course.