![“Greek students are different”
“Yes, it was a good book, but it was not very easy to
work from. With these students we have here half the
time, I had to explain the ideas in the book. […] I had
to translate all the time, and they still, they didn’t
understand because and in the Greek school they
don’t know these [concepts].” [back]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/manchesterroundtable2-150421094142-conversion-gate01/85/Using-Complexity-Theory-to-Understand-the-Resilience-of-Traditional-Pedagogy-in-Greece-21-320.jpg)
![“Greek teachers know best”
“If I struggle to describe the differences between
Present Perfect and Past Simple, or between Present
Perfect Simple and Continuous, how can an
Englishman or an American do this? [...] In England
they haven’t taught any grammar for the last 20, 30
years. In the postgraduate course that I attended, only
I and another girl, she was also Greek, knew any
proper grammar.” [back]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/manchesterroundtable2-150421094142-conversion-gate01/85/Using-Complexity-Theory-to-Understand-the-Resilience-of-Traditional-Pedagogy-in-Greece-22-320.jpg)
Using Complexity Theory to Understand the Resilience of Traditional Pedagogy in Greece
- 1. Resisting Change: Using Complexity to Understand the Resilience of Traditional Pedagogy Achilleas Kostoulas Manchester Roundtable on Complex Systems Theory and ELT 15 April 2015
- 2. Aims • Why do some ELT settings seem to resist change, despite the (hegemonic?) influence of the communicative ideology? • Can Complex Systems Theory help us to describe and understand such settings?
- 3. Overview 1. Schools are (like?) complex systems 2. Using intentionality 3. Adding a(nother) layer of complexity 4. Making sense of it all
- 4. ARE SCHOOLS (LIKE ) COMPLEX SYSTEMS?
- 5. Are schools like complex systems? Like complex systems, schools: - are heterogeneous - are ambiguously bounded - are nested (and self-similar?) - allow for emergent phenomena - tend to remain in attractor states
- 9. Emergence Re s i s ta n c e ?
- 10. Attractor?
- 11. INTENTIONALITIES & DYNAMICS OF INTENTIONS
- 12. Intentionality: definition • A purpose, or agenda, that drives activity in a complex system • Intentionalities: – are emergent phenomena – may be collective – generate effects
- 13. Protectionism Global Context Local Context Language School Valuation of local Pedagogical Content Knowledge Priority of experiential knowledge Locally published materials Perceived particularity of the students’ knowledge & needs
- 15. MORE COMPLEXITY
- 16. Patterns of change (1) From lesson to lesson Certi fication Reading lesson Certification Writing lesson
- 17. Patterns of change (2) From level to level Beginners Competition Certification Upper Intermediate
- 18. Patterns of change (3) From year to year Certi fication Distant past Certi fication More recently
- 19. SO WHAT?
- 20. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION achilleas@kostoulas.com @AchilleasK
- 21. “Greek students are different” “Yes, it was a good book, but it was not very easy to work from. With these students we have here half the time, I had to explain the ideas in the book. […] I had to translate all the time, and they still, they didn’t understand because and in the Greek school they don’t know these [concepts].” [back]
- 22. “Greek teachers know best” “If I struggle to describe the differences between Present Perfect and Past Simple, or between Present Perfect Simple and Continuous, how can an Englishman or an American do this? [...] In England they haven’t taught any grammar for the last 20, 30 years. In the postgraduate course that I attended, only I and another girl, she was also Greek, knew any proper grammar.” [back]
Editor's Notes
- #11: And finally the attractor: complex systems generally tend to settle into ‘preferred’ states, and return to them even if they are perturbed. Our body temperature, for instance, does not fluctuate randomly: it remains at 36.6 degrees Celsius, and will strive return to this temperature even if we are, at times, sick. We call these preferred states attractors. The difficulty I had in dislodging the school from its preferred transmissive mode of teaching seems to be to be an example of such an attractor.
- #12: Ok, so far, I have argued that the language school I was studying looked like a complex system. It made sense for me to study it as a complex system, and that meant that I needed to find what force existed in the system that counteracted my innovation; how this force emerged from the system, and what their effect was. This is where intentionality comes in.
- #13: Intentionality, as I said earlier, is what drives a complex system. It is an emergent phenomenon: that is to say, it’s not generally created by design. It can be collective: in other words, it’s not necessarily something that all people in a school are aware of or consciously aligned to; and it is generative, in the sense that shapes the system.
- #19: Finally, there was diachronic change: As the school evolved over time, it seemed that credentialism became stronger and the other intentionalities waned.
- #20: What I have described so far is how I used complexity-inspired thinking to make sense of my professional context. The question that I want to address now is what does this all mean for teaching practitioners. Can we use complexity to design more effective lessons, to engage learners, to increase their motivation? To be honest, I don’t think that we can. What complexity does offer, I think, is a way of reflecting on our practice that is flexible, and yet robust. Some of you may have been in Donald Freeman’s plenary on Saturday, when he argued that, in teaching, there is no such thing as a direct, linear connection between actions and outcomes, and that there are multiple interconnections among everything that shapes learning. Complexity, I would argue, gives us a set of tools and a framework that we can use to make sense of such situations.