Intellectual challenge and ESL students: implications of quality teaching initiatives.

Hammond, Jennifer

Introduction

The importance of intellectual challenge in the pedagogy of schooling has been recognised both nationally and internationally. Teaching and learning activities, it has been argued, need to be rooted in high standards of intellectual challenge that will promote the development of students' higher order thinking, in-depth conceptual understanding, and the ability to interpret, analyse and engage intellectually with the world beyond the classroom. These concerns have been central to a range of research and educational reports in America, Australia and elsewhere, that have highlighted the importance of quality of teaching as the major factor in students' educational success (Newmann & Associates, 1996; Newmann, Marks, & Gamoran, 1996; Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study, 2001; Ramsey, 2000; Vinson, 2002).

Outcomes from such work have resulted in a number of educational innovations that have attempted to address directly the issue of quality of teaching. In Australia, two such innovations have been the (2002) Productive Pedagogies initiative in Queensland, and the (2003; 2004) Quality Teaching initiative in NSW. This body of work has been significant in reinforcing an understanding of teaching and learning as collaborative activity and in highlighting the importance and nature of intellectual quality in pedagogical practices.

While differing slightly, the Queensland and NSW initiatives are both based around implementation of frameworks where quality teaching is defined in terms of dimensions (such as intellectual quality, learning environment), and elements (such as deep knowledge, explicit quality criteria). In this, they draw particularly on the construct of Authentic Pedagogy, developed by Newmann and others in America (Newmann & Associates, 1996; Newmann, Marks, & Gamoran, 1996). Through department-led initiatives, schools within Queensland and NSW have been encouraged to focus on and improve overall teaching through implementation of the frameworks. Both the Productive Pedagogies and the Quality Teaching frameworks emphasise the interrelated nature of intellectual quality with learning environment and significance (in the NSW Quality Teaching framework) and with classroom environment, connectedness and recognition of difference (in the Productive Pedagogies framework). However, the overall aim in both is to support teachers to engage in more intellectually challenging curricula, and hence in both initiatives, the central dimension is that of intellectual quality.

The term intellectual quality is described in the Quality Teaching in NSW Public Schools Discussion Paper (2003, p.9) as follows:

 Intellectual quality refers to pedagogy focused on producing deep
 understanding of important substantive concepts, skills and ideas.
 Such pedagogy treats knowledge as something that requires active
 construction and requires students to engage in higher-order
 thinking and to communicate substantively about what they are
 learning.

The paper goes on to detail elements that contribute to intellectual quality. These include: deep knowledge, deep understanding, knowledge as problematic, higher-order thinking, metalanguage, and substantive conversation. This description is similar to that used by Education Queensland in their work on Productive Pedagogies (2002).

This emphasis on pedagogy and on the centrality of intellectual quality has been welcomed by many Australian educators. Implementation of these initiatives clearly places pedagogy in central stage and redresses what some have regarded as an excessive emphasis in recent years on issues of assessment and standards. It also acknowledges the central importance of teaching as in students' educational achievement.

My concern in this paper is with implications of quality teaching initiatives for students for whom English is a second or subsequent language (henceforth ESL students). In particular, my concern is with middle year 'second phase' ESL students who are beyond the initial stages of learning English, and, in Australian schools, are located within mainstream classes. While some groups and some individual ESL students achieve significant academic success at school, there is evidence that many ESL students continue to struggle academically (Cruickshank, 2002). In particular they continue to struggle with the demands of academic language and literacy (Cummins, 2000; Gibbons, 2002, 2003; Hammond, 2006). The language and literacy needs of these students are often obscured by the fact that they may be fluent at least in informal spoken English. As a result, their academic difficulties are often attributed to a 'deficit' in ability in the students, rather than recognition of the need for on-going support in their language and literacy development. Given the numbers of students for whom English is a second language in schools within major cities in Australia, the academic achievement of ESL students constitutes an important issue in debates about pedagogy and intellectual quality--an issue that is also likely to be relevant to those concerned with education of minority students in other educational contexts.

In addressing the implications of quality teaching initiatives for ESL students, I draw on recently completed research (Hammond, Gibbons, Michell, Dufficy, Cruickshank, & Sharpe, 2005-2007). This research was completed in two stages. The first investigated teachers' responses and experiences in working with quality teaching frameworks in schools with high proportions of ESL students. The second consisted of a series of action research projects that built on outcomes from Stage 1, and were designed to implement programs with ESL students that were characterised by both high challenge and high support. In this paper I report on outcomes from Stage 1 of the research. Some of the outcomes from Stage 2 of the research are presented in Gibbons' paper in this issue.

Before turning to the research, I need to explain my use of the term quality teaching. Our research was conducted with schools in Sydney. Some schools within the Sydney region began working with the Productive Pedagogies initiative prior to the introduction of the Quality Teaching framework by NSW Department of Education and Training. Thus, although the majority of schools that participated in our research were working with the NSW Quality Teaching framework, some had worked with both Productive Pedagogies and Quality Teaching frameworks. For this reason I use the term quality teaching in this paper to refer to both initiatives.

Nature of the research

Our research investigated teachers' responses and experiences in working with the quality teaching frameworks that had been introduced by state departments of education. We were interested in how teachers had worked with the frameworks, the nature of their successes and frustrations, and how useful or otherwise they found the frameworks with their ESL students. Thus our emphasis was very much on what the quality teaching initiatives looked like from the classroom perspective. Although we acknowledged and supported the argument within these initiatives that intellectual quality is interrelated with other dimensions, we were particularly interested in ways teachers were working with the dimension of intellectual quality, and the implications they saw of implementing intellectually challenging curricula with ESL students.

The research methodology of Stage 1 consisted of questionnaire responses and a number of follow up case studies.

The questionnaire was organised into four sections. These sections were:

* Questions about the school and students (including numbers and range of students, profile of teachers' own classes, availability of ESL support);

* Questions about the implementation of the quality teaching framework in the school (the nature of the school's involvement with quality teaching, teachers' experiences with the framework, teachers' perceptions of successes and challenges in working with the framework);

* Questions about intellectual challenge and ESL students (teachers' views and experiences on implementation of intellectual challenge with ESL students);

* Questions about teachers' professional background details (their teaching experiences, professional development, their current role in school).

The questionnaire also included appendices that summarised the dimensions and elements of both the Productive Pedagogies and Quality Teaching frameworks. These provided support for any teachers having difficulty recalling details of the frameworks.

Since the majority of questions in the questionnaire were open ended, respondents could nominate as many factors as they wished. Responses to these questions were initially coded by the researchers, and then analysed using SPSS. The coding was then re-checked by the researchers. The nature of the questions and analysis of responses means that percentages presented in the paper refer to numbers of respondents (that is, the number of teachers who nominated each factor, rather than the number of factors) and hence the percentages that are presented in the paper do not add up to 100.

Follow-up case studies were also conducted in four schools. The case studies provided opportunities to follow up issues that emerged from questionnaire responses and to observe more closely ways in which teachers were working with the quality teaching frameworks. They also provided opportunities to interview teachers and students about their perceptions of intellectual challenge and about programs that they were implementing.

Schools within the Sydney region that had been involved with implementation of one of the quality teaching initiatives for at least one year, and that had a high proportion (over 40%) of students for whom English was a second or subsequent language, were invited to participate in the questionnaire component of the research. A total of 19 schools (7 high schools and 12 primary schools), the majority of those that had been invited, took up the invitation. Within these schools, a total of 228 teachers completed the questionnaires (171 from high schools and 57 from primary). Student populations in the schools were primarily from non-English speaking and low socio-economic backgrounds. ESL support was available in all participating schools. The majority of teachers who completed the questionnaire were experienced (average experience in teaching was 16 years for high school teachers, and 10 years for primary school teachers), and approximately 20% of the teachers also had ESL training. This profile of students and teachers in participating schools is typical of others schools both in NSW and in other Australian states with significant numbers of students for whom English is a second or subsequent language.

Major outcomes from the Stage 1 questionnaire and case studies are presented in the following sections. I discuss overall outcomes under the following headings:

* teachers' overall response to the quality teaching initiatives;

* the positioning of ESL students in the quality teaching initiatives.

I then address two more general issues that emerged as significant from the questionnaire responses:

* the way in which the nature of intellectual challenge is understood;

* the place of language and literacy teaching within the quality teaching frameworks.

Teachers' overall response to the quality teaching initiative

As previously indicated, our research aimed to explore teachers' overall responses to the quality teaching frameworks that they had been working with. To this end, the questionnaire asked about the nature of the school's involvement, including available professional support, the teacher's own level of involvement, and their perceptions of the usefulness of the framework.

Teachers' question responses suggest the quality teaching initiative has had considerable overall impact. The majority of teachers' responses (71%) stated their school's commitment to quality teaching was quite or very high and about half of teachers (51%) indicated their own individual commitment was quite or very high. Additionally, most teachers (61%) stated the framework was quite or very useful.

Despite the overall high level of commitment, the questionnaire revealed some variation here. Quality teaching has been a top down initiative. In NSW, for example, the initiative was implemented by the Department of Education and Training, with schools very strongly encouraged to take up and work with the quality teaching framework. Typically take up of the initiative occurred at a whole school level, with one or two executive members of staff being given responsibility for its implementation. Not surprisingly, therefore, teachers' questionnaire responses regarding levels of enthusiasm and commitment revealed some variation between, and also within, schools. That is, teachers in some schools indicated a higher level of enthusiasm about quality teaching than those at other schools, and teachers within the one school often varied in their levels of enthusiasm and commitment. This was especially the case in high schools where larger numbers of teachers than in primary schools completed the questionnaire. Here, individuals' responses within the one school sometimes varied considerably. Questionnaire responses indicated that a sizeable minority of teachers (27%) were minimally involved, and most of these were in high schools. There was also some variation between what teachers perceived as the school's level of commitment to quality teaching and their own.

Teachers were also asked to nominate which dimensions and elements had received the most focus in their schools. Their responses indicated that, at both the school and individual levels, it was the dimension of intellectual quality that had received the most attention, with intellectual quality, higher order thinking, deep understanding and deep knowledge (all terms listed in Appendices) being named. Given the central focus of intellectual quality in the frameworks this outcome was not surprising. Reasons for this particular focus were most frequently given as reflecting students' need (57%), although teachers also nominated bureaucratic decision as a reason for the specific focus in their school (24%).

When asked to specify the most and least useful aspects of quality teaching, teachers nominated quite a range of factors. The most frequently nominated of these have been included in the table below.

As this table indicates, most useful and most challenging aspects were often quite closely related. Teachers found the explicit framework provided by the quality teaching initiatives to be very useful, but they found the frameworks themselves to be conceptually challenging. They nominated understanding the model itself, and the time required to implement the quality teaching framework as two very challenging aspects. They felt that the effective teaching strategies associated with the explicit framework were very useful, but the pressure to change teaching practices that resulted from engagement with the framework was very challenging. The provision of time and opportunities for reflection on their own and others' teaching was nominated as one of the most useful aspects of the initiative, while the requirement of working collaboratively with other teachers was nominated as being both personally and professionally challenging.

Teachers were also asked if they thought their students had benefited from their participation in the quality teaching initiatives, and if so, which students had benefited. In their responses a total of 61% of teachers indicated, yes, that their students had benefited. These teachers were then asked to specify which students had benefited. Here, 49% thought all or most of their students had benefited. Of these, 10% additionally identified their ESL students as specifically benefiting, and 9% identified the middle range of students as especially benefiting.

Teachers' questionnaire responses regarding the overall impact of the quality teaching initiative and the most useful aspects of the framework were reflected in comments from case study teachers. Case study teachers said the quality teaching frameworks had sharpened what they were doing and made them more aware of the level of support that they needed to provide for all their students. They said, as a result of working with the quality teaching framework, they had raised their expectation of what all their students could achieve--including students who were in the middle range, and who tended to be more invisible than either the high or low achieving students. The framework had also enabled them to reflect on their own teaching and had provided them with an opportunity to talk to others about their programs and about specific teaching strategies.

Comments from case study teachers illustrate these points:

The Quality Teaching document is an excellent way of reflecting on how you're teaching and that's the main way that we have used it in our school. When you're planning, I think it is a bit harder to sort of use it, simply because of the way the ideas are worded. It's more of a looking back on did the students do this or did the teacher do that. So it's more in the past tense. But certainly it's pushed my teaching because I've looked closely at lessons that I've done, what worked well, what didn't work well, and how did I score [in relationship to dimensions and elements in the quality teaching framework]. (case study teacher 1)

Despite some resistance to Quality Teaching, what it did do was give people a language to talk about those things (i.e., elements of Quality Teaching) and I thought that was the most important thing. (case study teacher 2)

Overall what emerged from the questionnaire and case studies was a picture of generally positive response to the quality teaching initiative, with some variation between and within schools. Most schools had elected to focus primarily on intellectual challenge in their implementation of the initiative, and generally teachers believed their students had benefited from their engagement with this work. Teachers were quite specific about the most useful and most challenging aspects of the initiative, although the most useful and most challenging aspects were at times two sides of the same issue. Of particular note was the perception that quality teaching initiatives had enabled a more systematic focus on teaching and had provided opportunities for reflection on, and collegial discussions about, pedagogical practices - all of which teachers regarded as impacting positively on their teaching and on their students' learning outcomes.

How are ESL students positioned in the quality teaching initiatives?

The questionnaire sought to probe teachers' views about intellectual challenge and their ESL learners in relation to the quality teaching framework being implemented in the school. Questions in this area asked about the impact of student diversity on the school; about the strengths of their ESL students and the students' major challenges; about key words that teachers associated with intellectual challenge and ESL students; about issues that need to be taken into account when planning and teaching ESL students; and about the specific support needed by ESL students within the class.

As indicated earlier, all schools that participated in the research were diverse in terms of the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of their student populations. Questionnaire responses revealed that teachers generally had a positive attitude towards their students, and towards the diversity of their student populations. When asked their views on the impact of this diversity on their school, for example, the majority of teachers (60%) responded that the student diversity had an overall positive impact, while only a minority (16%) regarded the diversity as having a negative impact.

In addition to the teachers' overall positive responses to their student populations, questionnaire responses showed that teachers believed students' attitudes towards school to be generally positive (although there was some variation in teachers' responses here). Teachers generally felt that students who were motivated and who were supported by their families were likely to make good progress at school, although, not surprisingly, they also believed students' knowledge of English played an important role here. When asked what they thought were their students' major strengths, they nominated academic focus and overall enthusiasm for 'having a go.' This point was confirmed and elaborated by the case study teachers as the following example illustrates:

 I think the major strengths are that students are keen and are
 willing to have a go at anything ... they are confident risk takers
 and they will have a go at anything. They're also good at seeking
 clarification if they are unsure of expectations.

In the context of the their overall positive response to students, what were teachers' views on the relationship between intellectual challenge and their ESL students?

When asked about the overall links they had made between the quality teaching frameworks and their ESL students, teachers nominated a range of factors. Most of these referred to ways in which the teachers needed to address needs of ESL students and support them in their engagement with key curriculum areas. The most frequently mentioned factors here were:

* students needed support to develop relevant background/cultural knowledge in relation to the curriculum area that they were studying (28%)

* students needed explicit teaching of language (21%)

* students needed explicit teaching of skills and curriculum content (21%)

* teachers needed to modify tasks to make them appropriate for ESL students (17%).

A smaller category of responses, however, referred to the benefits to students' that resulted from use of the quality teaching framework. These included:

* improved students' outcomes (16%)

* teachers having higher expectations of their students (11%).

When asked about key implications of intellectual challenge for teaching ESL students, teachers' responses highlighted the following two factors:

* providing appropriate language and support for students (53%)

* helping students to understand the deeper meaning of issues that they were studying (34%).

Teachers were asked to write down three major things that they take into account in their program planning and teaching for all students in their class. The most frequently nominated factors were:

* ensuring the lessons were relevant and interesting (49%)

* the need to analyse what they already know and what their learning needs are (39%)

* ensuring the students had appropriate background knowledge and relevant understandings so they could engage with curriculum issues (35%).

Teachers were then asked which factors specifically needed to be taken into account for their ESL students. Their responses indicated the same three factors were relevant for their ESL students. However, additionally 40% of respondents nominated the need for language support for their ESL students.

It is worth noting that although the teachers' responses to these open ended questions about their ESL students were quite varied, the majority of factors identified by teachers emphasised the need to support-up the students, rather than to modify the curriculum. This overall emphasis was confirmed in interviews with case study teachers, as is illustrated in the following comments:

I tend to try and really draw out the main focus of each lesson and really go over it quite a few times, just to ensure that students have it and they understand what we are aiming for. I think there's a need to be really explicit, to ensure they just know what it is that we want from them. Modelling is really important. And over and over again, I think just repetition so that they can start to feel comfortable because it is a hard thing to be pushing into that unknown. It can be a challenge for anybody but particularly, because we're talking about bright young children, and I think self esteem is a really important consideration here. When you know you are setting them up for challenges, you want to set them up for success in those challenges, you don't want to set them up for failure. (case study teacher)

It appears that the quality teaching framework had quite a major impact on the ways that at least a number of teachers thought about the relationship between intellectual challenge and their ESL students. In response to a question that asked if the quality teaching framework had changed their thinking about intellectual challenge and their ESL students, just under half the teachers responded yes. (The meaning of a no response was not clear from the questionnaire--a possible interpretation is that teachers were already highly aware of ESL students' needs.) The teachers who responded yes to the question were then asked to explain how their thinking had changed. In their responses, they nominated the following factors:

* higher expectations of students (25%)

* more aware of explicit criteria that can be planned for (23%)

* increased understanding of how best to help children learn (20%)

* increased understanding of how children learn (15%).

An issue that emerged quite consistently in responses to a variety of questions (although usually not as the major factor) was that of teacher expectations of students, and particularly expectation of what the middle groups were capable of achieving. This issue of expectations is evident in responses to the above question regarding changes in thinking. It also emerged more explicitly in interviews with a number of case study teachers. The following extract from a case study teacher interview provides an example of this:

I've been surprised actually at how much support the middle group actually requires. I guess before I started unpacking the quality teaching document, I thought I was providing enough support, I thought things were fine. And yeah, the middle groups, being the middle group, tended to cope OK. But what I didn't realise was that I was sort of discouraging them from taking risks a little bit because I was leaving them to their own devices maybe a little bit too much. In helping my lower group and providing the scaffolding for my lower group, I'm actually noticing how much the middle group draws on that as well. I've noticed the biggest change in myself I guess, is in providing enough support and ensuring that it's a comfortable risk taking environment where students feel supported and not just supported by me but supported by one another. (case study teacher)

In sum, what emerged from questionnaire responses and from case studies in regard to ESL students was an overall positive attitude towards students and a respect for the efforts that they put into their schooling. This view was not unanimous, and questionnaire responses are necessarily limited in terms of the details that they provide, however, this general view was reinforced by responses from case study teachers.

What also emerged was that, despite the considerable challenge of implementing intellectual quality with ESL students, teachers generally proposed supporting-up ESL students rather than modifying the curriculum. The quality teaching initiative appears to have made teachers more conscious of the needs and, particularly, the capabilities of their ESL students, and to have provided support for more systematic and focussed teaching. In turn this has made at least some teachers more aware that high expectations of their students, including their middle group of ESL students, are realistic.

In addition to the generally positive response from teachers to the quality teaching initiatives and to the challenge of implementing intellectual challenge with ESL students, two issues emerged from the overall analysis of questionnaires as important, and as requiring closer examination. I turn now to a discussion of these issues and of their broader implications for ESL students.

Understanding the nature of intellectual challenge

The quality teaching frameworks list a number of elements as contributing to the dimension of intellectual quality. Although differing slightly in their order and in their wording, as indicated earlier, both Productive Pedagogies and Quality Teaching frameworks include versions of following elements: deep knowledge, deep understanding, problematic knowledge, higher order thinking, substantive communication, and metalanguage. As also indicated earlier, the majority of schools that participated in our research had elected to focus primarily on intellectual quality in their implementation of the quality teaching initiatives.

Despite the focus on intellectual quality in the majority of schools, and the lists of elements in the frameworks, there was a noticeable absence of mention of these elements in responses to questions, except where teachers were asked to specify the dimensions and elements specifically addressed in their school. This absence was especially noticeable since, as indicated earlier, the questionnaire included appendices of both the Productive Pedagogies and Quality Teaching frameworks to remind teachers of the dimensions and elements in both frameworks.

Teachers were not asked directly in the questionnaire about their understanding of intellectual quality; rather, questions were written in ways that attempted to draw out such understandings. For example, as indicated earlier, teachers were asked what they regarded as key implications of intellectual quality for teaching ESL students; they were asked to identify factors that they specifically needed to take into account when planning teaching and learning tasks for ESL students. In addition, one of the questions asked teachers to describe a task that they had recently undertaken with their ESL students that they would characterise as intellectually challenging.

Their responses to this 'challenging task' question provide some insight into the range of their understandings of intellectual quality. Some of their responses to this question are listed below.

'Intellectually challenging' task/teaching activity

* students were required to write 3 text types appropriate for a newspaper --news report, feature article, letter to the editor. Research was needed for the feature article on environmental issues. Students needed to analyse and synthesise information in order to do this task well. Students had to use appropriate register and language and conventions

* students were required to discuss effects of different government systems: comparing and contrasting these different systems with supporting evidence

* students were required to build a background story and then develop a written fiction story

* students were required to work in groups to create a flowchart then write an explanation based on a given flow chart

* students were required to engage in a parliamentary style debate

* students were required to discuss Oscar Schindler as entrepreneur or righteous gentile

* students were introduced to new computer program using previous knowledge of Word

* students were required to complete a chemical experiment

* students were required to engage in art making, jewellery design

* students were required to interpret and analyse visual images

* students were required to work from a model of a piece of work,

* students were required to participate in sport

* students were required to build a model of a human skeleton.

A glance down this list highlights the diversity of tasks that teachers considered intellectually challenging. It also highlights the different interpretations of intellectual challenge that teachers appeared to be working with. Although responses were constrained by the nature of the question, some teachers appeared to interpret intellectual challenge as a generalised, or abstract, standard (similar to the way in which we might specify learning outcomes at various levels of schooling). Examples of tasks from the above list that we felt illustrated this interpretation include:

* students were required to write 3 text types appropriate for a newspaper --news report, feature article, letter to the editor. Research was needed for the feature article on environmental issues. Students needed to analyse and synthesise information in order to do this task well. Students had to use appropriate register and language and conventions

* students were required to engage in a parliamentary style debate

* students were required to complete a chemical experiment.

In these tasks, teachers appeared to be drawing on external criteria for what constitutes successful completion of tasks. Thus in the first example, where students were required to write a news report, feature article and letter to editor, their written texts needed to meet specified criteria appropriate to register and language conventions. In the second example, the external criteria were drawn from parliamentary debates, and in the third, the criteria addressed procedures for successful completion of the chemical experiment.

Other teachers appeared to interpret intellectual challenge as a more relative concept that needed to be understood in terms of what was challenging or difficult for specific students at specific times. Examples from the above list that we felt illustrated this interpretation include:

* students were required to engage in art making, jewellery design

* students were required to interpret and analyse visual images

* students were required to work from a model of a piece of work.

Here teachers appeared to specify tasks that they considered their own students or, more specifically, their own ESL students would find challenging or difficult. Thus it is the students' capabilities that identified a task as challenging, rather any external standards or criteria. Another possible interpretation of teachers' thinking here is that the task was challenging because of the context in which it was set. Thus, for example, the task of jewellery making (in itself not obviously intellectually challenging) could have been considered challenging because it was part of the study of ancient history and the design of each piece of jewellery needed to meet specific historical criteria. While the questionnaire was inadequate for exploring teachers' thinking about the nature of intellectual challenge in any detail, it did succeed in pointing to confusion in understanding and interpretation of the key dimension of the quality teaching framework.

We pursued this issue more directly by asking the case studies teachers how they understood issue the notion of intellectual quality. A sample of their responses is presented below.

Teacher 1

My understanding is that any type of intellectual challenge is where you are moving from the foundation of what you know and proceeding towards the unknown and it's that friction point. It's just that place where you start to leave what you're comfortable with, and what you know that you know, and it just pushes you outside that a little bit, so that you actually have to expend effort and energy in order to process or to understand what it is that you're dealing with.

When programming for intellectual challenge:

The documents don't change, the outcomes that we're working towards from the syllabus documents which are basically what's mandatory, that's where I start from ... It's just that each individual needs to move forward from where they are so you try and pop things in there that will be challenging for the whole group even though they're all so staggered ... It also means setting individual challenges or something that is a little bit harder for some students who have already covered ground.

Teacher 2

Well I think it [intellectual challenge] can mean many different things. One of the ways I think about it is for students to be able to make their own meaning out of the material and to construct something out of it, instead of just [inaudible] transferring it into a new situation or using it to do something else. And also to consider other possibilities, to open up the way they think about things so that its very open ended ...

So it should provide them with some challenge without answers that they could tick off and say I got that right, because there's not a lot of intellectual challenge in that ... So I think the concept that there are really no right answers is the important one.

The comments from the case study teachers reflect interpretations of intellectual quality both as that which individual students find challenging, and as incorporating certain externally defined qualities. Teacher 1 refers to the friction between what students already know and what they don't yet quite know. In addition, however, she goes on to refer to the role of curriculum documents in setting standards for what she expects her students to achieve. In this sense her notion of intellectual challenge incorporates what students find challenging as well as some external notion of what constitutes intellectual challenge.

Teacher 2's comments emphasise the importance of being able to transfer understandings and knowledge from one situation to another. She also states that the concept that there is no right answer is important. Her comment here appears to be 'problematising knowledge' and thus reflects one of the elements that constitute intellectual quality in the quality teaching frameworks--an element that was notably absent from questionnaire responses.

As indicated earlier, the case studies also included interviews with students, and we attempted to explore students' understanding of intellectual quality in our interviews with them. While attempting to design appropriate interview questions for young students we (i.e., the research team) were forced to spend some time clarifying our own (at times diverse) understandings of intellectual quality--a process that we have found to be on-going. A further challenge here was to agree on ways that we could realistically talk to young children about this complex and abstract concept. We aimed to phrase questions in ways that represented intellectual quality as hard work, but as something more than that--as work that made students think and that changed their understanding of the world in some way. In the end we asked the following questions, although these were qualified with examples to try to illustrate to the students how we were distinguishing work that was just hard, from that which was intellectually challenging:

Can you think of work that you do at school that makes you really think hard. This could be solving a problem or understanding why something happens. Can you give me some examples?

Was there anything that you were doing in the lessons that we videoed that really made you think hard? Why did that make you think hard?

Do you like doing work that makes you really think hard? Why? Do you think others children in your class like doing this kind of work?

Samples of students' responses in the interviews are shown below.

Student 1 (Year 5)

Most of the new things you learn would be hard for you because you haven't actually learned it yet. But then once you do it and you do it again and then you get better and then you find that easy and then you learn another thing and it gets even harder ... but you have to know, like for averages, you've got to know your times tables so you can divide them. It's like a structure, a working structure.

Student 2 (Year 5)

Like some of the things that they [i.e., teachers] give you, you haven't actually grown up to that level yet ... like at the beginning you feel like it's a challenge but then at the end of it when you do it, you think that, I can do that now, and you can go up to another level.

Student 3 (Year 7)

Like when we see an exhibition, it's like, yeah, you can obviously tell the topic is one sided. Here it's kind of in between so you have to make your own choice, which kind of makes it a bit more challenging. And then the hard bit, you have to back it up and you have to say why you think, and why is this, and why is that, and you have to get everything in.

Student 4 (Year 7)

Yeah, so that's why [the work is challenging], cause you know there isn't a right answer, you can't get it right or wrong, it's just how you do it. That's what's kind of scary about it.

The Year 5 students' responses appear to reflect the view that intellectual challenge is relative to the student. They agree that new things when first introduced are hard because you haven't actually learned it yet, and consequently these new things are challenging. But once students have become familiar with a concept or a skill, then these become easy and the students are ready for a new challenge. Learning therefore is like a structure, a working structure, where first you have to learn some of the simpler skills, such as times tables in maths, in order to move on to the next level of being able to do averages in maths. The students note the challenges they experience when first introduced to new concepts but also note that once they become familiar with the concepts, the challenge shifts--a notion very similar to the Vygotskian (1978) notion of the zone of proximal development.

The Year 7 students' responses highlight different aspects of intellectual challenge. For them the challenge lies in the relative nature of knowledge (being aware the topic is obviously one sided ... so you have to make your own choice; cause you know there isn't a right answer). The challenge also lies in having to justify their points of view (the hard bit, you have to back it up and you have to say why you think; that's what's kind of scary about it). Such responses are similar to some of the teachers' earlier comments, and also fit with the notion of problematising knowledge. Thus, overall, the students' responses appear to reflect broadly similar understandings of intellectual challenge to those of the teachers.

Our conclusion from the research was that the whole question of the nature of intellectual challenge is one that needs further attention within the quality teaching initiative. Outcomes from our questionnaire responses suggest that teachers are working with variable understandings of this concept and with variable interpretations of the implications of working with this concept. Although introduced to elements such as higher order thinking, deep knowledge, deep understanding and so on, these terms do not as yet appear to have made any substantial impact on teachers' thinking about intellectual challenge. Thus, while teachers appear to have engaged at a broad level with the quality teaching initiatives, they have not as yet engaged with the details of intellectual quality. This is not perhaps a surprising finding as the concept of intellectual challenge is a complex one. It does, however, suggest that in implementation of the quality teaching initiatives there is room for further work on this important dimension.

This outcome had a considerable impact on Stage 2 of our own research. As indicated, during and after analysis of the questionnaire, our research team spent time reflecting on our own understandings of the nature of intellectual challenge and on implications of designing and implementing intellectually challenging curricula. As a result, in Stage 2 of our research, we specifically addressed questions such as:

* what does intellectual challenge look like in the classroom?

* is intellectual challenge an absolute or a relative concept (or both)?

* how do we recognise intellectual challenge as it unfolds in classroom interactions?

* what is it that teachers do when implementing an intellectually challenging curricula?

* what are students required to do and to be as they engage with intellectually challenging curricula?

A more detailed discussion of the outcomes of such thinking can be seen in Gibbons paper in this issue.

A second issue emerged from our research as being significant.

Language and literacy and the quality teaching initiative

As indicated, a major purpose of Stage 1 of our research was to investigate the implications of the quality teaching initiatives from the perspective of ESL students. To this end one of the four sections of the questionnaire specifically addressed the relationship between ESL students and intellectual challenge. A number of questions in other sections also referred to ESL students and their needs within mainstream classes. Teachers' responses to questions about the effective implementation of the quality teaching initiative and intellectual challenge with ESL students revealed consistently that they regarded the teaching of (English) language and literacy as central to this enterprise. Their views on the importance of language and literacy were evident from their responses to a number of different questions. For example when asked to identify key words in relation to intellectual challenge and ESL students, the most frequently nominated words were:

* language (52%)

* understanding (44%)

* background knowledge (24%)

* higher order thinking (21%)

* motivation (18%).

When asked about key implications of intellectual challenge for teaching ESL students, as indicated, the most frequently nominated factors were:

* providing appropriate language and literacy learning support for students (53%)

* helping students to understand deeper meaning of issues they were studying (34%).

Also as indicated earlier, when asked what they took into account when planning for teaching and learning, the most frequently nominated factors were:

* ensure lessons are relevant and interesting (49%)

* need for language and literacy support (40%)

* need to analyse students' starting point (what they know about a topic) (39%)

* need to recognise students' background knowledge (cultural knowledge) (35%)

* need to provide scaffolding of tasks to cater for students' needs (24%)

* need for systematic and explicit teaching (23%).

As can be seen from these responses, the teaching of English language and literacy emerged as a key issue in all of these questions. Teachers who completed the questionnaire worked in schools that had been selected for inclusion in the research on the grounds that these schools had a high proportion of ESL students. It was therefore not surprising that they recognised the importance of language and literacy teaching and learning. What was surprising, however, was the lack of clarity in teachers' responses about the extent to which language and literacy was actually being taught.

Teachers were not directly asked in the survey about ways in which they taught language and literacy, but a number of the questions provided opportunities for them to explain this. Generally speaking these questions elicited very few details about the extent and nature of language and literacy teaching--an outcome that surprised us. The question, discussed earlier, that asked teachers to describe an intellectually challenging task that had recently been implemented with ESL students, is an example of such questions, and it is useful at this point to return to the list of tasks.

Some of the tasks described by teachers were clearly language and literacy focused; for example:

* students were required to write 3 text types appropriate for a newspaper --news report, feature article, letter to the editor. Research was needed for the feature article on environmental issues. Students needed to analyse and synthesise information in order to do this task well. Students had to use appropriate register and language and conventions.

Others were possibly/probably language and literacy focused; for example:

* discussing effects of different government systems: comparing and contrasting with supporting evidence

* building a background story to develop a written fiction story

* working in groups to create a flowchart. Writing an explanation based on a given flow chart

* debating parliamentary style

* discussing Oscar Schindler as entrepreneur or righteous gentile.

Others did not appear to be language or literacy focused; for example:

* introducing a new computer program using previous knowledge of Word

* completing a chemical experiment

* art making, jewellery design

* interpreting and analysing visual images

* modelling a piece of work,

* participation in sport

* building a model of a human skeleton.

The above list of tasks suggests considerable variation in the extent to which teachers regarded language and literacy as part of intellectual challenge and the extent to which they planned-in, and taught it. While at least some of this variation can be attributed to limitations of the questionnaire itself, it does raise questions about teachers' knowledge of language and literacy teaching in supporting their ESL students.

We pursued the question of language and literacy teaching more directly with our case study teachers. Here there was also variation in teachers' responses. One of these teachers was very explicit about the role of language and literacy teaching in her program, as the following comments illustrate:

 I think it always starts with oral language. There's a lot of
 talking and listening involved, particularly in group work where
 you're asking students to discuss or even in a whole group
 situation, we always discuss first. Brainstorming, recording down
 keywords, although they're recording there's still a lot of
 discussion around that. Often I'll break them up into research
 groups and they'll be required to read but because I'm encouraging
 them to work as a group there's also more discussion that comes out
 of that ... And also I do get each group to report back to me ...
 So discussion, talking and listening just underpins all of the
 other language activities that we have.

In her discussion of ways in which she taught literacy, this teacher went on to refer to specific text types that were central to her program and their major language features. She also outlined ways in which she provided support for her students' literacy development through models of appropriate text types, opportunities for collaborative writing etc. As she said in summary:

I really try to ensure that language comes through every lesson.

It is relevant that this teacher had actively participated in professional development activities that had specifically addressed language and literacy education.

In contrast, other teachers were much less explicit and less confident in their teaching of language and literacy. One of the most experienced of these teachers raised concerns regarding her own lack of knowledge about language and the challenge she faced when trying to support students in their development of academic writing. She commented:

 Most teachers don't have the skills to do that [i.e., to teach more
 complex aspects of language], and I don't. I look at it [students'
 written work], I say, 'you haven't expressed this very clearly.' To
 pinpoint what they need to do is sometime quite difficult and it's
 very time consuming.

In sum, a picture of some confusion regarding language and literacy teaching emerges from the questionnaires and case studies. Questionnaire responses indicate there is broad recognition from teachers of the importance of language and literacy development for ESL and other students. They also indicate broad recognition of the role of language and literacy learning in students' engagement with intellectually challenging curriculum concepts. But they fail to provide a clear picture of the extent to which teachers actually taught language and literacy in their programs and they also fail to provide insights into the nature of any such teaching. This lack of clarity, at least to some extent, can be attributed to limitations of the questionnaire.

When pursued more directly with the case study teachers, the picture remains confusing. Even with the small number of our case study teachers, there was considerable diversity regarding the extent to which language and literacy was systematically taught. There was further diversity regarding teachers' levels of confidence in their knowledge of language and in their abilities to teach language and literacy effectively.

In this light of this somewhat confusing picture, it is relevant to ask to what extent language and literacy are acknowledged within the quality teaching frameworks, and to what extent professional support for language and literacy teaching is provided within these initiatives.

Support for language and literacy teaching in the quality teaching frameworks

Language and literacy are specifically acknowledged in the element of metalanguage in both the Quality Teaching and the Productive Pedagogies frameworks. As indicated, in both frameworks, this element is one of six within the dimension of intellectual quality (others are: deep knowledge, deep understanding, problematic knowledge, higher-order thinking, and substantive communication).

The term metalanguage in the Productive Pedagogies framework is described as follows:

Metalanguage

Are aspects of language, grammar and technical vocabulary being given prominence?

High metalanguage instruction incorporates frequent discussion about talk and writing, about how written and spoken texts work, about specific technical vocabulary and words, about how sentences work or don't work (syntax/ grammar) about meaning structures and text structures (semantics/genre) and about how discourses and ideologies work in speech and writing. Teachers choose teaching moments within activities, assignments, reading and lessons to focus on particular words, sentences, text features, discourses and so on.

(Productive Pedagogies Classroom Observation Manual, 2002, p.9)

This description of metalanguage, which includes reference to written and spoken texts, vocabulary, grammar, discourse and ideologies, is in line with the literature on metalanguage and reflects generally accepted understandings of the term (e.g., Unsworth, 2001).

The term is defined in more general terms within the Quality Teaching support documents. For example, the Quality Teaching in NSW Public Schools Discussion Paper (2003) describes metalanguage as shown in Table 2.

Reference to specialist language in this description could be interpreted as referring primarily to technical vocabulary of specific curriculum topics, although the Quality Teaching Assessment Practice Guide, includes the following proviso:

 Using the specialist terminology of KLAs and subjects is not in
 itself metalanguage. At the simplest level of metalanguage, a task
 may require students to define specialist terminology in their own
 words. More advanced uses of metalanguage would include
 consideration of how the language (or symbol system) being analysed
 works to structure meaning in particular ways, for instance how
 emotive words help construct a point of view.

Despite the proviso, it is a little difficult to see which other aspects of language apart from "for instance emotive words" are being referred to here. In the transition from Productive Pedgogies to Quality Teaching in NSW, there appears to have been some reduction and simplification of the definition of the element of metalanguage.

The role of language in learning is indirectly acknowledged in one other element. In both the Productive Pedagogies and Quality Teaching frameworks there is reference to substantive communication (Quality Teaching) or substantive conversations (Productive Pedagogies). These terms are defined as follows:

Substantive communication: Students are regularly engaged in sustained conversations about the concepts and ideas they are encountering. These conversations can be manifest in oral, written or artistic forms.

(Quality Teaching in NSW Public Schools Discussion Paper, 2003, p.11)

Substantive conversation: Does talk lead to sustained conversational dialogue between students, and between teachers and students, to create or negotiate understanding of subject matter?

(Productive Pedagogies Classroom Observation Manual, 2002, p.7)

In both definitions, the focus is on encouraging sustained talk about key aspects of curriculum content. Participation in substantive conversations, in our view, is centrally important in intellectual engagement, and is also likely to support language and literacy development. However, this element does not directly address the challenge of teaching and learning (English) language and literacy within the context of learning curriculum content. Thus the element of metalanguage remains the only place within the frameworks where there is any explicit recognition of the need to teach language and literacy. Our research suggests that, at least to date, implementation of these frameworks in NSW has not placed a sufficiently high priority on support for language and literacy teaching. Our research also suggests that this omission has important implications for ESL students.

In sum, what emerges from our research is recognition from teachers of the importance of teaching and learning language and literacy, especially for ESL students. Both the Productive Pedagogies and Quality Teaching frameworks include recognition of the role of language and literacy (although to varying extents) within challenging curricula. However, to date, the teaching of language and literacy with curriculum content has not been sufficiently prioritised in implementation of the frameworks. Our questionnaire responses indicate the need for more systematic and explicit recognition of the complex nature of language and literacy, and the need for more explicit support for teachers to incorporate the teaching of language and literacy across the curriculum.

So where does all of this leave ESL students? What implications can be drawn regarding the usefulness and impact of the quality teaching frameworks for ESL students and their teachers?

Discussion and Conclusions

The research discussed in this paper was limited in numbers of participating schools and teachers, and also limited to the extent that methods of data collection consisted of questionnaire responses and a small number of case studies. Nevertheless, it provides insights into the uptake of quality teaching frame-works in schools that are characterised by diverse student populations. It also provides insight into ways in which teachers perceived their ESL students to be positioned in relation to the frameworks within these schools.

What emerges from questionnaire responses, and what is supported in follow up case studies, is an overall positive picture of the impact of the quality teaching initiatives in both primary and secondary schools. Teachers reported the impact as considerable, and they also reported its impact in encouraging them to talk about, and reflect on, their own teaching against specific criteria. Teachers reported that opportunities and encouragement to talk about teaching resulted in them becoming more systematic and more aware of what they were doing in their classrooms, and also more aware of the needs of their students. More generally, teachers appear to have welcomed the focus on teaching, and on their students, that has resulted from the quality teaching initiatives.

The challenge in the future will be to maintain the positive momentum of this initiative over an extended period of time. The initial spike of enthusiasm associated with an educational innovation is often difficult to maintain once the state department and school emphasis moves to another initiative. Additionally, as Johnston and Hayes (this issue) point out, pedagogical reform that challenges "widespread and resilient survival-mode of teaching" in schools such as those that participated in our research faces a number of very major challenges. However, with ongoing commitment to its implementation, the quality teaching framework would appear to offer hope here. Although the take up of it was uneven, especially in high schools, it was notable that the majority of teachers in our research found the quality teaching initiative to be relevant and useful.

In terms of the positioning of ESL students, our research provided evidence of an overall (although not unanimous) positive response to ESL students and to the diversity that they bring to the school context. Importantly, the research also provided evidence that teachers' responses to the needs of their ESL students in relation to the quality teaching initiative was primarily to propose ways of supporting-up the students to engage with intellectually challenging curricula, rather than simplifying the curriculum. A related outcome was that, as a result of working with the framework, teachers' expectations of what students are capable of achieving had been raised. Although not identified as a major factor, the issue of teacher expectations of all students, including ESL and middle groups of students, emerged in responses to a number of questions in our questionnaire, and also in interviews with case study teachers. It appears that the deliberate inclusion in their programs of challenging pedagogical practices, and close reflection on these practices, resulted in teachers becoming more aware of the abilities and needs of all students in their classes. Evidence that quality teaching initiatives result in higher teacher expectations and more explicit awareness of needs and abilities of students is especially good news for ESL and middle groups of students (who are quite often the same group).

Our research also highlighted two issues that would benefit from further attention in the on-going implementation of the quality teaching initiative.

The first of these is the way in which intellectual quality or intellectual challenge is understood and taken up by teachers and schools. Given the complexity of the concept, it is not surprising that our research revealed some confusion in understandings of intellectual challenge. However, this finding suggests the need for further clarification of both the nature and implication of this concept. In particular it suggests the need for elaboration of elements within the dimension of intellectual quality (higher order thinking, deep understanding, deep knowledge, and substantive conversations) and the need to tease out associated notions such as rich tasks. These terms were barely mentioned by teachers who participated in the research, suggesting they have as yet made little impact on their thinking and understanding.

In our view, if the quality teaching framework is to have an on-going impact and to become embedded in teachers' program planning and teaching, then serious engagement with the 'tools' of intellectual challenge is essential. As Gibbons shows in her paper in this issue, processes of teasing out these concepts provide opportunities for enriching understanding and for impacting positively on the development of intellectually challenging pedagogical practices within the enacted curriculum of the classrooms. More generally, our Stage 2 research provided evidence that for teachers seeking to subvert the prevailing counter-productive discourses that constitute certain students (including ESL students) as "deficit" (Comber & Kamler, 2004, p.293), these tools provide constructive ways of re-imagining the key goals and questions that are addressed within their pedagogical programs,

The second issue to be highlighted in our research is the extent to which the role of language and literacy in learning is acknowledged (or not) within the quality teaching initiative, and the nature (or lack) of support for teaching language and literacy. The quality teaching frameworks themselves acknowledge language and literacy as one element within the dimension of intellectual quality. Descriptions of metalanguage in the frameworks (to varying degrees) include reference to written and spoken texts, vocabulary, grammar, discourse and ideologies, and thus they acknowledge a comprehensive theory of language that is in line with broader literature on language and literacy education (e.g, Christie 2005; Unsworth, 2001; Wells & Claxton, 2002). They recognise the value of sustained talk about complex curriculum concepts, thereby acknowledging, at least implicitly, the importance of language in learning. Our research provided evidence that teachers clearly recognised the importance of language and literacy learning, especially for their ESL students. However, it provided little evidence of systematic focus on language and literacy in the implementation of frameworks. Additionally, our case studies revealed a lack of confidence amongst some teachers in their abilities to incorporate teaching of academic language and literacy in their programs.

These findings have important implications for ESL students. For such students engagement in intellectually challenging curricula is linguistic as well as conceptual. That is, ESL students are learning their second (or subsequent) language and learning about language, while simultaneously engaging with substantive concepts through that language (Halliday, 1979; Gibbons, 2002). Enabling access to the curriculum (in terms of re-imagined and substantive subject content) is therefore necessary, but not sufficient, to engage ESL students. Such students also need support that is targeted to their specific needs for the development of academic language and literacy that is integral to those substantive concepts. As one of our case study teachers pointed out, teaching academic language and literacy is hard. To do this effectively teachers, need considerable knowledge of language: of different genres and their rhetorical structures, of relevant patterns of grammar and cohesion; of aspects of visual and critical literacy (Gibbons, 2002, 2003; Hammond & Derewianka, 1999). They also need knowledge of how to incorporate teaching of these aspects of language and literacy into their teaching of curriculum content.

We would argue therefore, that for quality teaching initiatives to support ESL students to achieve their academic potential, they need to address the teaching of language and literacy more extensively, and more explicitly, than has thus far been the case. ESL and other minority students undoubtedly benefit from access to high challenge curricula, from carefully planned and systematic teaching, and from the higher teacher expectations that have resulted from the quality teaching initiative. However, such students also need explicit support in their language and literacy development from teachers who, themselves, have access to high quality professional development that recognises the complex nature of language and literacy and, as well, provides systematic support for explicit teaching of language and literacy. This is especially important in the NSW version of Quality Teaching where the notion of metalanguage has been somewhat watered down in its translation from Productive Pedagogies. In an educational context where there is limited access to systematic professional development for teachers that addresses the complexities of language and literacy education, further work here would strengthen what overall appears to be a very positive educational initiative.

The research reported in this paper was jointly funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant and by the Multicultural Programs Unit, NSW Department of Education and Training. It was undertaken collaboratively by researchers from University of Technology, Sydney (UTS); the University of Sydney; the University of Wollongong and the Multicultural Programs Unit of NSW Department of Education and Training (Hammond, Gibbons, Michell, Dufficy, Cruickshank & Sharpe, 2005-2007).

References

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Jennifer Hammond

UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, SYDNEY

Table 1. Most useful and most challenging aspects of the

Quality Teaching framework

Most useful Most challenging

The provision of an explicit The time that was necessary to
framework that detailed engage with the initiative
dimensions and elements of what time (51%)
was involved in quality
teaching (48%) The pressure that resulted
 from engagement with the framework
The provision of effective to change teaching practices (49%)
teaching strategies within the
framework (35%) The conceptual difficulty
 involved in understanding the
Opportunities for teacher model (including the challenge of
reflection that were part of the becoming familiar with the
implementation of the technical jargon) (39%)
quality teaching initiative (25%)
 The personal and professional
 challenge of working
 collaboratively with other
 teachers (14%)

Table 2. Quality Teaching Discussion Paper (2003, p.11)

Element What does it look like What does it look like
 in classrooms? in assessment tasks?

Metalanguage Lessons explicitly name Tasks require the use
 and analyse knowledge as of metalanguage,
 a specialist language commentary on language
 (metalanguage) and use and the various
 provide frequent contexts of differing
 commentary on language language uses.
 use and the various
 contexts of differing
 language uses