Words slogans & meanings and the role of teachers in languages education.

Scarino, Angela

ABSTRACT

Drawing on two major developments in languages education, namely communicative language teaching and frameworks of outcomes and standards, this address presents a reflection on 'words' as the most basic resource of language teachers, and the way in which they are always open to interpretation and reinterpretation over time. With both developments, the focus has been on seeking to institute educational changes without considering the process of interpretation and the interpretive frames of reference that teachers bring to their work. This approach to development fails to address not only the central role of teachers as interpreters and makers of their own meanings that guide their actions, but also the ongoing intellectual project of developing understanding in and through education.

KEY WORDS

Interpretation, communicative language teaching, frameworks of standards, change.

INTRODUCTION

An address such as this to a national gathering of teachers, teacher educators, and researchers working in the field of languages education inevitably gives rise to reflection about our profession and ourselves. We may, for example, ask ourselves who we are as language educators, where we have been, where we are just now, where we are heading, and perhaps most importantly, how we understand what we do as both individuals and collectives, and why.

It is this reflection that leads me to think about 'words' as the most basic resource of language educators. I think in particular about the different ways we might understand some of the words that form part of our professional jargon: words such as 'language', 'communication', 'culture', 'learning', 'teaching', and 'assessing'; words whose meanings we may or may not share with our colleagues; and words whose meanings change with time. I also think about the conceptual baggage that becomes attached to words, particularly as they are used in the educational profession, and how readily and rapidly phrases such as 'communicative language teaching', 'outcomes-based education', and so on can become so familiar that they soon become no more than educational slogans or catcheries that we take for granted. But above all, I think about the 'power' of words.

I also think about language teachers and their distinctive and influential role as mediators of learning through the way that they use words. Their role is distinctive because 'language' is not only a discipline in its own right but also a medium through which all other disciplines are learned and through which interdisciplinary connections are made. Their role is influential because they are engaged in creating a culture of language learning with students--a complex, social, cultural, linguistic, and intellectual role that simplistic talk about particular 'teaching methods' or 'curriculum frameworks' or 'outcomes' somehow always seems to reduce or simplify.

In this address I'll talk in particular about words such as 'language', 'culture', 'communication', 'learning', 'teaching', 'assessing', 'standards, and 'outcomes'. These are call key words for people whose work is focused on languages education. How these words are understood by those who use them, and how they come to be interpreted, reinterpreted, and questioned are all integral to the work of language educators.

I'll also talk specifically about the term 'communicative language teaching' and about current 'standards or 'outcomes' frameworks, the former as a major development in languages education and the latter as a major general development in education that has influenced languages education. These developments span the past 25-30 years--the period that also coincides with my own direct involvement in languages education.

Frameworks for both outcomes and standards have brought about prescribed changes in what teachers do in the classroom. The intention with both of these developments has been to institute a prescribed change which has been largely bureaucratic in nature and has sought to change what teachers do by prescribing what they 'should he doing'. What such an approach to change flails to address is the intellectual project of understanding (Pinar, 2003), i.e. that the changes need to take into account teachers' own understanding and the meanings that they attach to the changes.

It is expected that such prescribed changes will be made by teachers who bring their own frameworks of knowledge, beliefs, values, experiences, motivations, and language as the interpretive framework or 'fore-understandings' (Gadamer, 2003) to bear. It is these frameworks that shape how teachers interpret and make sense of these changes. Within such an understanding of change, teachers cannot he seen merely as 'implementers' but rather as 'interpreters' and 'meaning makers' within an intellectual process of everdeepening understanding. As professionals engaged in words, language, meaning making, interpretation, communication, and understanding both ideas anti people, our goal must he to remain ever attentive to changing meanings and to the processes of interpretation as we try to develop understanding on the part of our students and ourselves.

WORDS, SLOGANS, AND MEANINGS

Teachers of languages haw a fascination and passion for words and language. Words matter. They have histories and connections. Their meanings arc never fixed. The moment that someone articulates a conception, it gains cultural associations that come from that person's framework for interpretation and meaning making. Not only arc teachers engaged in an ongoing effort to interpret and explain, hut they also need more words to talk about words. As Brumfit (2001, p.56) says: '... words do mean something; each one is a cultural object, with its own meanings and associations, and no one can escape these entirely'. Developing understanding and learning involves navigating the meanings and associations of words.

Words are often taken for granted and we usually assume that all will understand them in the same way. Contrary to this assumption, however, when we use words we do not simply exchange some sort of objective meaning; rather, we construct meaning and clarify and elaborate it in our social interaction. Words are enmeshed in our personal value systems. Over time, meanings change. The word 'communication', a word that is central to everything that we do as language teachers, provides a good example. In languages education we need constantly to reconsider what 'communication' means; we need to consider and compare our current understanding of the concept it represents and rescue it from the educational slogans that attach to it as people use it in educational practice.

How those of us involved in languages education understand, use, and attach names to key concepts such as 'communication' in particular contexts is very important. The average person's perception of what is meant by 'communication' is usually very different from what educators mean by it. In our field, 'communicative language teaching' or 'CLT'--one particular use of the word 'communication'--has been seen over many years as a powerful catalyst for change. Over time, it has gained a range of meanings that need to be considered in a range of contexts, particularly given its ubiquitous spread (see Pennycook, 2001, Chapter 5). What do language teachers currently understand by the word 'communication'? What is their understanding based upon? Do they use the term differently when they are comparing first and second language learners? How are their perceptions played out in the classroom? And how do students understand the concept and the process of 'communication'?

COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING

CLT is an overarching term used to encompass a range of practices in second language teaching and learning that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s and that, to a large extent, have continued to the present (see Brown et al., 2007). The key concept of 'communication' was, is, and will remain the essence of language teaching and learning. But it is open to multiple interpretations and questions such as:

* How was CLT understood in language teaching when it first emerged?

* How is it understood now?

* How is it understood in relation to learning?

* How is it understood by educators in general who consider 'communication' to be a 'generic skill' or an 'essential learning'?

These questions are important because the way that teachers teach languages 'for communication' is shaped by the way they conceptualise networks of related concepts such as 'language', 'culture', 'language learning', and 'communication'.

Weak forms of CLT

At the time of its emergence CLT addressed the problem that language was seen as a static, structural, rule-governed, grammatical system to be 'acquired'. CLT highlighted the need for communication to be a fluid system to be 'performed' (Brumfit, 2001, p. 48) and was based on a shift from a concept of 'linguistic competence' to one of 'communicative competence', a shift that foregrounded 'language in use'. This entailed a view of communication as a process that involves interaction in context and shaped by context. Above all, CLT took social context and situation into account and was to come as close as possible to practical, personal language use.

Allied concepts at the time were 'learner needs', 'speech acts'--expressed in syllabus terms as 'functions' (e.g. socialising, buying food, inviting, transacting) and 'notions' (e.g. time, location), and real or realistic contexts of use. Language variation was accepted, as was error. From a methodological point of view, CLT focused on classroom activities, including group work, pair work, role play, simulations, information gap activities, and authentic materials. In school language learning, it was linked to the 'graded objectives' and 'graded levels of achievement' schemes in the UK, the 'proficiency movement' in the US, and the Australian Language Levels (ALL) Guidelines in Australia (Scarino, Vale, McKay, & Clark, 1988). Communication became the slogan. Textbooks were revised to include typical dialogues and authentic texts in order to fit the new label--at surface level, at least. The underlying view of language and culture that prevailed was essentially a psycholinguistic view. It was captured in models such as the 'communicative competence model' of Canale and Swain (1980) who described 'communicative competence' as comprising four components: 'communicative, linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse and strategic competence'. This model was subsequently elaborated by Bachman (1990) and Bachman and Palmer (1996) and has become the most sophisticated modelling to date.

In the mid-80s, as a member of the Australian Languages Levels (ALL) Project team, I personally found the Canale and Swain formulation exciting. At the time it provided me with a way of going beyond sentence-level structure and analysis to discourse and texts. It highlighted for me the fact that language is an expression of meaning. Furthermore, Canale and Swain's notion of 'strategic competence' provided me with the motivation to explore the concept of 'learning how to learn' that I considered essential in languages education, since I saw students not only as language users but also as language learners. I needed a model that I felt did justice to the educational and learning dimension of school language learning.

A critique of CLT

With the benefit of an expanded understanding of 'language', 'culture', and 'communication' that recognises the reality of interaction and personal meaning making in communication, I now see the Canale and Swain model and its realisation in CLT as a weak formulation. Students were, in many instances, asked to practise communicative use of the target language as tourists or vendors rather than develop themselves as communicators as they engaged with the additional language. With the foregrounding of communication as the central goal of language teaching and learning and a concern with the communication process, the student as a person (both as a language learner and as a language user) became backgrounded. Language became neutralised. Culture was seen essentially as 'sociolinguistic competence', a form of 'knowledge' that signalled the variability of context. However, culture was always a subordinate category to the central category of communication; it was seen as a support to communication, but not integral to it. Yet culture is what participants bring to any interaction in communication because it enables interpretation and the making of meaning.

The context in which language is used was seen as the situational setting of the communication taking place. Less attention was paid to the fact that second language learning also takes place in a wider sociocultural context, a context of acculturation and identity formation. Furthermore, context was seen as being fixed and as existing outside the individual, rather than as being constructed by the individual's own cognitive, social, cultural, and linguistic processes as they interact with another individual and with their own construction of the context of culture. Context was identified as an important category, but--particularly in the syllabus specifications of the time--it became manifested as an inventory of features (roles, relationships, and settings). It was not something that was experienced in its variability in such a way that students learned over time to manage the variability, and this in itself is what learning to communicate actually entails.

Communication was reduced to the process of developing 'skills', without developing students' understanding of the way that language and culture are integral to personal interpretation and making meaning with others in social interaction. In practice, with some forms of CLT, classroom interactive activities or tasks became no more than 'display monologues', pseudo-communication activities designed to 'make students talk', rather than talk as the joint realisation of potential meanings in conversation.

From a learning point of view, despite the inherent interactivity involved in communication, learning to communicate was seen as an individual, psycholinguistic process more than a social and cultural practice that relies on interaction, communication, interpretation, and meaning making.

The centrality of teachers' understanding of communication

The way that teachers understand what 'communication' means, and the way that they go about teaching their students to communicate, have a great influence on language teaching and learning. Language learning for communication needs to engage students with and extend the multiple, personal, sociocultural and linguistic memberships in which they participate. It also needs to provide opportunities for all students to extend their variable linguistic and sociocultural identity based on these memberships. Language learning also needs to provide a space for students to develop their own personal voices within the language they are learning, to participate as communicators with others in everyday contexts, and to come to understand themselves better as participants in communicative interactions--both within their own and across cultures. Arguing against a view that this kind of 'genuine' communication can only happen in a person's first language, Clark, (1997, p. 3) states passionately:

 This line of argument has led us to
 the trivial forms of monkey-like
 dialogue learning and 'contentless'
 texts, in which there is little,
 or no interest, imagination, or
 intellectual challenge in what is
 being done. What those who try to
 take intellectual content out of
 second language learning, forget is
 that language is not learnt simply
 because we can be made to notice
 that it is there; it is learnt because
 it provides by far the best means
 we have available to us to make
 sense of the world and represent
 reality to ourselves and others,
 and because it is the best means
 available to us to relate to others
 and share thoughts and feelings
 with them. If there is nothing to
 make sense of, no reality worth
 representing and no user of the
 second language with whom to
 share one's thoughts and feelings,
 then there is no earthly reason for
 learning a second language.

Similarly, Brumfit (2001, p. 53) states that communicative competence 'must centre on learners, for they are the sole justification for language teaching as a profession. If it centres on learners it must become a far more dynamic concept than it often appears to be'. The notion of 'centring on learners', however, echoes the idea of 'student needs and interests' and 'needs analyses' and is itself open to interpretation. The problem with the concept of 'student needs' is that, once analysed, they tended to be identified through exactly same categories that were used to construct syllabuses and programs. In other words, it was the categories themselves that structured the needs rather than an understanding of needs as the qualities that students bring to their learning and through which they interpret what's going on. Further, needs analysis tended to freeze 'needs and interests' in time, rather than recognise that they are variable and change constantly over time. What is necessary is that 'centring on learners' (or 'learner-centredness', as it is sometimes called--using yet another educational slogan) has to be understood as the distinctive, interpretive framework of understanding that each student builds over time through socialisation and enculturation--the holistic framework of knowledge, experiences, beliefs, values, conceptions, and misconceptions, i.e. the overall frame of reference that becomes the lens through which students interpret all that is going on in their learning.

In some formulations of CLT there has been insufficient attention to incorporating, engaging with, and developing students' unique social, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. More than simply a cognitive, social, and cultural practice, communication is an interpretive practice. This is the focus of communication within an intercultural perspective (see Liddicoat, Papademetre, Scarino, & Kohler, 2003.) In intercultural interaction it is the process of interpretation and making meaning that is foregrounded. This process of interpretation and meaning making is central to both communication and learning. In order to interpret and make meaning, students--as interactants--draw on their whole linguistic, cultural, social, and historical repertoires. In this process, they come to develop their communication capability and to understand their own location in language and culture as well as the location of other people. At the same time, they come to understand themselves as users of language in communicative interaction and as learners reflecting on how language works as they use it. They are able to stand back from the interaction, review it, reappraise it and learn from it. In this process of reflection, they also come to understand that language in communication encodes an ethical stance, i.e. it encodes their own beliefs and values and, importantly, those of others. Thus, any communicative interaction represents an encounter of different linguistic, cultural, social, and historical repertoires that participants or bring to the interaction and that need to be negotiated to achieve understanding.

CLT has focused on the process of communication without engaging in the reality that, in the language classroom, teachers and students are constantly resourcing at least two languages and two cultures. CLT has left unaddressed the ways in which students' own languages and cultures are related to the target language as well as their movement between languages to discover ways of seeing themselves both as language users or communicators in both their own language and the target language.

Learning to communicate in an additional language extends beyond 'transmission' of a structural, grammatical system and even 'construction' in language use, to being a process of interpretation and meaning making that engages with students' socialisation, enculturation, and building of identities through their ongoing life experiences in multiple groups. This is what is entailed in intercultural language learning, and it can be described as follows:

 Learning a new language involves
 the learner in a complex process.
 Learners have to learn new forms
 and rules of the language and the
 conventions that assign these to
 meanings. They have to learn the
 conceptual systems that the
 language encodes. They have to
 learn the rules of variability and
 acceptability involved in using this
 sign for communication with other
 users of the system. They have to
 negotiate the identities that are
 involved in using the new linguistic
 system and position and adopt a
 perspective in relationship to the
 identities they wish to present as
 they communicate. (Liddicoat,
 Papademetre, Scarino, & Kohler, 2003)

When students are participating in communication, they don't just need to learn how to act with people from 'other' cultures, they also need to learn how to manage their own interactions in response to the expectations of such people. Students gradually come to realise that their success in communication is determined not only by what they do, but also by how they are perceived by members of the 'other' culture, and that they themselves have a responsibility for how they understand others and how others understand them. Students need to develop over time the capability to recognise and respect others' perceptions as culturally distinct from their own.

This is the meaning I now give to communication. It is very different from the meaning that informed my work and that of my colleagues when we were developing the Australian Language Levels (ALL) Guidelines. It is a more complex and challenging view, but one which reflects better the act of communication as meaning making and one that can inform a richer and more generative view of learning.

The role of the teacher in CLT

Within the weaker formulation of CLT the role of teachers was to provide a range of communicative tasks or activities and a supportive environment for learners. Teachers were no longer the sole arbiters of 'correct' language. They stepped in and out of various roles in students' role plays and simulations. Within this scenario, teachers became implementers of a received method that pre-structured teaching and learning, a method that might or might not have coincided with their own understanding of the terms 'communication', 'language', 'culture', 'learning', and 'teaching'. CLT reduced the complexity of teaching--which, like communication, is a cognitive, social, cultural, and interpretive process. No method can take into account the distinctive diversity and complexity of individuals, working in their particular teaching and learning contexts--and specifically, their personal, social, cognitive, linguistic, and cultural make-up. CLT turned teachers into communicators--or at least orchestrators of communication--who 'communicated' without necessarily analysing and reflecting on the process of developing communication in and with their students as young people who were learning the art of communication.

The meanings that teachers give to 'communication', 'language', 'culture', 'teaching', 'learning', and 'assessment' contribute to more than just their methodological choices. These meanings are part of what I call the holistic stance of teachers, i.e. the overall interpretive frameworks that they adhere to, that are developed over time and shape all that they do and all the decisions and judgments they make. Consider the communication that is taking place in the text below. It is from the transcript of a lesson with a class of senior secondary background students of Persian. The teacher was working on a school-based project focused on interactive pedagogies in which I have been involved. The transcript has been translated from Persian, the language in which the interaction took place.

Cultural products: positive and negative images

T: Now we are going through the questions together. Any answer for Question 1: What comes to your mind when you see 'Made in Iran or Afghanistan'?

[S.sub.1]: Should be carpet.

[S.sub.2]: Pistachio.

[S.sub.3]: Saffron.

[S.sub.4]: The precious oil and gas (the sound 'Oh...!').

[S.sub.6]: Opium from Afghanistan (laughter).

T: Not bad. At least you had a good laugh. O.K., now can anyone add anything to this answer?

[S.sub.5]: Are they all cultural products?

[S.sub.7]: Not all Afghans are opium producers or drug dealers.

T: Well done, that is what I was seeking.

[S.sub.5]: It is like Australia and kangaroos.

[S.sub.6]: Yeah, not every Australian has a kangaroo nor there are kangaroos in all streets.

[S.sub.8]: Homer Simpson thinks like that (laughter).

T: Anyone else want to add anything to these comments?

[S.sub.9]: That is what stereotype means, am I right?

T: Very interesting. Any ideas?

[S.sub.6]: Yes, and that means we should not be judgmental.

[S.sub.10]: But a stereotype image is related to culture, isn't it?

T: Both yes and no. Any other comments?

[S.sub.3]: To be honest, it depends on the nature of the image. If it is negative we see it as a negative stereotype and fit is positive, we own it!

T: This could be a very interesting discussion about culture, cultural differences, and respect for each other, and for sure so many other emerging issues. I want you all to think about it. We can come back to this later.

Without elaborating on the context of this interaction, notice the exchange of opinions, the students' conceptions, and the way they build on each other's ideas and make meaning. Consider the contribution of the teacher. Why, for example, does she choose to delay the discussion?

CLT recognised the need to create contexts for using the target language. What it did not emphasise was the role of teachers themselves as interpreters and meaning makers. I believe that it is through their personal, holistic, interpretive frameworks that they inevitably mediate language using and learning.

FRAMEWORKS OF OUTCOMES

The second development which I want to address is the frameworks of 'outcomes'--also referred to as 'standards', 'benchmarks', 'targets', and so on--that have emerged in many contexts internationally since the 1990s as a means of conceptualising curriculum and assessment for primary and secondary education. I will not address here the range of political and conceptual issues that have related to their development and use, having detailed these on previous occasions (see Scarino, 1995, 1997, 2000). Instead, in line with my focus on words and meanings, I'll consider the word 'outcome' itself, and specifically the outcomes that have been developed for learning languages. Again, I'll consider the way in which these developments have positioned teachers.

Context of development and use

In Australia, each State and Territory has developed a framework of outcomes that seeks to represent language learning from Kindergarten to Year 12. In this context two points need to be highlighted. The first is that despite the intention that the State/Territory-based frameworks of outcomes and standards be used for assessment of student learning, in no State or Territory have they been implemented as a framework for assessment and accountability as occurred, for example, with the National Curriculum of England and Wales. I am not suggesting here that this should have been the case, but rather, I am observing that there is very little information available regarding the implementation of these schemes in the languages area in Australia.

Secondly, there is no initiative in this country to compare with the coordinated and large-scale Teaching and Learning Research Program in the UK, the aim of which is 'to support and develop educational research leading to improvements in outcomes for learners of all ages (James, 2005). This is a project with a budget of 28 million [pounds sterling], involving 350 researchers and 50 projects, networks, and fellowships, and one that no doubt includes a critical appraisal of the very notion of 'outcomes'.

The word 'outcomes' refers to the end of a piece or period of learning. Outcomes are formulated as a counter to the progressivist emphasis on 'processes' and 'inputs'. The argument that generally underlies their development is that once the outcomes are determined, teachers and students have the freedom to work in whichever way they choose to achieve them. Within this linear, input-output view, not only are processes of learning subordinated to outcomes, but any relationship between processes of learning and outcome is also diminished. As James and Brown (2005, p. 8) say about the UK context--and I've no doubt that their comments apply to Australia and elsewhere:

 ... recently, there has been
 considerable emphasis on
 performance and bureaucratic
 models of learning which focus on
 measurable skills and attainment
 targets. What is clear, is that the
 limitations of such perspectives
 constrain thinking about, and
 divert attention from, other valuable
 forms of learning. Furthermore,
 their requirements of objective,
 quantitative measurement
 techniques for assessment divert
 attention from consideration of
 broader issues such as how to
 make judgments about process
 learning, long-term retention of
 learning, unintended learning
 outcomes, and self-assessment of
 learning.

At issue, here, is the way in which the concept of 'outcomes'--and indeed, the very word itself--can limit what we as teachers should be focusing on, simply by directing our attention to a single aspect of teaching and learning and causing us to ignore its complex relationship to other aspects of the teaching and learning process, such as pedagogy, relationships, attitudes, values, dispositions, meanings, and identities, i.e. the kinds of words that indicate people coming together in interaction, all with their own interpretive frameworks and all contributing to the ongoing negotiation of their perception of themselves, others, and the world as processes that are fundamental to both communication and learning.

The breadth or the narrowness of a conceptualisation can shape what we look for, what we see, what we do, and what we value. No matter how one interprets the word 'outcomes', the problem with frameworks based on outcomes is that they essentially pre-structure learning. Thus, any description of outcomes in language learning--in any learning area, for that matter--is inevitably reductionist. This is because it is simply impossible to map a total picture of learning in its diverse complexity. As Mislevy (1993, p. 28) states, albeit from a cognitivist perspective:

 A learner's state of competence at a
 given point in time is a complex
 constellation of facts and concepts
 and the networks that interconnect
 them; of automatised procedures
 and conscious heuristics and their
 relationships to knowledge patterns
 that signal their relevance; of
 perspectives and strategies and the
 management capabilities by which
 the learner focuses his efforts.
 There is no hope of providing a
 description of such a state.

Given this, there is a danger that teachers will interpret any set of outcomes as being complete in itself--another case of the words used to describe learning potentially limiting that learning.

At another level, as a result of my direct involvement in efforts to develop statements of outcomes in both Australia and Hong Kong, I have come to realise that, because they are designed to apply to a range of diverse practices in teaching, learning, and assessment, there is always the problem of a high level of generality in such statements. Moreover, in languages education, the descriptions are also generic across languages because it is considered to be too expensive to develop frameworks of outcomes and standards for each specific language. With such generalised and generic descriptions it is naturally easier for teams of people charged with their development to achieve some degree of consensus about what the outcomes actually mean than if the descriptions were tighter. Consensus is necessary from the developers' perspective for reasons of face validity, (see Moss, 2001) but face validity does not address the issue of construct, i.e. how communication in the context of language learning is actually conceptualised by the developers. For potential users of frameworks who have normally played no part in their consensus-based development, the generality and generic nature of outcomes for languages leaves them wide open to the interpretation of words and meanings.

Contrary to the assumption made by frameworks developers that the interpretation of words can be the same, the specification of outcomes, just like the concept of communication in CLT discussed above, cannot be seen as neutral because words always carry their own meanings and histories. Indeed, if teachers were asked to fully implement these frameworks to assess their students' communicative performance, how would they interpret the statements of outcomes? How consistent would the interpretation be? Whose interpretations would prevail?

Furthermore, the developers of such frameworks of outcomes assume that students and teachers operate independently. They seem to believe that students' performance can be isolated from their experience of a particular learning program at a particular time and in a particular place, and that teachers can isolate their judgments of students' performance from their own work in constructing that performance with students. At issue here is the further assumption that students' performance will match the developers' conceptualisation of the outcomes, and that teachers will have no problem in describing their students' performance through this conceptualisation--which may or may not necessarily match their own conceptualisation. Some teachers may, indeed, accept the framework as some sort of 'reality'. If this is the case, the framework then constructs the performance of students, thereby rendering invisible the understanding that student performance is an interactively constructed accomplishment. Based on research to date, the Thematic Group on Learning Outcomes in the UK's Teaching and Learning Research Program identifies the assessment of outcomes as 'a problem'. This is then a difficult area, not only because of the problem of generality and the interpretation of meanings, but also because of the notion of interactively constructed performance that I have described.

A further issue in assessing outcomes relates to the problem that the assessment procedures used most frequently tend to be designed to assess episodic learning and, as such, are static. This is a problem if learning is seen as a continuous process of development. James and Brown (2005, p. 19) put it as follows:

 If ... the learning outcomes in which
 we are interested are dynamic,
 shifting, and sometimes original or
 unique, we need a new methodology
 [sic] for assessment, perhaps
 drawing more on ethnographic
 and peer-review approaches in
 science, appreciation and
 connoisseurship in the arts, and
 advocacy, testimony, and
 judgment in law.

Such a focus on outcomes of learning developed over time would be desirable in an educational sense. This is particularly so in the languages area where, in the absence of a statement of learning that articulates what can legitimately be achieved through programs of school language learning, people resort to native-speaker expectations, which cannot and do not reflect the achievements of second language learners in schools.

A consideration linked to the theme of words and meanings is that the kinds of assessment models that recognise the social, linguistic, and cultural construction of performance over time will necessarily involve the interpretation of words and meanings, and more words and meanings to subsequently warrant the conclusions reached about students' performance. The complexity here is not the question of interpretation, for interpretation is integral to the assessment process; the problem is rather the way that in traditional forms of assessment the process of interpretation is backgrounded in the interests of objectivity.

The role of teachers

The role of teachers within the world of frameworks of outcomes, as with CLT, is largely that of an implementer. The task of teachers is to 'deliver' outcomes--outcomes that are pre-determined, fixed, and unchangeable. It is assumed that all teachers will interpret them 'objectively' in the same way, as though they were a neutral tool--albeit expressed in words that are inevitably open to interpretation by a range of different people in very different contexts. From the developers' perspective, there is no sense in which the outcomes arc shaped by the social, linguistic, and cultural-historical context in which they are used. Furthermore--and again, this is also the case with CLT--them is no recognition that the conceptualisations that are embedded in the descriptions, nor that the interpretations that are made when the descriptions are used, are based on a particular interpretive framework of knowledge, beliefs, and values. To address these issues we need to be able to recognise and value the central processes of interpretation and dialogue through which different meanings can be shared in a way that yields a stronger understanding of what the outcomes of learning languages ought to be.

FROM WORDS TO INTELLECTUAL AND PERSONAL ENGAGEMENT

In both the developments I have discussed, I have highlighted the power of words to render concepts that can be both generative and restricting. In languages education, a profession that focuses above all on words and meanings, we cannot take words for granted. We cannot leave educational slogans unquestioned. That words arc open to interpretation and multiple meanings and that this has consequences is surely one of the important things we want all students to learn. As professionals, we need to follow the shifts in the meanings of words that are used in our field, be aware of our own changing understanding, and remain critically engaged with meanings, i.e. understand how both we and others understand the same words.

Whatever conceptualisations of language, culture, communication teaching, learning, and assessment are offered by those involved in the process of languages education, they will come imbued with the assumptions, meanings, and values of those who hold them. The words that they use reflect their constructs and, at the same time, their personal, ethical stance. Teachers give their own meanings to words as they negotiate meaning with others--be they students, parents, colleagues, or others involved in education. In both the processes of communication and of teaching-learning-assessing, a recognition and foregrounding of the centrality of interpretation and making meaning with others will begin to focus on and gradually yield an understanding of how communication and learning are actually experienced by students and teachers. For both students and teachers, there are dual roles in the continuity of learning. They are participants in communication and learning and, at the same time, they need to be able to describe both processes and critically reflect on them in an ongoing way. As participants, they engage in interaction as members of a class or school community, acting, interacting, and reacting with others. Through critical reflection they can stand back and maintain a deeply questioning stance that contributes to a better understanding of themselves and an awareness of their own interpretive framework that shapes how they interpret their own experiences, other people, and the world they live in.

As Kramsch (2004, p. 255) states, in proposing a shift from language-thought-and-culture to speakers, writers, thinkers, and members of discourse communities:

 The acquisition of another
 language is not an act of
 disembodied cognition, but is the
 situated, spatially and temporally
 anchored, co-construction of
 meaning between teachers and

 learners who each carry with them
 their own history of experience
 with language and communication.
 Culture is not one worm view,
 shared by all members of a
 national speech community; it is
 multifarious, changing, and more
 often than not, conflictual.

For teachers, Kramsch suggests that this means reorienting the focus 'from what they do to who they are' (ibid). In this sense, teachers of languages become participants in the ongoing project of improving the teaching and learning of languages, and also in the ongoing intellectual project of understanding language, culture, communication, teaching, learning, and assessing.

KEITH HORWOOD

My comments and reflection on Keith Horwood, in whose honour this presentation was given, were constructed from a conversation with Mrs Horwood and a reading of his papers published in Babel. He was, Mrs Horwood said, an 'ordinary country boy who got a scholarship to Geelong Grammar and Trinity at Melbourne University'. As such, he remained in touch with the everyday as well as being committed to his intellectual work. Links, relationships, and connections were important to him. For example, he opened the eyes of other faculty members to research in French and German and translated papers for them. He also presented German for Schools on the ABC and, as a performer, took two plays to Sydney. In his teaching, he found out from the students their particular sphere of interest. He embraced innovation, which, in his time, meant language laboratories. He was committed to scholarship and was in touch with the languages community. He was engaged, innovative, and had the qualities of an excellent teacher. With regard to language teachers, he wanted them to exchange ideas in order to help round out the picture which every language teacher should have of the pattern of development in this country (Horwood, 1968, p. 16). He talked about leading teachers to 'heightened professional consciousness' and 'extending [their] professional horizons' (ibid, p.17). He comments:

 The growing realisation that language teaching methods ... have to
 be adapted to particular situations and to the specific background
 and interests of the learning group makes the collection of the
 experience of all teachers in all situations essential (ibid, p.
 18)

 We need to stimulate discussion to clarify our own minds and then
 bring to the attention of educational administrators the
 soundly-based views of a body with a professional conscience and
 responsibility. (ibid, p. 18)

Notice in his words the attention to the largest possible contextual picture, heightened consciousness, discussion, clarification, responsibility and meaning. And he calls for some rethinking 'if language teaching is to meet the challenge of new approaches to education, new demands in society, and new values in living' (Horwood, 1972 p. 17). In other words, the need to engage wholeheartedly with the contemporary, changing world. While the world of innovation in language teaching has moved well beyond language laboratories, the need to focus on meaningfulness, values, life, and embracing the 'new' remains. Keith sought to make language live and recognised his ongoing dialogue with students and colleagues as fundamental. None of these ideas are out of place in languages education here and now.--AS

This paper is a revised version of the Keith Horwood Memorial Lecture, delivered at the 15th Biennial Conference of the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations (AFMLTA) that took place in Melbourne, 6-9 July 2005.

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Angela Scarino is the Director of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures Education in the School of International Studies at the University of South Australia. Angela is a former President of the AFMLTA and a former Editor of Babel. Her e-mail address is angela.scarino@unisa.edu.au.