In 1998, SAIDE received a grant from the Joint Education Trust (JET) to conduct research to identify strategies for the design and delivery of teacher education at a distance that could lead to improved teaching in the classroom. This research project - one of those commissioned by the President’s Education Initiative - was conducted on the basis of an in-depth case study analysis of the teaching and learning practices in the Further Diploma in Education (English Language Teaching) offered by the University of the Witwatersrand.

Since an in-depth analysis of the programme was required, it was decided to focus on the opinions, experiences, and classroom practice of a sample of six students in the 1997 cohort of the two year diploma. A report was produced in early October, entitled Strategies for the Design and Delivery of Quality Teacher Education at a Distance: A Case Study of the Wits FDE (English Teaching)

The report examined the teaching and learning practices in this programme under the following headings: Programme design; Course materials; The teaching in the residential sessions; Assessment design, support and quality assurance; Student support. What was striking was how the various elements of the programme were held together strongly by a shared understanding and implementation of the programme goals and a commitment to processes of research and evaluation. The diagram on page 21 illustrates.

Research found that the main outcomes of the programme could be categorized into abilities related to:

•  design of teaching, learning, and assessment strategies;
•  implementation of these strategies; and
•  reflection on the degree of success of these strategies, with a view to future improvement.

In addition, certain values (such as gender awareness) were identified as key values modelled and discussed in the programme, and a list was constructed of the main areas of English language and English teaching knowledge dealt with in the programme.

Regarding the effect of the programme on students, the overall finding was that there was consonance between the abilities that the programme set out to develop, what the students said about those abilities, and what they did to translate them into practice.

The extent to which transfer of learning took place was, however, different for different students. For example, the ability to reflect varied amongst students. Some students demonstrated a full grasp of the reflective process. Others seemed to be able to think about their own practice, but were unable to make new discoveries that they could apply to improve their own practice. Generally, students appeared to display values and attitudes being promoted by the programme.

Background research yielded the following general insights about the design and delivery of teacher development programmes using distance education methods:

•  It is important to integrate school-based activities into teacher development;
•  High quality course materials should be complemented with peer and school-based interaction;
•  Courses, activities, and assessment must be linked with classroom practice; and
•  It is important to integrate theory and practice.

The Wits FDE programme operates within these general guidelines, but has also developed specific teaching and learning practices to give substance to these general points.

In addition, the programme illustrates the importance of:

•  Regular residential sessions as means of support, as well as an opportunity for modelling good teaching practice; and
•  Effective support for individual students, mainly through teaching on assignments.

During 1998, SAIDE was asked to recommend a South African distance education student to present a paper at the conference of the European Association for International Education in Stockholm, which ran from 22 to 24 November. We had no hesitation in putting forward the name of Mfana Phonela, one of the six Wits FDE students whose work we had investigated in depth. Mfana Phonela teaches English at grade eleven and twelve level at Dr Harry Gwala Comprehensive School in Daveyton (Etwatwa). In his presentation, Mfana described his experiences on the Wits FDE programme.

Extract from Mfana Phonela’s presentation at the EAIE Conference
It is not all and sundry, or rather it is not any Tom, Dick, or Mfana who can make it to study full-time at institutions of higher learning.

Even those who succeed, more often than not cannot afford to pay and provide for their education. The lack of financial means and resources present a formidable challenge. Effective distance education programmes have a pivotal role to play in broadening, reaching out, and providing educational opportunities to all. The Wits FDE is one of these.

The Wits FDE programme
The programme is aimed at teachers like myself, who have experience in the classroom. It is offered in mixed mode, so that we can stay in the classroom while studying and try out the ideas suggested. Students currently enrolled on the programme come from six of the nine provinces.

Course Materials
The major way in which we understand the content of the course is through course materials. What I appreciate about the course material is the no-holds-barred approach, which packs a powerful punch that takes apart the whimpering of academic sloganeering.

The course materials are not littered with outdated and tired debate buzzwords, which pit the so-called traditional methods against the modern methods whose purposes and meanings are not interrogated beyond their superficialities.

The materials use an interactive approach, and their key feature is an integrated experience-based and reflective approach to language teaching. Leading up to the assignments, there is a very clear interconnectedness, which enables one to cope with the assignments.

Residential sessions
There are residential sessions of four or five days in each vacation, and they assist us to understand concepts and processes described in the materials. They also provide an opportunity for the modelling of methods suggested in the course materials.

Study partners
It is well-documented that the teaching profession is amongst the last vocations where it is still legitimate to work by yourself in a space that is secure against invaders - the state of professional isolation, working alone, aside from one’s colleagues. In contrast to this, the Wits FDE programme tries to encourage teachers to have a sense of collegiality. Students work with study partners to complete assignments and even examinations.

Assignments
The very nature of the assignments themselves does not allow for any cutting of corners: one cannot cheat one’s way out. Evidence of pupils’ work is often required, together with the teacher’s reflection and comments on pupils’ work. Nearly every assignment requires adaptation of a lesson, justification of approach, teaching of the lesson, and reflection on the success or lack of success.

Effect of the programme on my teaching
I now wish to focus on the benefits that I personally - and undoubtedly the learners entrusted to me - have gained.

Let me state that I am a product of the authoritarian era of apartheid. I received my teacher training during the height of the apartheid hegemony. An ideal classroom situation, according to the school of thought prevailing then, was a classroom which was characterized by ‘passivity’, whereby a teacher expected total silence from the learners and they could only speak or respond when spoken to.
On a personal level, I will admit that I have had the reputation of being a very strict, rigid, no-nonsense, hard-nosed English teacher who demands - true to his tradition - pseudo-military attention from the learners when conducting lessons.
Since I have been involved in the FDE course with Wits University, I am gradually shedding this dogmatic image. This has personally caused me to view my learners differently, and get to know about the learning process itself and how learners learn. I can now audaciously say that at least I know how learners learn.
I am now able to look beyond my learners’ subject matter abilities, and appreciate the various social, cultural, economical, and political contexts from which they come and that they bring into the classroom.
I have also come to appreciate that they are not empty vessels who only receive knowledge. The schemata they bring into the classroom require me to refine and remould so that it is congruent with the demands of today’s curriculum.
I have also learned to conduct real group work activities, not just group work for its own sake that involves re-arranging desks and then barking orders in the form of tasks to the pupils.
The group work activities that I conduct take into account a number of key issues like different abilities, gender, different levels of difficulty of the task at hand, and seeking to eradicate myopic stereotypes, such as that certain fields of study are meant for specific genders and race groupings.
As an English teacher, I no longer shy away from allowing my students to use their various main languages during discussions. I use their main language as a resource for the target language, without fear of ‘adulterating’ either their languages or the target language. As one lady once put it:

‘Any language worth its salt is a living dynamic entity with a soul and character that is blissfully immune to the tinkering of cranks, bores, fops and fundis and other kinds of linguistic do-gooders who fondly believe that they can alter its relentless course’.1

Such a move has opened up a fluidity in my lessons that never existed before. This was the beginning of liberation for my learners, from the bondage of silence to the freedom to speak.
I do not want to sound like I am blowing my own trumpet, but I can say with a measure of confidence that, in my school, the idea of team teaching is being encouraged and practised. In my school, a collaborative culture exists. It is sustainable through our tenacious and visionary school principal. She does not protect and defend failure and uncertainty, she brings these things to the fore with a view to gaining help and support.
It was therefore no wonder that, in September this year, my principal received a mayor’s award as Principal of the Year. At the same function, I was personally awarded for producing the best English results in the entire district of Benoni/Brakpan.
So inspired was I with the Wits FDE course material that I even drafted my school a mission statement. There had been no mission statement before, so this was my initiative for our school to have something to work towards, something that epitomizes our academic record and high esteem in the eyes of our community that we serve. It has now been ratified and adopted by the school’s governing body.

1Angus Rose, 1987, Natal Witness