In the light of this, the Independent Examinations Board (IEB) commissioned a benchmarking study undertaken by the United Kingdom’s National Agency (NARIC), which provides comparison information on international education and qualifications.

The report, published in May 2010, found that ‘the features of the NSC indicate a qualification with an underlying level that is both robust and fit for the purposes of examination senior secondary school levels’ and that ‘[i]n terms of the qualification’s comparability, the report concludes that the National Senior Certificate at Grade 12 is broadly comparable to the GCE A-S level’.

This is certainly good news and has been greeted with a generally positive response. Umalusi (the statutory body which sets and monitors standards for the GET and FET in South Africa ), stated that it is to be welcomed that this report, along with one of their own, reflects ‘positively on the new South African matric qualification’. Professor Crain Soudien, Deputy Vice Chancellor of UCT and Chairman of the IEB, said that he was ‘pleased with the outcome of the evaluation … as it re-assures South Africans that the new National Senior Certificate and its underpinning curriculum are recognized to be of an international standard by a credible organization’.

Not all, however, are convinced. In the first place, it has been pointed out that the report does not necessarily show, as the media release regarding the publication of the report that the NSC ‘shows SA’s National Senior Certificate compares favourably with international standards’: is shows only that it compares with the UK’s GCE A-S level.

Secondly, as one critic pointed out, the report is ‘misleading’ because it implies that it is a good preparation for higher education, whereas in fact the National Benchmarking Test, used by many of South Africa’s universities and universities of technology to assess prospective students, shows that there is no correlation between good marks achieved by candidates for the NSC and the success of students at university.

Thirdly, there was a great deal of scepticism about what happened during the marking process in 2008.  One can have a good standard paper, but if the marking is lenient for ‘cooked’, it can skew the results At the time, I tried to get the then-DoE to respond to some of the queries, but without success.  So I published an article entitled ‘More Questions than Answers’.  Here are some of the unanswered questions:

• The DA claimed that they had been approached by two teachers, one of whom had informed them that colleagues who were marking Maths and Science papers had been told to increase the marks of weaker Matric candidates – for example, boosting marks of 20% to 30% – which is a pass.  Is this true?
• Besides the allegations of boosting marks attained, there were also questions raised about the marking memos which seemed to favour the weaker candidates. For example, it was reported that a candidate who answered a question in History could not, in terms of the marking grid, get 0 – even if he/she had written nonsense. This is not how the official grid works. So how did this happen?  Where was the decision  made— at national, provincial, or marking centre level?  If not national or provincial, are these authorities aware of the decision?
• We were similarly informed by markers in one province that, in English Home Language, a candidate could not get below 6 out of 25 (i.e. 24%) for a setwork essay. This would mean that a candidate only actually had to get 16% in terms of real content to achieve a pass of 40% – (i.e. 6 marks’ worth of sense).  We were  also informed that, when marking the letter in the written work paper, markers were instructed to ignore the format and just mark on content. While content is the key aspect, the format is also important. This is not what the memo says. Is this true?

Many people are also concerned about the adjustments made at Umalusi level. Having experienced the process, I can say that this is misplaced concern, for the following reasons:

• Umalusi is an independent body – it does not answer to the education authorities.
• It operates within parameters (e.g. the range of adjustment that may be may be made).
• Adjustments are made according to previous norms (admittedly not really available for the first round, but there were previous norms that could serve as guidelines).
• The adjustments have been all the years – not just now – for the simple reason that one cannot guarantee that the paper is exactly of the same standard from year to year.
• Downward adjustments are also made.

In the light of the above, one can feel confident that the papers are at least on a par with the British GCE A-S level.  But is this as positive as it seems?  Besides the unanswered queries about the marking, it needs also to be noted that there are critics in the UK who maintain that the British papers have been ‘dumbed down’ – in which case, while we can take comfort that our standards are not rock bottom, we can hardly be proud to that our papers compare favourably with their papers. It is clear that much more research needs to be down before we can boast of our the high standard of our examinations and curriculum.

It is now being proposed that principals should not be required to teach.  This raises the question: Is this a good idea?

I think not.

Why?

I believe that principals who do not teach lose touch with the following:

The children in the school: Principals who teach have regular contact with learners in class. This means that they also keep up personally with the changes in the youth in term of attitudes and interests, as well as disciplinary trends.

The curriculum: Principals who want to be effective instructional leaders need to know how the curriculum works and to keep up to date with changes, both in terms of their own subjects and in terms of the general characteristics of the curriculum.  This means that they are able to provide guidance on teaching methods and implementation of the curriculum.

The teachers: Principals who do not teach lose out on contact with teachers at an academic level. It also means that they do not understand the frustrations of teachers in terms of disciplinary issues and the excessive demands of the curriculum.

The evaluation system: When non-teaching principals do evaluations, they do not have the credibility of those who do teach. Their teachers are wont to ask, ‘What does he/she know?  He/she hasn’t been in the classroom for years!’

The parent community: By teaching, the principal has – as do other teachers – direct contact with parents about their children’s progress.  Their image in the community is also enhanced if they are known to be effective teachers themselves and are able to understand more fully the concerns which parents may raise about their children or about their children’s teachers.

From a personal point of view, I always felt that I would not be fulfilled in my job if I did not continue to teach – so I did so throughout my 22 years as a principal, mostly teaching English to Grades 11 and 12. I entered the teaching profession to teach. I always felt, however, that I did not ‘just want to remain a teacher’, as I had a great interest in management and leadership.  However, I also believed that I never wanted to be ‘just a principal’. I looked for a combination of both.

I can understand the argument that, because the job of the principal has become more and more demanding in recent years, the requirement that he/she should also teach is demanding much of the principal. But an effective principal should be able to organise his/her school and delegate jobs in order to be able to continue to teach.

So: Should principals teach?  I say yes – definitely. I like to remember that the term ‘principal’ is actually a shortened version of the original term ‘principal teacher’ – known as ‘head teacher’ in the UK. I believe that the principal should be the ‘principal’ or ‘main’ teacher in his/her school.

By doing so, I believe that a principal who continues to teach will not only get more job satisfaction but also be able to be a more effective leader in his/her school.

This is based on brain theories: The consensus among cognitive scientists (since B F Skinner) is that the mind seeks to find meaning, which is done through patterning. To achieve this, the mind must be active during the learning process.

This contrasts with the ‘factory model’ of education:

The experts draw up the knowledge; the teachers transmit it; the learners regurgitate it. Learners are passive recipients of knowledge.

The National Curriculum Statement picks up on this:

• The Critical Outcomes require learners to ‘identify and solve problems and make decisions using critical and creative thinking’ (p2).
• The kind of learner envisaged must ‘demonstrate an ability to think logically and analytically, as well has holistically and laterally’ (p2).

The value of this approach is that

• more effective learning takes place – learners internalise material as opposed to absorbing it holus-bolus – therefore they understand it better, remember it better and can better apply the learning;
• learners develop critical thinking and transfer skills because they have to reason their way through the work.

One of the most important ways of teaching interactively is to use effective questioning techniques.

Here are some guides regarding successful questioning techniques:

• Avoid answering the question for the learners.
• Ask learners to ‘unpack’ their answers by describing their line of reasoning and arriving at their answer. In effect, they have to ‘think aloud’.
• Do not immediately indicate if an answer is wrong. Get the learner to explain why he/she gave a particular answer. Often they will discover for themselves where they went wrong.
• Provide sufficient ‘thinking time’ after asking a question to which a well-considered answer is required. (Too often a response is demanded almost immediately, which encourages superficial answers.)
• Delay your reaction to answers sometimes in order to stimulate further thinking and more diverse answers. Or play Devil’s Advocate and require learners to substantiate their answers to questions and defend their reasoning against other points of view.
• Where learners are struggling to answer difficult questions, consider using multiple-choice questions – formal or informal. (Do you think A, B or C? Why?)  Or use the ‘think-pair-share’ technique – where no one seems to have an answer (involves the whole class first thinking on their own, then discussing with a partners, followed by feedback from the class).
• Involve other learners: Before responding to a learner’s answer yourself, ask other learners if they agree or not, and why.  Or ask another learner to summarise a learner’s viewpoint – this encourages active listening and cooperative learning.
• Ensure that some of your questions go beyond mere recall of facts; and that some are open-ended.
• Draw threads together – especially if there have been diverse answers – otherwise learners can feel confused.

Two pre-requisites for successful questioning techniques:

• Non-threatening atmosphere: This requires the teacher to be sensitive and learners to be called upon to respect each other.  Learners must feel free to give wrong answers.
• Ensuring that all are on board:  If a learner speaks softly, repeat answer for all to hear; make sure that learners do not talk while another learner is answering a question. The class must get the idea that all are involved in the give-and-take and not just the learners who happen to be answering questions.

‘This makes it extremely difficult for teachers to “extract” and sequence specific content. And, because the skills and competences are also often not clear, it makes it difficult for teachers to identify WHAT they have to teach. The ASs (wrongly) place the emphasis on the notion of an AS as a discrete “thing” that can be taught, assessed and reported against. Hence provincial officials demanding that teachers record learner performance against the ASs! ‘

Great news! One of the biggest banes of teachers’ lives has been having to pretend that they teach and assess according to the ASs. So you are not meant to say, ‘I’m going to teach this poem’ or ‘I’m going to teach fractions’. Heaven forbid! You are meant to say, ‘What AS shall I teach next?  I think it’s time for AS 12.3 or 2.8.’ Then you are meant to follow this up with a further question: ‘Now that I’ve chosen my AS, what shall I use to teach this AS? Well, I could teach a poem (one from the prescribed list).’ Humbug! You have your list of poems – in the same way you have the content that you need to teach in Maths – and that’s where you start, using – if they are of any value – the ASs to guide you regarding this.

But there’s more! The officious officials from the Department added further demands. Work Schedules and Subject/Learning Programmes (the latter now mercifully abolished – I sincerely hope those same officials have taken note) had to be drafted in terms of these asinine items, instead of starting with what has to be taught and then, once again, if helpful, using the ASs to guide one here.

But there’s even more! The bureaucratic district despots also insisted that lesson plans be littered with ASs – which, if teachers bothered to do (if only for WSE visits) – would be shoved in to no purpose. I have seen many lesson plans which contain these but where the teacher never refers to them. Far better – if the teacher is still inexperienced – would be to jot down what he/she hopes to achieve in a lesson. I recently gave my English Method students at Stellenbosch University the following example when planning to teach a poem:

WHAT LEARNERS ARE MEANT TO LEARN / ACHIEVE FROM THE LESSON

Specific:

1. Understand the poem.
2. Be able to answer questions on the poem – demonstrate understanding.
3. Understand how poetry works, for example, understanding that poetry is not necessarily rhymed or has a set metre – what makes this poem a poem?
4. Understand how to analyse a poem.

General:

1. Understand the effects of apartheid better.
2. Develop critical thinking by asking learners.
3. Develop ability to substantiate answers by reference to a text.
4. Develop ability to use appropriate language for formal contexts.
5. Improve reading ability and language usage generally.
6. Understand the concept of ‘connotation’.

This is far more helpful than a list of ASs. At least the teacher is called upon to adopt a focused approach, to think about what they are hoping to achieve with their learners, rather than merely to go to class simply ‘to teach the poem’. At any rate, as I understand the Curriculum Minute issued by the DoBE, lesson plans are no longer required as formal documents – the list of items to be included in the ‘teacher’s file’ does not mention this.

And then there was also the demand that teachers should record learner assessment against the ASs – a nonsense expectation.

So the ASs are to be shipped off to the abattoir hopefully by 2011. What do we do in the meantime? Well, they remain part of policy, but surely if they have been condemned, it would be foolish to follow them dutifully. Surely teachers as professionals should be allowed to use them as a rough guideline where necessary, but not to have to list them or assess against them. Leave them to plan, teach and assess in a meaningful way which involves deciding what to teach, how to teach it – and with what goals in mind – and then how to assess it in terms of those goals. This is how Sue Müller put it to me when I raised this issue with her:

I take your point about the so-called ‘Assessment Standards’ that, mostly, describe activities and have very little to do with assessing learner performance. Remember that it is NOT national policy to ‘assess the ASs’, nor to report against them. However, the subject or Learning Area content is sometimes embedded in the ASs and without them some subjects / LAs would be devoid of content or knowledge. This varies across subjects / LAs.  Where they are awkward, where they make little sense or where they do not include embedded subject / LA  knowledge, it would make no sense to adhere to them rigidly especially as learner performance cannot be reported against them.

I would advise teachers to check with subject advisors first and not to deviate too much from what they have been doing up till now as the new Curriculum and Assessment Policy does not yet exist. However, they should NOT be assessing individual Assessment Standards nor should they be attempting to report learner performance against individual ASs.

The key point to teachers is: Say NO to bullying by departmental officials on the slavish adherence to the ASs! Let them make asses of themselves if they want to, but don’t join them.

Years ago, I came home with a delightful little book entitled Bureaucrats: How to Annoy Them. The author, who loathes bureaucrats with a deep, deep loathing , relates some hilarious tales about how he set out to annoy British bureaucrats – a sort of revenge saga. Knowing that I have similar sentiments about these people, my wife’s comment was, ‘You don’t need that book!’

There are many others who share our feelings. One such is Rick Bayan, who describes ‘bureaucracy’ and ‘bureaucrats’ in his Cynic’s Dictionary as follows:

Bureaucracy A stubborn clog in the sewer pipe of government.

Bureaucrat The mole-like creature who enjoys lifelong job security and a generous pension for making sure the pipe stays clogged.

To this should be added the fact that they have a penchant for being officious, demanding that things be done to suit themselves. In the context of teaching, this means that they expect teachers to work in such a way that it is easy to monitor what teachers do in terms of check-lists and piles of paperwork – rather than in terms of ensuring that they teach effectively and that their pupils learn effectively. All of this done, of course, in a meticulously prescriptive manner.

So they will demand that a school do things their way, even if the school is functioning perfectly. They will, for example, criticise a school which does not have a Finance Committee, even though the Governing Body, which acts as a Finance Committee, is doing a splendid job of managing the school’s finances.  They will berate the school for not have a Learner and Teacher Support Material (LTSM) Committee, despite the fact that it has a group of people who act as co-ordinators for textbooks, stationery, audio-visual equipment, all very efficient, but who commit the sin of not meeting together to say things like, ‘Hi, how’s it going with your textbooks?  I’m doing a great job with my stationery orders.’ They will rip teachers apart because they do not have ‘written reflection’ on their lessons – even though they are clearly great teachers, and despite the fact that nowhere is it written anywhere in policy that they have to reflect in writing (but, let’s face it, how else can the poor bureaucrats know otherwise? – they might have to observe the teacher properly!).  They expect teachers to list all sorts of things in their lesson plans; and, even if the lesson is great, they slam them for not doing the paper job ‘correctly’. Clearly, they have never of the saying that the proof of the pudding is in the eating!  Then they demand that all the assessment tasks are nicely assembled in portfolios – with an index indicating what is what (as if they can’t work out, for example, that, in a language portfolio, a letter is a letter is a letter).  Possibly the worst is that they prescribe certain teaching methods without any scientific grounds that they are the only ones that work. And so on, and so on ….

In an article by Lorna Bannantyne published in an earlier edition of The Teachers Monthly entitled ‘The Demise of Paperwork’, she portrays the mindset of the education bureaucrats perfectly – demand paper trails and compliance with the letter of the law– and to hell with whether you are doing anything worthwhile in the process!

Dr Richard Hayward, in his editorial to most recent edition of Quality Education News (which can be accessed at www.saqi.co.za), raises the question of how to attract ‘our finest young people to become teachers’. He comments as follows:

In Scandinavian countries teaching is a much-sought-after profession. Why? Salaries are good; the professional and academic training is thorough and teachers are highly regarded in society. Also, the profession is treated professionally. Teachers are given the freedom and space to teach the curriculum as they deem most suitable to the unique set of youngsters found in every class. Prescription to the smallest detail by education officials is out; professional autonomy is in.

So, yes, this can’t apply to all teachers or schools. The department needs to hound those who do not do what is required of them.  But why so the same when schools and teachers are producing the goods?

The Minister of Basic Education recently announced that, as a result of a review of the curriculum, some of the bureaucratic constraints are due to be abolished. The question, however, is whether those who clog the pipeline will take cognisance of this.  I’ve heard that one provincial representative who attended the meeting where the Minister announced the changes was very troubled. ‘But how will we be able monitor then?’ was her plaintive cry. Teachers will need to stand up against departmental officials – be they curriculum advisors or WSE supervisors – who continue to wear their bureaucratic caps with ever-misguided fervour.

Hey bureaucrat, leave them teachers alone!

v  The Critical Outcomes require learners to ‘identify and solve problems and make decisions using critical and creative thinking’ (p2).

v  The ‘kind of learner envisaged’ must ‘demonstrate an ability to think logically and analytically, as well has holistically and laterally’ (p2).

The question is: How does the teacher put this into practice? One way is to use what I call the ‘guess-and-test’ method: Get learners to guess answers and then to test their answers, arriving at a conclusion that they were right or wrong, and being able to justify their conclusion. This is, in effect, the procedure used in dealing with everyday problems, in making professional or mechanical judgements and in conducting scientific and academic research. Let’s look at examples of each of these:

Everyday situation: The pool is going green. Guess: Not enough chlorine. Test: Put in more chlorine. Result: No change. Guess again: Not enough acid for the chlorine to take effect. Test: Put in some acid. Test: Check colour of pool. Result: No more green! Conclusion: Not enough acid.

Mechanical judgement: The car won’t start. You call in a mechanic. He proceeds as follows: Guess: No petrol. Test: check petrol gauge. Result: There is petrol. Guess again: Battery flat. Test: Try putting on the lights. Result: Lights don’t go on. Conclusion: Battery flat.

Professional judgement: ‘Doctor, I’ve got a pain in my side.’ Doctor’s guess: Appendicitis. Test – the doctor will know. Result: ‘Yes, the results show that you have appendicitis’.

Scientific research: HIV/Aids is taking its toll. How can we help people to live longer? Guess: Give them ARVs. Test: Try out one animals and then later on humans – patients are healthier and live longer. Result: ARVs are the way to go.

Each time, the person involved – the person-in-the street, the motor mechanic, the doctor, the scientist – is considering a multiple-choice list of options based on his/her experience and then testing the guess chosen.

In fancier language, they are all setting up hypotheses and then checking them against given evidence.  This is based on the deductive approach to scientific discovery, which involves starting with a hypothesis based on personal experience, which is then tested by reference to the data. If the data contradicts the hypothesis, then the hypothesis will be modified or discarded completely; if the facts support or at any rate do not contradict the hypothesis, then the hypothesis will be maintained, even though it cannot necessarily be proven from the facts. The hypothesis is therefore accepted as long as no contradictory data comes to light. The ‘proof’ would thus often be a negative one.

As the practitioner becomes more knowledgeable / experienced, he/she will be able to arrive at hypotheses/guesses which are more likely to be correct, knowing which guess to try first.

Back to the classroom. In much the same way, we should encourage learners to accept that it’s not wrong to guess – they are following a hallowed tradition. So, for example, if we ask learners what the word class is of the word ‘English’ in the phrase ‘English team’, very often they don’t know where to begin, so they don’t, or they make wild guesses and wait to be told the correct answer. If, on the other hand, we ask them to guess what they think it is and then to test it, they can be taught how to solve problems. Thus, for example, the learner might say that the word is a noun. The following format could be used for them to pursue their answers:

From this it is clear that the learner needs knowledge to make an educated guess. This method can be used as one works through the definitions of the different word classes and then later when one asks them to label word classes in sentences. It is particularly useful at the second stage. When one is handling a particular concept, learners often know what the correct answer is because that is what they are concentrating on at that time. When, however, one deals with a group of concepts together (in this case the word classes), they don’t know where to begin.

The same approach can be used in other contexts. In the case of English literature, for example, one can ask learners to indicate how the poet feels. The learner can, having read the poem, suggest something which he/she then tests against the text.

For this to work, there needs to be a non-threatening atmosphere in the classroom, where learners feel free to guess without being put down by the teacher or his/her peers. It also means that the teacher must avoid expecting pat answers or indicating immediately whether the given answers are right or wrong, rather allowing the learner time to work through his/her answer.

To illustrate this, let’s look at the requirements for the Further Education and Training (FET – Grades 10 – 11) band:

• In Grades 10 and 11, a language teacher has to mark, as a minimum, 16 pieces of work for each pupil per year, whereas the teachers of other subjects are required to mark between 5 and 8 pieces only, depending on the subject.
• In Grade 12, the respective figures are 14 and between 5 and 7.
• This means that, if a language teacher has five FET classes (averaging, let’s say, 35 – but could be much higher in poorer schools), he/she has to mark about 2600 – 2800 pieces in a year, whereas another subject teacher with five FET classes would have to mark about 1010 – 1225 pieces – less than half.  Add to this the fact that language pieces are more demanding in terms of assessment, as marking them involves more than merely ticking right and wrong but rather weighing up opinions and speculations with fine nuances.

Language teachers should take stand on this:  Either persuade the authorities to reduce the number of pieces, or impress upon school management to give language teachers fewer / smaller classes and/or take into account this heavy load when allocating extra-curricular activities, examination invigilation, etc.

On top of this, language teachers – like all others – are burdened with a huge amount of paperwork which the new curriculum demands.  But here they should avoid falling into the trap of accepting some of the myths that surround these demands.  Here are two of them that need to be knocked:

• Teachers must have a Lesson Plan for every period that they teach.

NONSENSE! Teachers must have Lesson Plans, but these could cover two weeks, four weeks, or even a term.  The NCS ‘Learning Programme Guidelines’ actually states that ’Lesson Plans are not equivalent to periods on the school timetable’ but are rather ‘units of deliverable learning experiences’ (p5). The original RCNS ’Teachers’ Guide’ puts it thus: ’It can consist of a single activity or several activities spread over a few days or a number of weeks (p5).’

• Lesson Plans (and other planning documents) must have the Learning Outcomes (LOs) and Assessment Standards (Ass) written out in full.

NONSENSE! The RCNS document cited above makes the following sensible point: ‘Teachers need to find ways of making the planning process [in general] a more manageable one, so that the process of planning is facilitative rather than being a tedious task. For example, there is not much point in rewriting Learning Outcomes and Assessment Standards each time an activity is developed. Numbering the Assessment Standards and then referring to the numbered Assessment Standards may be easier’ (p5).

Another problem for language teachers is that they need to do much more research in order to teach effectively than their colleagues.  Most other subjects have textbooks which cover almost all that needs to be handled with the pupils, but if you are teaching literature, there is no book which tells you everything – and there are many different views about the literary works that need to be explored.  In this connection, the English Academy is planning to launch a journal for English teachers next year – depending on their obtaining funding for the project.  As the editor for the planned publication, I would welcome feedback from English teachers indicating whether they think this would be of use to them and what they would like to see in such a publication.  Add your comments below.

Stertke! to all you language teachers out there!

One of the demands of OBE is that teaching should be ‘learner-centred’ rather than ‘teacher-/educator-centred’. This is probably one of the main reasons for the failure of OBE.

Before elaborating on the particular problem here, let me say that it is part of a bigger problem – the tendency to operate in terms of a simplistic ‘either-or’ mentality. This approach ignores the fact that real truth is most often found in a ‘both-and’ approach (except in the case of universal values) – what I like to call ‘the power of paradox’. So we find people who argue that capitalism is the only way to go when it comes to the economy, but they are howled down by the advocates of socialism who regard socialism as the basis of utopia. It took many years for people to realise that we need a combination of both, allowing for different economies (or the same economy at different times) to fuse together differing quantities of each.

The same paradox applies to the concepts of Eurocentric and Afrocentric – the one is pitched against the other in this country to suggest how we should think and behave. But this is nonsense – and it is contradicted in practice (e.g. fusion music, cuisine, fashion). Black South Africans have their own traditions, but they have grown up in a country which – whether anyone likes it or not – has been (and will continue to be) influenced by European culture. Similarly, white South Africans are of European descent, but have grown up in a country where they have been (and will continue to be, more and more) exposed to African culture. In other words, we are all cultural hybrids – and we should not only acknowledge but also celebrate this.

To come back to teaching: We should, in similar vein, avoid the extremes of teacher-centred and learner-centred teaching. A purely teacher-centred approach has the disadvantage that learners are not encouraged to explore issues or to arrive at new insights (especially in the humanities) on their own; thus they do not develop their thinking skills. Nor does this approach allow the teacher to be able to use learner feedback to shape the lesson. In the end, learners are not prepared for an examination which demands thinking on the spot.

A purely learner-centred approach, on the other hand, deprives the learners of the teacher’s knowledge and often merely reinforces ignorance or leads to playing rather than learning and superficiality.

Thus the answer is not to reduce the teacher to being a mere ‘facilitator’. There are times when the teacher may indeed play that role, but within the context of the teachers’ knowledge of the subject and the requirements of assessments. There are, however, also times – either in terms of the subject matter, or the level of ability of the class, or because of time constraints – that the teacher will simply teach. We have to allow teachers to combine so-called ‘learner-centred’ teaching with ‘teacher-centred’ teaching, with more emphasis on one or the other as the teacher sees fit.

So let’s stop lambasting teachers for being ‘teacher-centred’ and making them feel guilty if they do what they were trained to do – that is, to teach; and let learners do what they are meant to do – that is, to learn. If effective teaching and learning are occurring, we’re wasting our time and frustrating our teachers by demanding that one particular approach be used exclusively. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, not in the prescribing of particular recipes.