From spectator to composer: The roses and rocks in the life of a language teacher

Abstract

The growing need for professional development requires the language teachers not to be mere consumers of commercial instructional materials or implementers of sets of mandated or recommended techniques, but to attempt to generate their own classroom materials, seek innovative pedagogical approaches, explore the contexts in which their designed practice is embedded, and become self-critics of their own personal and professional lives. The present article is a self-narrative of moments of epiphanies that an Iranian English teacher and materials developer began to experience over a period of 18 months during which she could see herself moving from a spectatorship position to that of a composership. Benefiting from the guidance and consultations of English Language Teaching (ELT), Persian Literature, and Islamic History advisors, the teacher commenced a journey towards abandoning text-book defined routine practices and attempted for adapting literary works of art (mainly the ones deriving their roots in Persian classic mystic and epic literature) and designing reflective classroom activities instead. Reflecting on self and documenting the events narratively made the teacher come face to face with a number of long-held teaching assumptions and practices (or even nostrums) that she had overlooked or avoided in the past. In light of interplay of internal driving forces and external forces she began to see herself transforming from being an orchestrator in classroom conduct to a self-vocalist. This was accompanied by moving from the domain of words to the realm of non-words and worlds, and from fragmented practices to more interconnected ones. It is hoped that the narrated experiences and overt or covert challenges embedded within them would be instrumental to those other teachers interested in similar expeditions of self-inquiry.