An edited version of the letter below was published in The Australian on Thursday 8 September 2016. It had been submitted in response to an opinion piece by Jennifer Buckingham in the previous day's edition.
The paper used the heading "Teaching directions" and edited the submitted version by deleting the underlined words and adding those shown in brackets.
Explicit instruction in teacher preparation
Jennifer Buckingham implies that explicit instruction is not taught in education faculties in Australia's universities ("The case for education based on what works", 7 Sep).
She (Dr Buckingham) doesn't explain what data she bases this generalization on, but it doesn't gel with my recent lived experience. I am a retired high school English teacher and department head who now works part-time as a sessional tutor in the School of Education at The University of Queensland (University).
Explicit teaching/instruction is certainly stressed in the courses for prospective secondary English teachers in which I have taught for the last (past) few years. I also appreciate the potential of inquiry learning in appropriate situations, but have never been given any direction that it has to be favoured.
Garry Collins
Tags: Teacher education |
May Masterclass 2021THE CHALLENGE OF TEACHING ANALYSIS: DO WE NEED TO CHANGE OUR PRACTICES? Teaching the process of analysing texts in order for students to produce a spoken or written response remains amongst the most exciting and difficult challenges we face as a community of English teachers. Most recently, the high-stakes nature of unseen examinations fo... |
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JCU SpectacularJoin Dr Claire Hansen for a two-hour session on teaching Macbeth. We'll dive into an exploration of the language of Macbeth and teaching strategies to engage students with Shakespeare's Scottish play. The workshop will also explore learning activities for Macbeth created by the Shakespeare Reloaded project. This session will... |
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Grammar DayA grammar workshop will be held at Elanora State High School on Saturday 29 May 2021 to assist attendees to develop their understandings of grammar in order to fully comprehend and to effectively teach the Australia Curriculum: English (AC:E). Also highly relevant to Years 11 & 12. This will be an updated re-run of the activity ... |
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Teacher event - external assessmentThe second series of pre-external examination events will be held for teachers on Saturday 31 July as a face-to-face event and online. Recorded materials will remain available to all participants online until the examination week in October. Date Claimer giving further information is available for download ... |
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Student event - external assessmentFlexible modes of delivery will allow you and your students to engage with the materials at a time that suits you. Once again this event will be fully online to cater for all members and their students. This year the materials will come to you live in the afternoon of Wednesday 8 September and again in the morning of Saturda... |
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This is the first time I have been to an ETAQ conference and it was really sensational to get so much at all of the sessions.
ETAQ conferences always have sessions that make me excited to be a teacher.
I know that ETAQ conferences in the past have never disappointed - valuable, relevant, practical, inspiring so I came again.
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