Coddling the Teacher’s Mind : Educational Concepts We Want to Believe In
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | A vast proportion of the practices widely adopted in ELT are ultimately derived from research. Most of these discoveries (e.g. the fact that language is better practised in meaningful contexts rather than in isolation) have solid scholarly support and have become a deeply entrenched part of the canon and thus are often neither explicable nor challenged by the practitioners. On the other hand, some seem to be living their own lives, so to speak. The study critically explores examples of psychological and educational concepts pervading the ELT industry that have not been called into question very much, especially by teacher educators. Examples focused on and addressed in the talk are largely the theory of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983; 2000) and the mindset theory (Dweck, 2006; 2012). Besides a review of a battery of studies dealing with these concepts and their applicability in ELT, I will argue that one of the reasons for their ubiquity might likely be confirmation bias caused by the inherent egalitarian implications of the theories, which render them consonant with the dominant viewpoints of the ELT community. This way, the views run the risk of being uncritically embraced despite their possibly meretricious nature. |
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