IELTS Research Reports

Learning to play the ‘classroom tennis’ well:IELTS and international students in teacher educationThis research has shown a strong emphasis being placed by both students interviewed and academicson the importance of listening comprehension, to ‘playing the classroom tennis’– that is, beingcomfortable enough in English to be able to respond reasonably quickly and appropriately in spokenclassroom exchange. Writing and speaking and questions-to-be-asked can be prepared in advance, butlistening and responding appropriately and ‘in time’ cannot. Elder has suggested that ‘special attentionbe given to listening scores in selecting applicants for teacher education’(Elder, 1993b, p 83). Wewould concur and we would point out the tendency revealed in Tables 1, 2 and 3 above for listeningto be relatively undervalued in IELTS entry scores (with the ACU, Sydney and Flinders Universitiesthe exceptions). We would also add that listening should be also an area of particular concentration forstudent support within the course.Courses do need to deal openly with the perspectives that students bring with them about appropriateteaching practices, where these are markedly different from local pedagogical practices. However, itis true of both LBOTE and native-English-speaking student teachers that their perceptions of teachingare related to how their beliefs about teaching/learning were formed in their schooling (Spooner-Laneet al, 2007), and these need to be analysed and critiqued in all cases to develop a deeper awareness ofthe complexities of teaching and learning. As one interviewee argued, this means making ‘our practicea basis of conversations with our students’.The reverse side of this coin is that courses also need to recognise and build on the funds of knowledgeLBOTE students bring with them. Ryan and Viete, as shown earlier (2009, p 304), point to the absenceof reciprocity or mutuality in learning across intellectual cultures and to an undervaluing of LBOTEstudents’ knowledge. LBOTE students present opportunities for engaging different educationalcultures, intellectual heritages and transnational knowledge networks. A little explored issue in theinternationalisation of Australian higher education is the prospects for knowledge exchange usingthe intellectual resources LBOTE/international students have gained, or have access to, from theirhomeland. Further research in this area is needed to disrupt the construction of LBOTE students,especially from developing countries, as ‘deficient’ and requiring ‘remedial’ education. Such researchis needed to contribute to the debate over international students’ knowledge being ignored. This is nota question of idealistically or simplistically ignoring the reality that students are being asked to teachin schools which are not going to change overnight to accommodate them. It raises questions abouthow one prepares teachers with a different set of capabilities, needs, demands and social capital fromlocal students. It is partly a question of seeking out the funds of knowledge which they bring withthem and inquiring into the pedagogical cultures with which they are familiar in order to ask whatthose funds of knowledge and what those cultures have to say about the kinds of issues which theyface in their teaching – looking, as one of our interviewees argued, ‘at linguistic diversity as a benefitrather than a deficit’.IELTS Research Reports Volume 11121