Towards Advising for Language Teaching: Expanding our Understanding of Language Advising

Eduardo Castro, Federal University of Viçosa/CAPES, Brazil

Castro, E. (2019). Towards advising for language teaching: Expanding our understanding of language advising. Relay Journal, 2(2), 404-408. https://doi.org/10.37237/relay/020214

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Navigating between language advising and language teaching

I first became aware of advising in language learning when I was a freshman undergraduate student. At that time, as part of a learning project developed in a university course, advising was offered for language learners in situation of socioeconomic vulnerability. It turned out to be a very positive experience for me due to the feedback I received from the advisees with whom I worked. From this experience, I soon realized that language advising was a way of transforming learning trajectories as it empowered learners through a reflective dialogue. I then joined a research group that centered their efforts in fostering autonomy through language advising (see Magno e Silva, 2017), but differently from my research fellows, I was first a language advisor before becoming a language teacher.

In the language classroom, I could not help but wonder how to integrate some advising skills (Kelly, 1996) into my teaching practice. Besides my best efforts as a pre-service language teacher, I struggled to reconcile these ideas with a strict syllabus that little fostered learner autonomy. I felt, however, that encouraging learner autonomy was part of my teacher identity and therefore could not avoid looking for opportunities for maneuvers in my classroom. I would, for example, encourage students to set learning goals, negotiate with them actions to be employed in order to achieve these goals, take a moment in class to evaluate their action plans. My main concern at that time was to create an environment for students to be protagonists of their learning and to foster reflection of their language learning trajectories—a concern I had due to my prior language advising experience.

The reason why I have just briefly narrated my experience in language advising and language teaching is to highlight how they are intrinsically related, perhaps in ways that we still do not know. In this text, I intend to reflect on the nature of language advising and to explore some possibilities for language teacher education.

From advising in language learning towards advising in language teaching

Advising in language learning has been developed in several parts of the world, usually in the framework of self-access centers set at university contexts. It is a practice that aims to promote learner autonomy through a reflective dialogue (Kato & Mynard, 2016). Currently, there is substantial evidence on how language advising helps learners to achieve their learning goals, by providing a welcoming environment to address their aspirations and learning limitations (e.g., Castro & Magno e Silva, 2016; Magno e Silva, Matos, & Rabelo, 2015, among others).

Studies of this kind address advising in language learning, but there seems to be a growing body of literature which now address advising in language teaching in three promising directions. Firstly, few studies consider language advising as in-service language teachers’ professional development. In this regard, I refer to Nonato’s (2014) study which investigated how language advising could help EFL teachers in Brazilian state schools to become more autonomous in their teaching practices. Through an action-research study, the author observed that the teacher-advisees became more critical regarding their teaching practices, as well as aware of their beliefs about language learning and teaching. This reflection led them to create strategies to act upon in order to improve their linguistic competence and to invest in their professional development.

Secondly, some studies focus on pre-service language teachers, as Morhy’s (2015), Castro and Magno e Silva’s (2016), and Castro’s (2018). In these contributions, through distinct qualitative longitudinal case studies, language learners’ trajectories were investigated from a complexity perspective. In the first study, Morhy (2015) highlighted that discussions regarding her advisee’s L2 teacher self were recurring in advising sessions. Similarly, Castro and Magno e Silva (2016) contended that language advising helped the advisee to strengthen her L2 teacher self. As likewise, Castro (2018) concluded that “language advising influence the emerging fractal identity of a pre-service L2 language teacher” (p. 146). It is important to note that these studies focus on the person as a language learner, not as a language teacher.

Thirdly, the final set of studies addressing language advising in language teaching refers to those that focus on language advisors-teachers. In this respect, Magno e Silva (2016) investigated how language advising influenced language advisors themselves. The author concluded that language advising affected the advisors’ teaching practices as they became more attentive to their learners’ needs and individual trajectories. In turn, Tassinari (2017) investigated how language advisors perceive themselves and concluded that “advising practice has changed the way they [advisors] teach” (p. 330). The main argument underlying the interest of investigating advisors as teachers is that “once a teacher assumes the role of an adviser, it is hard not to be deeply influenced by it, resulting in a transformation of his/her way of teaching” (Borges & Silva, 2019, p. 11).

It is apparent that many of the contexts where language advising has been researched covers issues related not only to language learning but also to language teaching in different levels of practice. I believe that exploring the influences of language advising on advisors’ self-perceived teaching practices will attract more attention in the near future. I coincide with Borges and Magno e Silva (2019) when they contend that advisors “tend to have a systemic view of the learner, using contexts as part of their learning experience and facilitating the occurrence of affordances to bring learners to live up to their expectancies” (p. 11). However, more research focusing on how language advising transforms pre-service and in-service teacher practices is needed. If we consider advising as “the process of helping someone to become an effective, aware, and reflective” (Kato & Mynard, 2016, p. 1) person, then it is necessary to understand in what way such reflection and awareness relates to one’s emergent and actual language teacher identities.

Future developments and research directions

In an earlier work, I observed that “previous research on advising has primarily focused on the learner self, rather than on how it might influence language learners who are becoming language teachers” (Castro, 2018, p. 146), and I pointed out that this would be a future research direction. As a person who has experienced how language advising dialogues with my own teaching practices, I would like to see more studies that bring together these two dimensions. In terms of research methodology, it would be interesting to explore narratives of advisors/pre-service teachers, both written (as in Tassinari, 2017) and visual ones. Furthermore, for those who have been advised and are now language teachers, it would be pleasing to read their experiences through auto-ethnography, as it may be a fruitful way to explore their own identities and practices.

As a final note, I would not like to conclude without first suggesting a couple of questions to be addressed in future studies: (a) How does language advising influence pre-service language teachers’ identities? (b) How does language advising transform pre-service language teachers’ teaching practices? By pre-service language teachers, I mean both individuals in a teacher-training programs and students who plan to be teachers one day. I would be curious to read the answers as they will help us expand our understanding of language advising in the framework of language teaching.

 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jhonatan Rabelo for his comments on an earlier draft of this article. My thanks also go to the editors of this issue, Phillip Bennett and Maria Giovanna Tassinari, for their comments.

 Notes on the Contributor

Eduardo Castro is currently a graduate student of the MSc Applied Linguistics Program at Federal University of Viçosa, Brazil. His research interests include the psychology of language learning and teaching, with a particular focus on motivation, agency, and emotions using a complexity-informed approach.

References

Borges, E. F. do V., & Magno e Silva, W. (2019). The emergence of the additional language teacher/adviser under the complexity paradigm. DELTA: Documentação de Estudos Em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada, 35(3). https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-460×2019350308

Castro, E. (2018). Complex adaptive systems, language advising, and motivation: A longitudinal case study with a Brazilian student of English. System, 74, 138–148. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.004

Castro, E., & Magno e Silva, W. (2016). O efeito do aconselhamento na trajetória de aprendizagem de uma estudante de inglês. In W. Magno e Silva & E. F. do V. Borges (Eds.), Complexidade em ambientes de ensino e aprendizagem de línguas adicionais (pp. 139–158). Curitiba: Editora CRV.

Kato, S., & Mynard, J. (2016). Reflective dialogue: Advising in language learning. London: Routlegde.

Kelly, R. (1996). Language counselling for learner autonomy: The skilled helper in self-access language learning. In R. Pemberton, E. S. L. Li, W. W. F. Or, & H. D. Pierson (Eds.), Taking control: Autonomy in language learning (pp. 93–113). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Magno e Silva, W. (2016). Conselheiros linguageiros como potenciais perturbadores de suas próprias trajetórias no sistema de aprendizagem. In W. Magno e Silva & E. F. do V. Borges (Eds.), Complexidade em ambientes de ensino e aprendizagem de línguas adicionais (pp. 199–221). Curitiba: CRV.

Magno e Silva, W. (2017). The role of self-access centers in foreign language learners autonomization. In C. Nicolaides & W. Magno e Silva (Eds.), Innovations and challenges in applied linguistics and learner autonomy (pp. 183–208). Campinas: Pontes.

Magno e Silva, W., Matos, M. C. V. S. e, & Rabelo, J. A. de A. (2015). Trajetórias de aprendizagem, aconselhamento linguageiro e teoria da complexidade. Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada, 15(3), 681–710. https://doi.org/10.1590/1984-639820156336

Morhy, S. S. (2015). A influência do aconselhamento linguageiro na trajetória de uma aluna de Letras-Inglês. Universidade Federal do Pará.

Nonato, R. S. (2014). O aconselhamento linguageiro como forma de intervenção e formação docente. Universidade Federal do Pará.

Tassinari, M. G. (2017). How language advisors perceive themselves: Exploring a role through narratives. In C. Nicolaides & W. Magno e Silva (Eds.), Innovations and challenges in applied linguistics and learner autonomy (pp. 305–336). Campinas: Pontes.