Читать книгу The Art of Foreign Language Teaching - Peter Lutzker - Страница 44

In both Anglo-American as well as in German pedagogical literature there has been an acknowledged lack of empirical research devoted to assessing the effectiveness of both pre-service and in-service language teacher education programs despite compelling reasons for doing so.207 In the following study of the clowning and improvisation courses which Vivian Gladwell has regularly given for Steiner Schools language teachers since 1996, the attempt will be made to establish a well-grounded basis for assessing the meaning of this work. Although there is always verbal and sometimes written feedback given at the end of each of his courses, there have been no attempts made to collect and evaluate this data in a systematic way. Moreover, there is often little time or opportunity on the last day of a workshop to write more sustained comments. There has also been no research conducted until now designed to give participants the chance to reflect on these workshops, weeks, months, or years later. Hence, a critical and decisive question in evaluating any in-service training – What has a course meant in regard to a teacher’s further development? – has not been addressed in a systematic manner. This empirical study will attempt to redress that deficit.