Leadership and Values in Language Education - Al Akhawayn ...

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118Proceedings of the 27 th MATE Annual ConferenceAs previously discussed, shared leadership education suggests a view ofcommunication as an integrated, complex, and rich two-way process, shaped by avariety of variables, namely the participants’ expectations and perceptions, whichare, in turn, shaped by their socio-cultural and functional backgrounds, or are theresult of the immediate contest of communication including the setting and thenature of interaction itself. Therefore, shared leadership practice depends not onlyon global leadership competencies, emphasizing the knowledge and abilities tohandle cross-cultural and interpersonal communication with people from diversesocio-cultural and functional backgrounds, but also the competencies and skills tocope with the demands of interaction resulting from the emerging complexities ofthe immediate situation including those that may result from the interaction itselfand its different stages. Consequently, emphasis has been placed on theknowledge and competencies needed to handle cross-cultural and crossfunctionalcommunication, as well as small-group and team-work interactionalskills necessary for effective shared leadership practice. This would apply tosecond and foreign language communication, which is consequently shaped byteachers’ and students’ perceptions and expectation and the classroomenvironment, as well as the nature of communication, participation, power andsocial organization patterns established and the activities designed in a specificclassroom. These variables, among many others, are usually referred to as thedynamics of classroom communication, which is the variety of forces that maycome into play to shape the nature of classroom interaction, including whatKaren; E. Johnson (1995) refers to as classroom communicative competence, andwhich she considers as a prerequisite for students’ successful and effectiveparticipation in classroom interactive communication and events.Classroom communicative competence is then considered as another contributingfactor to the dynamics of classroom communication, which is defined in terms of“students’ knowledge of and competence in the structural, functional, social, andinteractional norms that govern classroom communication” (Johnson, 1995:161).This suggests that the classroom needs to be treated as a specific socioinstitutionalsetting where some particular interactional and socio-culturalconventions are at work. Accordingly, Johnson assumes that students’ awarenessand understanding of these interactional conventions would enhance theirparticipation in interactive classroom communication. Moreover, she argues thatin order to motivate students’ successful involvement in interactivecommunication patterns they need to establish their classroom communicativecompetence. To this end, she suggests that teachers need:
119Proceedings of the 27 th MATE Annual Conference“to identify the prerequisite knowledge and competencies that theirstudents will need in order to participate in specific classroom events,and be cognizant of the contextual issues surrounding classrooms,[which] enable teachers to adjust the patterns of communication so asto maximize students’ linguistic and interactional competencies andcreate opportunities for students to begin to acquire a repertoire ofcompetencies that they can successfully participate in a wide range ofclassroom events” (1995: 163).This clearly would suggest the need for explicit statement of the pedagogicalpurposes of the language classroom and of each lesson or lecture at the levels ofobjectives, content and methodology of classroom communication andevaluation. In other words, the course descriptions and objectives should be madeclear and be explicitly and concretely explained to students at the beginning ofthe academic year. I n addition to this, patterns of classroom participation andorganization need to be explained, that is, the necessary participative linguisticand interactional competencies need to be presented and explained to students inorder to facilitate their creative and productive engagement in classroominteractive communication; otherwise, they could become confused about what isexpected of them, or how they are expected to participate. In this regard, Johnson(1995) suggests that for teachers to establish their students’ classroomcommunicative competence they would need to:• Make the norms that govern classroom communication both explicit andpredictable,• Create opportunities for students to practice instructional tasks usingmore exploratory language before being expected to perform in front ofthe entire class,• Use the class meeting to teach small group interaction skills.(op.cit:163)2. 5. The classroom environmentShared leadership practice in language teaching classrooms depends on the abilityto create a relaxed and safe atmosphere in the classroom to make it as open aspace as possible where students could feel self-confident and self-dependent andwhere they could share responsibility and assume some responsibility forconducting classroom interaction and class management. This would be of greatimportance with groups of students whose general conceptions of their roles andthat of their teachers are rather traditional and conservative, groups of studentswho generally expect the teachers to assume a total responsibility and leadership
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