Teaching Approaches to Promote Consistent ... - Learning Wales

From this it can be seen that teaching approaches to a subject are not the same asteaching methods within the classroom. A teaching method is a clear and focussedclassroom procedure with an underpinning rationale but the term ‘teachingapproaches’ embraces a wider and richer repertoire of issues than ‘teaching methods’by reaching beyond the classroom into the wider school context. So ‘phonics’ is ateaching method but schools and teachers may construct a variety of approaches whenusing it to teach initial reading [e.g. different resources, carpet time or not, groupchildren in certain ways, use teaching assistants (TAs)].Nor are teaching approaches the same as teaching styles. Teaching styles are morefluid and related to a teacher’s personal values and attitudes. A teacher may prefercertain styles over others, such as preferring to maintain a formal rather than informalstyle. In fact, most teachers do not seem to adopt a single style consistently, but varytheir styles depending on a range of factors including what they are teaching andwhen. This means that circumstances attendant upon the actual teaching occasion,such as the pupils’ apparent level of excitement, whether the lesson is at the beginningor end of a course, how the teacher is feeling physically may all influence a teacher’schoice of teaching style (e.g. Bennett, 1976).1.3 SummaryThe possibility of some linkage between a school’s teaching approach in Englishand/or mathematics and the school’s performance in meeting national target(s) hasbeen mooted. This research is exploratory in addressing that possible linkage. Thedistinctive features of the term ‘teaching approach’ have been described asencompassing classroom teaching actions that are clearly informed and supported bysubject management, planning and resourcing. Therefore this research willinvestigate subject co-ordinators’, head teachers’ and teachers’ views and practices aswell as the views of pupils towards the subjects of English and mathematics.11