RADICAL TEFL

1. 2 To take an example, a teacher might want to investigate the following
problematic situation: Present simple and present continuous tenses are
apparently confused by students who consistently use the form “I am do.” The
teacher, following Dewey, needs to extract and determine problems which are present
in the problematic situation. Some problems might be extracted or unpacked by
asking questions, eg: Did students first of all master the use of the two present tenses?
and: Was material introduced too quickly? 13 However, these questions may turn
out not to get to the root of the problem. They merely 'objectify' the problematic
situation, keeping a distance from it, whilst what is required are questions which enter
into the students' standpoint (ie, the students' subjectivity). So, the teacher might
probe deeper and see, for example, that she should not be looking at the students, in
some detached/objective way, but that rather she needs to probe, empathetically, into
her students' problems from the students' point of view, that is, she needs a question
which allows her to enter into her students' standpoint and subjectivity, for example :
“Perhaps students had seen the words 'do' and 'are' in other contexts, and were
puzzled or 'thrown' when they were introduced in a different context?”
This last question is less superficial than the earlier questions because it both probes
the relationship which students have with materials, and it probes the students' own
understanding (or misunderstanding) of the problematic situation. We see in the
above questioning that the teacher's diagnosis of the students’ problem is progressive,
as Dewey states is the case in enquiry. Further, the enquirer's questioning will define
the direction which the enquiry takes, as one line of diagnostic questioning leads to
another. In this sense, questioning defines the enquiry.
1. 3 Dewey warns against 'mis-taking' one's problem: (1938: 112)
“To find out what the problem and problems are, which a problematic
situation presents to be inquired into, is to be well along in inquiry. To
mis-take the problem involved is to cause subsequent inquiry to be
irrelevant or to go astray … The way in which the problem is conceived
decides which specific specific suggestions are entertained, and which are
dismissed; what data are selected and which are rejected”. 14
Good questioning is a helpful probe to reveal the real problem, and Dewey writes
(1938:109) “Inquiry and questioning, up to a certain point, are synonymous terms” .
Professionals in other client-centred fields (e. g. , medicine, or therapy, or legal)
prepare for their interventions and grow their understanding of a client by taking a
history in the context of the client's past and present problematic situation, and to do
this they ask questions to both the client and to themselves. For these professionals,
intervention cannot begin without a clear understanding of the problematic situation,
and which involves extracting relevant problems from the 'problematic situation'
13
The International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course teaches students how to probe or
'unpack' a problem, by asking relevant 'knowledge questions', which will reveal otherwise hidden and
submerged aspects of the problem, as done here with this example, and then continued below it.
14 Michael Polanyi helpfully develops this idea: “all (investigations) must start from a problem . . but
how can we see a problem … for to see a problem is to see something that is hidden”(1966:21) (my
emphasis).
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