Using cases in EFL/ESL teacher education

Abstract

We believe that the use of cases in teacher education has not been fully explored or fully utilized as a means of fostering professional discourse on teaching, particularly in English as a second/foreign language teacher learner contexts. This paper describes the process of developing cases for teacher education. In it we report on how our cases were field-tested and we illustrate the types of discussions that can emerge in an EFL teacher education class. Feedback from our teacher education students indicates that they appreciate the learning opportunities provided by case-based methodology. Cases can be used to support the development of reflective practice and bridge the gap between theory and practice with both in-service and pre-service teachers. We contend that the development of cases for use in a variety of educational and teacher-educator research contexts is needed.

Keywords:

• cases
• teacher education
• second/foreign language teacher development
• reflective practice
• teacher educators
• EFL
• ESL

Introduction

One criticism that is consistently directed at teacher education programs is the perceived lack of carry-over and distance from what is taught in the institution of study to what is done in practice in the real classroom situation (Putnam and Borko 2000; Singh and Richards 2006). Such criticism is derived from varied research findings (e.g. Henry 1986; Pennington 1996; Pigge 1978; Richards and Pennington 1998; Smylie 1989) and from conversations with and observations of novice teachers in videotaped lessons (Tinker Sachs 2002; Tinker Sachs and Lin 1997). Weaknesses in the student teachers’ preparation have also been found in the area of procedural knowledge, knowledge about learners and general unpreparedness for the classroom such as dealing with unmotivated students (Kagan 1992). Prospective teachers need to learn to struggle with issues of management, social roles, and classroom routines (Richards 1996) as well as master the content knowledge of teaching and learning (Bransford, Darling-Hammond, and LePage 2005). It is felt that student teachers are not coming to see teaching as deliberate action, nor are they developing the ability to use knowledge to inform their work (Edmundson 1990). In general, it appears that novice teachers also have not formed an awareness of the multidimensionality of teaching (Calderhead and Robson 1991).

Johnson (1999) cites another problem in teacher education programs which contribute to novice teachers’ difficulties. She describes this problem as the linear and decontextualized presentation of knowledge and methods with the belief that these could be ‘generalised to any teaching context’ (8). Johnson (1999) contends that knowledge in many teacher education programs is presented as ‘oversimplified’ and transmitted through ‘passive instructional strategies such as course readings, lectures, exams, and term papers’ (8). Like Johnson, Uber Grosse (1991) had also added to the litany of complaints about teacher education programs in general and second language teacher education in particular. Uber Grosse surveyed TESOL methods courses in 120 teacher preparation programs in the USA. Amongst the five areas for improvement in their methods courses, Uber Grosse's respondents cited ‘greater emphasis on solving classroom problems’ (40). Amongst Uber Grosse's recommendations are the need for more attention to reflective teaching and the empowerment of teachers through active involvement in the decision-making process in the classroom. There is, however, one missing component from Uber Grosse's study: the teacher-learners themselves. Freeman and Richards (1993) contend that, ‘efforts to assess methods apart from the teacher who implements them, the setting and learners with whom they are being implemented are fallacious’ (209). Freeman and Richards (1993) believe that we need to keep at the forefront of our discussions, teaching issues that relate to the thinking and reasoning which motivate different teaching practices. In her doctoral dissertation, Swartz Zitlow (1986) agreed that teacher educators should be concerned more with pre-service teachers’ guiding frameworks than training as technicians. When teacher learning is viewed from the perspective of professional development there is another pessimistic outlook. Smylie (1996) puts it this way: ‘professional development as it is generally practiced, has a terrible reputation among scholars, policy-makers, and educators alike as being pedagogically unsound, economically inefficient, and of little value to teachers’ (10).

In general, our conventional approaches to teacher education have been based on the separated view of knowledge acquisition and application. J. Shulman (1992) believes that the separation of theory and practice may be attributed to teacher educators’ reliance on theoretical research, which usually becomes ‘impossible’ when applied to the classroom by both neophytes and veteran teachers (xiii). Indeed, in commenting on the design of teacher education programs in the 1980s and 1990s, Darling-Hammond et al. (2005) in their review of research found problems related to: inadequate time for teacher preparation; fragmentation of coursework such as professional skills; uninspired teaching methods; superficial curriculum; and traditional views of schooling prevailing (447). More progressive approaches contend that knowledge is interactive and situated, and develops from the context of use (e.g. Lave 1988; Lave and Wenger 1991; Resnick 1989). In reviewing the status of teacher learning and current theoretical constructs, Putnam and Borko (2000) adopt a sociocultural perspective of cognition being social, cultural, and historical (after Lave and Wenger 1991). That is they see teacher learning, in both in-service and pre-service teacher education, as situated in the various settings of in-school and outside of school, in which different kinds of knowing and learning take place. Lave (1991) would see these learning events as, ‘ … relations among people engaged in activity in with, and rising from the socially and culturally structured world’ (original italics, 67). In other words, teachers are said to learn best when they are actively involved in their own learning and when their opportunities to learn are situated in the everyday tasks of teaching. Smylie (1996) states that teacher opportunities to learn should be problem-oriented, grounded in inquiry, experimentation, and reflection; they should be collaborative, involving interaction with other teachers and educators as sources of new ideas, and these opportunities should be on-going (10). Lave (1991) also sees this situated learning ‘as a process of becoming a member of a sustained community of practice’ (65). Participating in a community of practice gives one access to a knowledgeable skill and helps to shape one's identity. This overall social constructivist view of learning as opposed to a traditional individualistic transmissive view of education promotes the interaction of prior knowledge with new knowledge and pushes for internalization and deep understanding. Richardson (1997) puts it this way:

In the constructivist view, learning cannot be separated from action: perception and action work together in a dialogical manner. And there is no representation of reality that is privileged or ‘correct’. There are instead, a variety of interpretations that are useful for different purposes in different contexts. (8)

Teaching has been described as an ‘ill-structured domain similar to medicine, history, and law’ (L. Shulman 1992, 24), and as such demands multiple representations and ways of seeing. Many of these representations come in the form of narrative modes of inquiry which are ‘specific, local, personal; and contextualised’ or very different from paradigmatic or generalized scientific forms of knowing, which tend to have the opposite characteristics (L. Shulman 1992, 22). Connelly and Clandinin (1994) illustrate how matters of the ‘personal’ are central to teacher education, teacher development, and the improvement of schools. In an entire issue of Teacher Education Quarterly, winter 1994, which was devoted to using personal histories in teacher education (Vol. 21, 1), Connelly and Clandinin and others in the issue contend that the dominant metaphors of teacher education are too narrow and restrictive and ignore the personal. Connelly and Clandinin (1994) instead encourage us to view teacher education as reconstruction or from a narrative perspective as the education of teachers is not linear but a ‘process of rethinking and rebuilding the past’ (149). The reconstructive metaphor also ‘allows teacher educators to make sense of their teaching and learning as expressions of their personal practical knowledge’ (149).

Goodson and Cole (1994) state that the development of case studies, life stories, and narratives that seek to elicit teachers' personal practical knowledge as well as teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (L. Shulman 1986, 1987), must also go beyond a narrow view to include the micro-political and contextual realities of school life. Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge goes beyond the knowledge of the content one is teaching to specific ways of teaching such as ‘the ways of representing and formulating the subject that makes it comprehensible to others’ (L. Shulman 1986, 9). The dilemma that continues to haunt teacher educators, in particular, and other teaching professionals in fields such as law, medicine, and business (J. Shulman 1992) in general, is how to bridge the gap between the academy and the school while simultaneously effectively reducing the gap between theory and practice. There are several recommendations for how this could be done. Educators talk about adopting developmental and inquiry-oriented models in our teacher education practice (e.g. Richards 1989; Richards and Lockart 1994), which would encourage active problem solving and more engaging reflective teaching approaches. In 1983, Celce-Murcia had argued that, ‘successful language teaching involves a great deal of problem solving and that problem solving should be systematically included in language teacher preparation’ (103). Celce-Murcia (1983) felt that problem solving would help to integrate content and practical courses and in general improve novices’ problem solving skills. A means of effecting problem solving and similar recommendations is through the adoption of cognitive apprenticeship approaches pertinent to the field of second language teacher education (Johnson 1996). This would mean acquiring skills and knowledge of teaching in social and functional contexts through authentic activities (e.g. Feiman-Nemser and Remillard 1996; Johnson 1996; J. Shulman 1992). These authentic activities could be derived from cases which provide rich contextualized descriptions of teachers’ work. Teachers’ stories embedded in cases also capture the richness of teaching in the teachers’ own voices. Practical arguments in cases also provide another approach for developing problem solving from which the teacher learner transforms his/her knowledge through the empirical and situational premises of the argument (L. Shulman 1992). Cases situate teaching and foster the learning of concepts and the development of reasoning and problem solving, which is similar to real teaching (Feiman-Nemser and Remillard 1996; Wright 2010).

Richert (1991) describes cases as ‘stories that typically include the actions, thoughts, beliefs and feelings of both the teachers and the students’ (136). She believes that the descriptive nature of cases ‘provides an opportunity for presenting teachers’ work in all of its complexity’ (136). Bailey (2006, 26) believes that ‘reviewing and interpreting cases with classmates or colleagues can lead to fruitful (and even heated) discussion.’ Pedagogical reasoning and decision-making is said to be one of the five core components of a good second language teacher education program. The other components are general teaching skills, language proficiency, subject matter knowledge, and personal theory of teaching (Richards 1997). Case discussions can bring these five components together, especially pedagogical reasoning and decision-making. These discussions can reveal insights into how teacher learners are internalizing and coming to terms with key teaching issues, theories, concepts, and methodologies. Discussions can also be used as data for understanding teachers’ cognitions and conceptulizations (e.g. Copeland and Decker 1996; Moje and Wade 1997; Swartz Zitlow 1986). Classroom discussions in general are said to provide opportunities for students’ active engagement in learning (e.g. Gebhard 2005; Larson 2000; Singh and Richards 2006) and foster communities of practice which were discussed earlier (Lave 1991).

Merseth (1998) believes that ‘studying cases of teachers in real-life situations can help new teachers bridge the gap between theory and practice’ (30).

Above all the use of cases enhances reflective thinking about teaching in a social setting. Reflective thinking about teaching can lead teachers to analyze and theorize their practice and bridge the theory/practice divide (Darling-Hammond et al. 2005, 408). Johnson (2009) also argues that from a sociocultural perspective, language teacher education should be: ‘a transformative process of making sense of classroom experience through the theoretical constructs of the broader professional discourse community and vice versa, which enables teachers to reconceptualize the way they think about teaching and student learning’ (98). The rich contexts and descriptions of cases can facilitate the transformative possibilities of our teacher learners. Discussions of authentic cases can begin to address these issues and accommodate social constructivist/cultural and humanistic views of teaching and learning.

In 1986, the Carnegie Task Force on Teaching recommended that teaching cases should be developed ‘as a major focus of instruction’ (76) (cited in J. Shulman 1992). From that time to the present, numerous publications on cases for teaching purposes have emerged (e.g. J. Shulman 1992; J. Shulman and Mesa-Baines 1993; Lundeberg, Levin, and Harrington 1999; Richards 1998). However, in language education, Bailey (2006) states that while cases have been used in business, law, and general education they have been ‘less widely used in language teacher development’ and in the context of her book, ‘less in the preparation of language teacher supervisors’ (27). In EFL/ESL contexts, few cases exist (Bailey 2006; Johnson 2000; Richards 1998; Tinker Sachs and Ho 2007).

The purpose and context of our research

In response to Grossman (2005) when she states that ‘researchers need to be more explicit in describing the characteristics of cases used in the teacher education classroom’ (442), this paper seeks to delineate how our cases were developed and field-tested in the teacher education classroom. This field-testing of the cases took place with undergraduate student teachers in a BA in Teaching English as a Second Language program in Hong Kong. Following field-testing, the cases were then edited and published in a book by the authors (Tinker Sachs and Ho 2007). Thirty-eight second and final year student teachers and three professors participated in field-testing the cases.

Development of our cases

In developing cases, other writers have sought to present different types of cases, such as the dilemma or problem-based case (e.g. Harrington, Quinn-Leering, and Hodson 1996; Richards 1998; Tippins, Koballa, and Payne 2002), the methodological cases and decision-making cases (e.g. Merseth 1992), leadership-based cases (e.g. Bailey 2006), course-based and/or program-based cases (e.g. Johnson 2000), narratives of teachers’ lives (e.g. Connelly and Clandinin 1988), or cases devised to teach different theoretical viewpoints (e.g. Buchholz and Rosenthal 2001). Cases can also come in video formats as in the work of Copeland and Decker (1996) to further teacher cognition. They may also be written by teacher educators or by teachers themselves as a form of enquiry (e.g. Arellano et al. 2001; Reichelt 2000).

In trying to embrace the rich contexts of cases, we set out first to capture authentic teaching contexts in the development of our cases. We sought to depict current classroom practices and through our case discussions, have teachers discuss the merits of different teaching theories, beliefs, and practices. The five stages in the development of our cases are enumerated below.

Stage 1: identifying the participants

The teachers in the Bachelor degree program on Teaching English as a Second Language (BATESL) and the Master's degree program on Teaching English as a Second Language (MATESL) together with their teacher friends were our main contacts and volunteers. When the teachers were contacted and had indicated interest in joining the project, letters were sent to the principals of their schools so that the teachers could obtain official approval to participate.

Stage 2: interviewing the teachers

These teachers were then interviewed to collect background information about their schools, their classes, their own experiences, beliefs, and practices in teaching and learning English. This was a very important stage as it enabled us to provide the reader with the context for the specific case.

Stage 3: videotaping the lessons

Each teacher then chose a convenient time for three to five of his or her lessons to be videotaped. These were the teachers’ regular lessons which were not especially designed for our project.

Stage 4: preparing the cases

After videotaping the lessons, the researchers viewed the lessons and selected interesting episodes to be included in the cases. Questions were noted during the viewing process and the teachers were interviewed for the second time to collect their reactions and explanations for the selected episodes and to clarify any other researcher questions.

Stage 5: testing and refining the cases

After the cases were developed, they were sent to the teachers for comments and approval. These cases were then field-tested by the researchers and other local and international colleagues. Based on the information collected from the field-tests, the cases were then edited and refined. Figure 1 depicts the development of our cases.

Figure 1.  Description of our cases.

Description of the cases used in the study

Because cases can be episodic in nature, in the first part of each case, information was provided on the context such as the school, the class and the teacher's beliefs and practices. This was to provide important background for the reader to appreciate the teacher's work context and beliefs and offset the difficulties attributed to lack of contextual information to fully appreciate the case. The main part of the case contained the events. This section started with an overview of the lesson, followed by a transcription of a selected episode from the lesson. The teacher's comments followed the transcriptions. Following the comments were questions to scaffold the readers’ discussion. In a few of the cases, the views of the students on the lesson were provided. Five cases were used in this project. These cases, along with others, can be found in Tinker Sachs and Ho (2007).

Procedures for carrying out our case discussions

Table 1 depicts some of the various formats that can be used to present and utilize cases. Our cases were presented procedurally so that methodologies and theories may be reconstructed and problems may be situated within the multidimensionality of teaching. However, in all of the suggested formats, the teacher educator/teacher developer plays the role of facilitator, except where an asterisk (*) is given, when s/he may give direct input. McAninch (1995) states that one of the shortcomings of case-based methodology is that it can be difficult to carry out and that it can place extra demands on already overburdened teacher educators. However, we believe that it is best to adapt and modify any procedures to suit the purposes and contexts of different programs in order to address potential shortcomings. In essence, it was hoped that through offering teacher educators different presentation formats for our cases, flexibility and creativity could be encouraged. In field-testing our cases, we followed the procedures outlined in Table 1. The professors incorporated a discussion format in their regular teacher education classes as time allowed. In the next section, we examine one example of the types of discussions that took place about one of our cases.

Table 1. Case presentation formats.

Field-test presentation format	Option 2	Option 3	Option 4	Option 5
Read case sections – teacher, school, lesson overview, episodes	*Give an overview of the case background (teacher, school, lesson overview)	Read case sections– teacher, school, lesson overview, teacher's comments	Read discussion questions	Read case commentary
Discuss the initial questions	Read episodes	Respond	*Give an overview of the case background (teacher, school, lesson overview)	Respond
Read the teacher's comments	Respond to the case, initial questions	Read episodes and discussion questions	Read case sections: teacher, school, lesson overview, episodes, teacher's comments	Read case sections: teacher, school, lesson overview, episodes, teacher's comments
Read the discussion questions	Read teacher's comments and case commentary	Write response	Respond to the discussion questions	Discuss your response and compare and contrast with the case commentary
Respond	Respond	Discuss response	Connect to readings	Respond to the discussion questions
Read case commentary (not included in our field tests)	Connect to other teaching topics	Read case commentary	Prepare written response	Compare and contrast response with possible answers
Respond	Write a response	Pursue suggested readings for further study

Case discussion

The following is an excerpt from one of our field-tests of six final year student teachers’ discussion on one of our cases. The discussion demonstrates how cases can be used to examine teaching and learning in the pre-service teacher education classroom. In this excerpt, the student teachers have read the case and are now giving their initial response to the case before reading the teacher's comments and working with the questions. ‘S’ denotes ‘student’ and the numeral, the number assigned to distinguish the different speakers.

S2: When I … first er … read the class script here, I thought that the proficiency of the students is not very good. And even after they are drilled with a certain pattern, they still can't make … they still can't make a request by using the pattern that the teacher taught them.

S3: I think Mr Chan, yes, as she said, although the students are in low proficiency, the teacher is very patient with the students, and I think he believes strongly in the audiolinguistic approach, that is, he wants lots of drilling and drilling, always in pairs repeating the patterns.

S4: I think the lesson is quite mechanical. The teacher reads a sentence, and students follow him to say the sentence. I think this way of teaching is quite mechanical, but the … they can … learn to be more accurate from drilling.

S5: I also agree with Maria that the teacher is patient, and I think he can teach the students in a clear way. Because he wrote down all the things he said, especially the structure and the form of how to make a request, and taught the students how to give the answer, I think it is good.

S6: I think it's better for Mr. Chan … to, to, let the students to, to try to make a request themselves, rather than they … (unclear) and the teacher gives the answer for them.

S3: I am not sure whether the … situation is written on a worksheet or not. I think it's better to have a worksheet, and giving some situations or some controlled practice. And after this, the kids can figure out the dialogue for themselves.

S2: It seems that … the students are not able to make a request after the lesson. (they laugh) um … (S1: I think so) Would it be possible or better if the teacher can give more drilling to them? Because the students seem not to be able to produce the structure or form.

S1: Do you mean the teacher should use, to have more drilling exercise?

S5: I think the teacher can give more examples to the students before asking them for a request.

S3: And also we can let the students pair up to discuss. Because I think that individually the students are quite low in proficiency, if pair work is carried out before individually asking them, the students may feel more comfortable to make a request.

S1: And also I think that the teacher should not state out the rules, or the ‘can I … ’ is less polite, ‘could I … ’ is more polite, and want to express some important news, would you mind some … I think rather, other than these three kinds of requests, we still have other types to request others to do something. For example, ‘may I do something?’

S3: But the teacher wants to focus on these three types and wants to compare between the three levels. So that's why he did that.

S1: Then it seems just like a traditional way – students have to memorize all the words also.

S3: Yes, but I think it's good that Mr. Chan … I remember in one dialogue, he said, in a text, there is a lot of words, and then I appreciate that Mr. Chan wrote out the main idea. He presents the main idea, so that the students will … It's easier for the students to follow.

S4: I think it is good that the teacher wants the feedback from them in the lesson. Because they are not familiar, because the students can't make a request after the lesson, if they are given feedback, they will just … expand.

S3: In the pattern, Mr. Chan makes use of some, some exercises, like … so that the students can at least make a request by themselves. Because if you have no free practice, then the situation will be like this.

S1: But if their proficiency can, is so low that they can't make a request, then it's meaningless to have the free practice. Is it?

S3: Maybe semi-controlled.

S5: I think it is more semi-controlled.

S3: But I wonder why the students will automatically repeat what Mr. Chan said.

S6: Maybe they have a tradition … They do the same thing for every lesson, maybe. They got used to drilling (laughter and they read the second question). What do … 

S5: I also noticed one more thing. When the teacher asked the student to make a request, and when the student gave the response, ‘no’, he had set the situation for you to say, you must say ‘yes’ … 

S3: Yes, because Mr. Chan wants the students to familiarize themselves with the positive answer first, and then after that he … 

S5: But it seems that he controlled, it seems that, that, they are not responding with their own thinking … yeah, the restricted answers.

S4: In this way, the student can practice both answers, both the positive answers and negative answers.

S5: Yes, but maybe if the student say no for the first time, then the teacher can ask the student, ‘if you don't want it, if you want it, what would you say?’ They can practise both.

S1: That means the teacher makes his own choice. First, it seems that the student may think that ‘I am wrong’. (S1: yeah) And this may lower their motivation.

S3: Also I think the three patterns, ‘can you … ’, ‘could you … ’ and ‘would you mind … ’, the answering pattern is very different. Because if you want to ask somebody, ‘would you mind helping me to do other things?’ If you don't mind, you have to answer, ‘no, I don't mind.’ Is it? No, of course not. But I think students can't figure this rule … 

S5: I think so.

S1: I think the number of students that can participate in … I mean the students who talked with the teacher are not too many, the teacher only goes, went to two or three individual students, and then asked them to give response to him. I think that's not enough, I think maybe the other students will be lost or they will only sit on their seats and do not have any chance to practise. And not the whole class can participate in this case. Um … 

S6: Maybe the teacher can set up a pair work first, before he went to the individual students. They can have the follow up activities for the, for the individual oral practice. Isn't it?

S3: I think before the individual request, they should have pair work. And then after, after the pair work, the teacher will ask individual students to speak in front of class.

S6: Yes, at least, at least they can negotiate the pattern with their students, with their partners. They, they maybe have more confidence when they answer the teacher's questions.

S5: I also think that there's a need to do pair work in the lesson. And after the pair work, students, the teacher can pick up two to three pairs to come out and make a request and give a response. So that the teacher can see whether they can really master the, the language, the sentence.

In the preceding excerpt, the student teachers are engaged in a high level of discussion. They discussed the pros and cons of the teacher's approach, they considered the teacher's rationale for his teaching practices and they made recommendations for other ways of teaching, such as bringing in more pair work and more opportunities for the students to practice before coming up to the front of the class. They questioned the students’ uptake of the different forms of request despite the drilling. An interesting observation was also made about the students’ lack of input and language creativity as all the language forms were presented by the teacher. However, while they questioned uptake, they could all see the usefulness of the teacher's approach even though there were learning problems. During the discussion there are a few instances where the student teachers laughed during moments of common ‘shared’ understanding. In their view of, ‘maybe it's the tradition … ’, they are recognizing their own lived history of learning in this context. But, despite this, their learning in the teacher education classroom is pushing them to question the efficacy of this tradition of drilling, if the students are not learning. In other words, this is an opportunity through their case discussion for these teacher learners to: ‘reorganize their lived experience through the theoretical constructs and discourses that are publicly recognized and valued within the professional discourse community’ (Johnson 2009, 98). In these teachers’ professional community and personal history, drilling and memorizing are very much part of their learning history and they know both the strengths and limitations of drilling (Watkins and Biggs 2001). However, in the transcript the teacher learners make explicit the limitations and want students to create their own dialog. Wong (2006) sees this desire as pushing toward ‘a more dialogic approach’ (35) that opens the way for learning and for genuine communication.

It is interesting that in the entire excerpt, the teacher educator is absent from this discourse and as facilitator, s/he should be. But what might be useful is a round-up of the main points brought out by the groups at the whole class level to further expound on possible dilemmas and alternative viewpoints. The teacher educator's role can vary according to the different procedural formats presented earlier in Table 1 but in this particular case, it might have been useful for the teacher educator to make explicit some of the strengths and challenges of drilling, for example. The rounding-up could take place after or before reading the teacher's comments and working with the questions that we provided for all the cases, as outlined in our case procedures in Table 1.

Feedback on the utility of the case method

The feedback from our 38 second and final year student teachers who participated in our field-tests with the support of our three colleagues indicates that all of them found our cases suitable in their format, content, length, difficulty level, and processing time. They and the teacher educators, however, wanted to read the students’ response to the lesson, which we were unable to provide for this particular case. For all of the students and professors this was their first time working with case-based methodology. All the students and teacher educators found the approach useful for learning but only 26 of the 38 (68.4%) found the approach interesting. The following comments are some of the reasons given by the students (Table 2).

Table 2. Why did you find this kind of activity useful?

Help us reflect and prepare.	1
It makes us think about what we would do if we are in the same situation.	1
It really gives us a real situation for us to think it over and analyze.	1
Learn skills and approaches through discussion of the case.	2
Let us brainstorm the alternative way of performing the lesson.	2
We have more opportunities to be exposed to different teaching methods.	2
We can learn from a real classroom.	2
We can learn from other students.	1
We can learn the pros and cons of using a particular teaching technique.	2

While some students may not have found the case-based approach interesting, nearly all of them (29 or 76.3%) indicated that they had learnt something from the case. Eleven of the students opted not to qualify their answers, but the other 27 (71%) that did offer us some insights into what they learned (Table 3).

Table 3. Have you learnt anything from the case? What have you learnt?

Merits and demerits of different approaches in real situation.	2
Reality doesn't really correspond with our ‘beliefs’. We should constantly be alert of the situation.	1
The audiolingual approach and modification of the case, things that can be done better. We also discuss some issues of communicative language teaching approach.	2
The real practice of teaching in Hong Kong; the strategies used by the teacher.	2
Their strength and weakness.	1
Using audiolingual teaching method in the whole lesson would be quite boring. Also, combination of communicative and audiolingual teaching approach should be used in HK English language classroom.	2
We can learn from the teacher's merits of the lesson.	1
We can think of the merits and demerits of certain teaching methods through discussion.	1
We learned the weakness and strengths of Mr. Chan's methodology in teaching.	1

Appropriateness of using cases in different cultural contexts

Some may question the cultural appropriateness of case discussions in certain teaching contexts and particularly when the medium of the discussion is not the students’ mother tongue. Thompson (2000) pursues the cultural appropriateness of a western imported teaching style in reporting on his case-based work, in English, with 76 MBA students in Beijing, China. The results from his questionnaire survey showed that business students in China are receptive to this way of teaching. Jackson (1999), working in Hong Kong again with business students and employing a more in-depth ethnographic approach, examined the students’ response to the language of instruction in case-based learning (in English) and participants’ participation, amongst other factors. Jackson's respondents indicated that they felt confident to prepare and present their cases in either English or Chinese but expressed difficulty in understanding the cultural contexts of western-based cases. In observing students’ participation during case discussions and in follow-up interviews, Jackson (1999) reports that students did not volunteer ideas. When interviewed about this, the students expressed concern about their level of English and the validity of their contributions. Jackson acknowledges that there is a problem of getting students to take an active role in discussions and that this might be probably more acute for Chinese students who ‘tend to be more reserved and reticent than their western counterparts’ (73). Tsui (1996) offers similar insights in her findings on Hong Kong secondary students learning English. However, there are ways to overcome problems of reticence in the university setting for case-based work. Jackson's students provide the following suggestions:

•	Focus on presentation skills.
•	Help students to develop the ability to argue, defend, and negotiate.
•	Help students to develop analytical skills.
•	Provide students with lots of opportunities to speak and discuss freely.
•	Encourage students to participate in small group discussions so that they will be more willing to speak. (73)

Jackson (2000) also supplements this list with one of her own. Amongst her 11 recommendations are ensuring that students understand the purpose for the case-based approach, having students prepare in advance to facilitate the discussion and using a mixture of locally and internationally designed cases. There is no doubt that there is a strong potential for case-based work in Asian contexts but case writers and facilitators would need to be sensitive to cultural differences and above all, develop cases that are reflective of that particular teaching context. Case-based approaches can also be adapted to suit the different cultural contexts. More research in this area in working with culturally appropriate cases would add to our understanding of which types of cases and which facilitative strategies and teaching environments promote higher participation rates in different cultural contexts.

From our colleagues as well as our own experience in field-testing our cases, we have not observed any difficulties related to reticence or language use. This may well be due to the fact that we are working with small groups of TESL English majors in a very familiar and non-threatening teaching context. We are also working with cases which have emerged from the Hong Kong context, so there is a very high level of cultural familiarity. Our students, while not used to case-based methodology, are however, familiar with discussing teaching issues in both small and large groups in English.

Limitations of working with cases

Despite the noted strengths of working with cases, there are still some shortcomings. In an extensive review of the literature on discussions as a tool for research in case-based approaches in teacher education, which showed evidence that ‘discussion of a case is a valuable pedagogical tool for the learning and developing of teachers’ (Levin 1999, 157), Levin notes that there are still many unanswered questions and untested claims about case-based pedagogy. McAninch (1995) has similar views. In a more limited review of the literature on teaching with cases, she agrees that while cases seem to have many positive attributes and seem to be very promising, research still needs to demonstrate this and its comparison to other methods. Putnam and Borko (2000) in a review of the state of the field on teacher learning concur with the other researchers on the limitations of the case-based approach. They believe that questions for future research could address: responses to different types of cases such as differences in hypermedia cases vs. more structured; focused written and videotaped cases; levels of complexity of cases and teachers’ problem solving; and comparison to other methods as noted by McAninch (1995). As indicated earlier, future research could also shed insights on the viability of the case-based approach in non-western contexts. However, in general, there is a need for more research, as Grossman's (2005) review of the literature summarizes: ‘there is little empirical research on the use of cases in teacher education’ (442).

Conclusion

The findings from the field-testing of our cases indicate that pre-service teacher learners can appreciate the utility of cases and that discussions can help teachers to see the efficacy of classroom practices and forge connections to their theoretical understandings. The field-tests solidified for us the utility of cases in teacher education language classrooms and demonstrated that cases devised from genuine classroom encounters provide situations for teacher learners to apply their theories and reflect on the soundness of their own beliefs and practices in clear and explicit ways. Learning to teach and learning about teaching require rich context-based knowledge and skills as well as opportunities to discuss them. Schoolrooms are microcosms of the world outside of them and as such make up the sum total of teaching and learning contexts coupled with students’ unique learning aptitudes, motivations, skills, and experiences. Teachers, too, bring a host of variables into the classroom: their own learning histories, beliefs, perceptions, and practices. All these personal factors, in combination with the realities of our everyday world and teaching environments, make up the context and impact the content and delivery of teaching and learning. Singh and Richards (2006) have reiterated an oft-cited criticism of our field of teacher education: ‘discussions about language teaching pedagogical practices in the course room are infrequent.’ At the same time, Gebhard (2005) in discussing approaches to teacher development cites a need for teachers to ‘talk with other teachers’ about classroom practices and to learn to do so in ‘non-judgmental and non-prescriptive ways’. Certainly, cases lend themselves to filling the aforementioned gaps in our practices as teacher educators and as teachers.

Notes on contributors

Gertrude M. Tinker Sachs is associate professor of ESOL, Language, and Literacy in the Middle Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Department of the College of Education at Georgia State University. Prior to this appointment she worked for 12 years in Hong Kong where she supervised MA and PhD dissertations and taught undergraduate and graduate primary and secondary teachers of English as a second/foreign language. She is co-author of ESL/EFL Cases, Contexts for Teacher Professional Discussions, 2007, City University of Hong Kong Press.

Belinda Ho is an associate professor in the Department of English at the City University of Hong Kong. She teaches both teacher education as well as English for Specific Purposes courses. She has been a teacher of English as a second/foreign language for more than 14 years. Belinda is co-author of ESL/EFL Cases, Contexts for Teacher Professional Discussions (Tinker Sachs and Ho 2007), published by City University of Hong Kong Press.