Appropriate versus Preferred Teaching Style: A Freshman English Case

Appropriate versus Preferred Teaching Style: A Freshman English Case

KOVACEVIC, Ervin

Key words: Teaching Style, Compulsory Adult Education ABSTRACT The contemporary universities across the world offer programs run in a foreign language; the courses are planned, delivered, and assessed in the language that has to be mastered by the non-native student population. The heterogeneity among their students is met in quite unique ways, since both the domains of compulsory adult education and foreign language education are dictated by various andragogical and pedagogical theories and approaches. When educational philosophies are studied the focus is on the educators' beliefs about education and other relating concepts. If teaching styles are to be studied the focus is not only on the beliefs and values, but also on the educational decisions and displayed teaching actions. Therefore, defining the appropriate teaching styles in compulsory educational settings seems to be crucial if the efficiency of teaching actions or educational decisions is to be questioned. This research presents the freshman students' preferences over teaching styles they had been exposed to. More than 150 freshman students of International University of Sarajevo were surveyed during the last three semesters. The comparative analysis of the stated preferences and the learner profiles under the scope confirms the premise that an advanced foreign language course delivery at the college level needs to be segmented into the teaching tasks of informing, demonstrating, facilitating, and delegating nature, which alternate not only in the classroom but in every other available teaching – learning exchange context during the process of instruction. Consequently, the concept of an appropriate teaching style is challenged by the concept of a preferred teaching style in this article.

Article
PeerReviewed

IBU Publishing

2013-05-03

1760