Features
Lessons for Teachers
French prof wants to develop better understanding of the teaching process
BY TERESA PITMAN
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| Brazilian-born French professor Eliane Lousada hopes her research will offer insights into providing better development for teachers. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
Like many people, Prof. Eliane Lousada, Languages and Literatures, likes to travel. “It's interesting to see how people live and to discover their culture,” she says. That wanderlust has taken her throughout Europe and to a number of countries in South America.
Of course, getting around those different countries is easier for her than it might be for the average tourist because she speaks Portuguese (her mother tongue, learned growing up in Brazil), English and, most important, French. She can also get by in Spanish and German.
The French is important because that's what brought Lousada to Guelph after 14 years of teaching at the Alliance Française in São Paulo, Brazil. The alliance is part of an international network of schools that focus on teaching French language and culture. The school where she taught is one of the largest, with more than 6,000 students.
She says French and other languages are also taught in the Brazilian school system, but the teaching is not very effective. “So if an adult or even a teenager wants to learn French, he or she comes to the Alliance Française.”
Before starting to teach, Lousada developed her knowledge of French language and culture by going to the heart of it — spending three years studying in France. After returning to Brazil and a teaching job at the alliance, she went on to earn her master's and doctoral degrees from Pontificia Universidade Católica of São Paulo.
Her extensive experience at the alliance — after nine years of teaching, she took on a co-ordinating role as well — led to an interest in developing a better understanding of the teaching process.
“We tend to focus on the content, but the real work of a teacher goes beyond just knowing the factual material that needs to be taught,” she says.
This applies even more when it comes to teaching languages, she adds, because students need to do more than just memorize lists of words — they need to be able to use them in various contexts.
For her dissertation, Lousada followed a teacher to explore the real-life elements of teaching. As he carried out his regular teaching duties, she analyzed the documents and outlines he was given for his classes, discussed his lesson plans and recorded the classes.
“What I found was that the documents given to the teachers focused on the teacher — saying he or she should do this, this and that, or should cover A, B and C. But they didn't address what happens if several students are late or they haven't done their homework or the teacher's computer breaks down partway through the class.”
At one point, for example, the teacher in Lousada's study had prepared a lesson that depended on the students having completed an earlier assignment, but when the class arrived, only two had actually done the assigned work.
“Teachers have to prepare, but they also have to know that things might change, depending on what happens in the classroom on that particular day,” she says.
Her study also highlighted the significant amount of work teachers do outside the classroom, both in preparing lessons and materials for students and in reviewing and grading assignments.
She hopes her research will offer insights into providing better development for teachers.
“It's easy to tell teachers what to teach and what to do in class but not so easy to prepare them for handling all the unexpected situations.”
Lousada continues to work with the researchers in São Paulo who help analyze the data she and others have collected. In turn, those researchers are part of a larger network based in Switzerland that is studying human development and analysis of texts in educational work situations.
Her desire to continue research in this area is what led her to seek out a university position, even though coming to Guelph meant leaving behind family and friends. She believes the move was a good decision, despite missing those left behind.
“I like the research here, and I think I have something to contribute.”