Resistance to change in language teaching: some African case studies

Abstract

A number of recent studies of language teaching on the African continent (Shaalukeni, 2000; Tesfamariam, 2000) have investigated how teachers manage to retain old styles of language teaching in the face of new approaches that have been introduced by the education authorities that employ them. The conviction with which teachers justify their traditional styles of teaching suggests that they do not teach without deliberation. This presentation looks in some detail at two investigations that serve as case studies for this phenomenon. Is resistance to change in language teaching unique to the African continent? It appears not, for there are other studies from further afield that yield similar results. The paper suggests that a coherent reason or set of reasons for this has up to now eluded us, and that we may need to look elsewhere for an explanation.