Professional orality as a special field of knowledge in teacher education – a position paper

Introduction

An important part of work in different professions consists of relational communication practice, expressed through language, voice, body, gaze and face. An important part of teachers’ work thus constitutes being seen, heard and understood in communicative practice in encounters with pupils, colleagues and parents. This performative relational communication practice is a cross-disciplinary competence, which, independent of subject, is of great importance for the performance of pedagogical practice. This competence is what we in this position paper refer to as Professional Orality (PO). In a position paper¹ a potential field of knowledge is envisioned, or an urgent theme in need of exploration is described (Tarr, 2008). Hence, a position paper is not based on one specific empirical study. Still, this position paper has a background in long standing learning in a landscape of practice (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015) connected to education and teaching of oral communication. In this position paper we form a statement regarding the characteristics of professional orality. The position paper also presents a basic arts educational model suggested for the training of professional oral skills. By focusing on professional orality as a central field of competence in the practice of teachers, teacher educators and other professionals, we wish to increase the awareness of the importance of oral expression as a highly specialised skill in the domain of the teaching profession, and thereby contribute to knowledge development and improved competence within the profession. We describe the need for, and make an argument for, the importance of this competence in the basic education of all phonic professions, where the practitioner is dependent on a well-functioning voice. In this paper, however, we focus on the teaching profession.

State of the art – a selected literature review

This section of the paper comprises a selected review of research and development work carried out in relevant fields of research. Based on a search of databases, we have selected 10 dissertations, 11 articles, 16 books/book chapters and two master theses for our review. The focus on the topic orality for the review was initially planned to be orality in teacher education. However, we found interesting studies also from other professions which we wanted to include. The review is restricted to three perspectives: (1) professional communication, especially oral communication, (2) studies of voice disorders in professions, and (3) relational competence and self-focus. We are looking for what perspectives are already covered, and what perspectives we can develop within the chosen field of knowledge. We have a special focus on studies from Finland, because the field of oral communication has for a long period had a place in teacher education and been a subject of research there.

In the following review of research, we find interesting studies within rhetoric research, logopedic research about teachers’ voice disorders, and many other fields. Of special interest are studies focusing on the potential of training professional oral communication. Studies of artistic communication in storytelling and the performance of poetry will not be described, even though we acknowledge their importance for the theme.

Studies of relational competence and self-focus

The necessity of self-focus to develop relational skills has received support in recent neurological research (Getz, Kirkengen & Ulvestad, 2011; Singer, 2017). Both Singer and Bolz (2018) and Singer and Engert (2019) have published neuroscience-based research, where they conclude that the training of relational and emotional skills is of importance for the participants’ physical and mental health.

Of special relevance for our research project is Schøien’s (2011) study, based on her work with the training of student priests’ oral communication in the context of worship. In detailed analyses she shows (a) the importance of focused training, (b) that it is possible to train these skills, and (c) that the learning process is transformative. Schøien finds expression for a necessary focusing on oneself in her analysis of student priests’ experiences of preparation and carrying out their first liturgy and sermon. The study articulates a challenge related to the simultaneity of the orality: at the same time as the expression is formed, it influences the listener. This connection between creating an expression and being influenced by it gives the performer a double role in the artistic process. Schøien describes the teacher’s work as helping the students to alternate between intentional and expressing work, between closeness and distance to their own expression, encountering different levels of consciousness. In Figure 1 Schøien indicates how work with professional oral expression can progress with space for self-reflexivity and for the development of artistic precision in communication and presentation. This model of an arts educational approach (Schøien 2011, pp. 36–39; 249–253, translated from Norwegian), is inspired by a study by Halvorsen (2005), and exposes the systematic exchange between closeness and distance in the artistic work Halvorsen has her focus on (Halvorsen, 2007, pp. 139–143).

The model in Figure 1 shows how the student builds a necessary distance to his or her own oral expression by evolving mastery and craftmanship in the expressive I-position, and through descriptive feedback in the observing me-position.

Of interest also is research within the Danish Relational Competence Project (2012–2016) in teacher education at VIA University College, Aarhus. The project explores practice focused on the relational, embodied and sensuous in teaching.⁵

Research on quality in teaching shows the importance of the teacher for the pupils’ learning (Danielsen, 2018, Drugli 2012; Krane, Karlsson, Ness & Kim 2016; Timperley, Wilson, Barrar & Fung, 2007). However, this research has primary focus on teaching methods and learning theories in the practice of pedagogy, and not on the competence connected to the practitioner. Danielsen (2018) proposes an alternative plan for tutoring students in oral communication, based on Ong’s (1982) central work about orality and literacy as different cultures related to different phenomena.

Furuseth (2003) explored language and voice and found that sight and listening work differently. While the gaze can be analytical and distancing, listening is different. It demands that the listener takes in what is heard, which means that the listener will be vulnerable through the corporeal fusion with what is sensed and incorporated. Stavik-Karlsen (2013) argues for the teacher being a person with authenticity, presence and vulnerability, as opposed to what he calls a ‘distanced learning officer’. Stavik-Karlsen suggests that the strength of a trustworthy teaching practice emanates from the courage needed to be vulnerable. Biesta (2014) maintains that real education always involves a risk. When applied to the training of professional oral skills it implies enduring others directing their attention at you, something that presupposes a healthy self-image, according to Øiestad (2009).

Rønnestad and Skovholt (2003) explored professional development in a longitudinal study of counsellors and psychotherapists. They found that when the discrepancy between what a person wants to appear as and what the person experiences becomes too great, there is a real danger that the practitioner will stagnate in a non-purposeful and rigid performance called premature closure or leave the profession (Rønnestad, 2008; Rønnestad & Skovholt, 2003).

Ethical argumentation as a perspective in PO

Teacher education has, like all profession education, the aim to qualify to practice a concrete vocation. Professions can be described as independent, knowledge-based vocations with special privileges and obligations. A criterion for a profession is precisely the high degree of personal commitment of each professional practitioner – this is also a moral obligation. Biesta (2015) in the article How Does a Competent Teacher Become a Good Teacher? claims that competence alone is not enough. The ability to make wise choices based on ethical awareness regarding the most fundamental teacher task is, according to Biesta, a necessary skill based on a virtue-based approach to the practice of teaching.

The model in Figure 1 exposes the possible gap between a teacher’s intention on the one hand and another person’s understanding on the other. In Figure 2 the I- position and me-position in the expressive work process is reframed according to the professional assignment and duty of teaching.

Firstly, the blue ellipse describes how the intention of a teacher’s expression is in connection with what another person perceives as the meaning (the perceptible expression). The intention and the perceived meaning might be quite far away from each other. Secondly, Schøien’s model (the brown elliptic form) outlines how the assignment is dependent on the credibility of the teacher, and thus also the impact the performance of the assignment might have. This shows the teacher’s oral expression as a professional duty.

Research on the training of PO (Schøien, 2013, 2016) indicates that although the intention relates to the professional assignment, credibility is first and foremost connected with the perceived understanding of the oral expression, exposed in voice, face, eye contact, body and gestures.

Research shows that teachers’ ethical work is often unconscious, reactive, not according to any plan, and that teacher students are not prepared for this work during their teacher education (Cooke, 2017). Cooke’s argument for focusing on the teacher as a moral person is that pupils will be affected by the teacher’s appearance, behaviour, attitudes and disposition, and that teachers cannot withdraw from the ethical responsibility to the relational aspect in teaching. Both Cooke and Biesta have a virtue-based ethical approach, and emphasize that the teacher is a human being with virtues and values, which form the way he or she appears in the practice of the profession. Cooke asks: ‘The question remains for future educators of teachers: how to develop moral character and virtues in novice and experienced teachers so they are able to enact virtue in their teaching?’ (Cooke, 2017, p.2). This moral character is necessary, not least because the profession has an extended degree of autonomy in its practice.

An education for a profession provides knowledge and skills, but also basic attitudes. The education guarantees that both the autonomous and expert assessment choices the practitioner makes are in correspondence with the values and ethical standards of the profession. The binding and ethical code also guarantees to those who receive the service that the practitioner will serve with integrity according to the ethical standards and, if necessary, putting his or her own needs aside (Grimen, 2008, p. 72). Medical doctors have their own doctoral vow, originally the Hippocratic oath (500 years BC)⁶, and for teachers in Norway Professional ethics for the teaching profession (2014)⁷ is a basic document which is binding for the practice of the profession. Likewise, teacher students in Norway and in Finland who do not fulfill the professional standards or suitability criteria (2005)⁸ can be denied entrance into the profession, even if they have a command of the necessary subject knowledge of the profession.

The general part of the framework curriculum in Norway, The Promotion of Knowledge⁹ (Core Curriculum and the Quality Framework, 2006, p. 22), writes about the teacher in the following way:

The most important tool teachers have is themselves. For this reason, they must dare to acknowledge their own personality and character, and to stand forth as robust and mature adults in relation to young people who are in a process of emotional and social development. Because teachers are among the adult persons children interact most closely with, they must venture to project themselves clearly, alert and assured in relation to the knowledge, skills and values to be transmitted.

When teaching professional oral skills, these ethical issues can be explored. It is an ontological question how a person is in the world and becomes anew with the world. We see the potential of creating a site-specific ontology for a professional community (cf. Schatzki, 2002) like a school or a teacher education, based on credibility, responsibility and integrity expressed in professional oral communication.

In professions where the practitioner encounters other people, presence, authenticity in communication and relation are decisive for the establishment of confidence, to convey and receive necessary knowledge and to show respect. Concepts like autonomous and responsible professional practitioners with an ethically-obligated integrity can be found in the aims of education. However, there is little done to concretise in what form this communicative, relational presence will become visible in the professional practice.

In the next section we present a view of knowledge, adopting a performative and aesthetic approach in teaching and learning, and the ways in which we plan to train participants and study the impact of a course in professional orality.

Performative and aesthetic approach to teaching and learning in a transdisciplinary context

The basis for the professional practice that teacher education provides not only demands competence in planning and evaluating pedagogical activities. This foundation also qualifies teachers for the performance of these activities in real life. The focus on practice makes the teacher a role model and visible as a person, grounded in the tasks of the profession: influencing, educating, teaching and supervising the pupils. An important methodological choice is to externalise knowledge, making tacit and implicit practical knowledge explicit by giving verbal expression to descriptions and evaluations. All subjects taught in basic education demand performative skills, which we assume subject teachers try to provide within the frame of their teaching. By gathering descriptions of all the performative skills the students need and articulating what is common, competence in expression that is overarching for all subjects will become visible as PO. As a performative part of the profession this knowledge field stands out as a profession subject but not as a subject discipline. Here, the relation between different fields of knowledge plays together, and therefore we call PO a field of knowledge.

PO is, however, based on an extended concept of knowledge (Grimen, 2008; Zenhua, 2008) which embraces practice knowledge (Janik, 1996; Molander 1996), tacit knowledge (Johannessen, 2004; Polanyi, 2000) and explicit knowledge. This might challenge the understanding of learning, mentoring and assessment forms in the teacher education field. A cross-disciplinary cooperation allows for different scientific positions among the participants. The form of cross-disciplinarity we work with is closer to transdisciplinarity in the way it is described by Nicolescu (2010) as beyond disciplines. E. Wenger-Trayner and B.Wenger-Trayner (2015) use the concept knowledgeability to mark how a person embodies knowledge in practice. They suggest this term to relate to

… the complex relationships people establish with respect to a landscape of practice, which make them recognizable as reliable sources of information or legitimate providers of services. Like competence, knowledgeability is not merely an individual characteristic. (p. 23)

They further suggest that knowledgeability is a complex achievement, combining many relationships of identification and dis-identification through multiple modes. They describe these relationships as fragments of experience to be assembled in moments of engagement in practice. (p.24)

We call PO a pre-subject competence, because what bundles the field of knowledge together is the real competence the practice of the profession demands, which is what lies before the educational program itself. Different parts of the professional practice are tied to different knowledge forms and learning methods, and these can be found in a specific subject.

Transdisciplinarity includes both academic and non-academic disciplines and is connected to an alternative epistemology. In Charter of Transdisciplinarity (CIRET 1994) Article four, a basic understanding of transdisciplinarity is described in the following way: ‘… the semantic and practical unification of the meanings that traverse and lay (sic) beyond different disciplines’. It is, thus, both a foundation and a reality that everyone must cope with, something overarching. From this description of different forms of knowledge bundled together in a transdisciplinarity, we move to a more hands-on description of how teaching and learning works within PO. We turn to performative and aesthetic approaches in the social sciences. Here, Gergen and Gergen (2018) are our references for a performative turn in social sciences.

How professional orality can be trained as part of teacher education – a developed basic arts educational model

Training of PO creates a necessary space where attention is on the practitioner’s self-presentation and personal oral expression (Furu, 2011; Schøien, 2011). Whilst Figure 2 takes the process of alternating between two different positions as a starting point for understanding the developing of professional oral expression competence, Figure 3 takes the model a step further by including the crafts of orality.

In the third version of the model a small grey circle is placed in the middle, indicating the crafts of orality. Oral precision and clarity (the blue elliptic form) and ethical obligation in the teacher’s professional practice (the brown elliptic form) are completed with a grey circle, which describes the crafts of orality. The craft of art in general consists of knowledge as well as testing out materials and techniques, thus developing skills and artistic precision. The art forms have much in common, but they are separated by the materials, skills and traditions they have. Within many art forms the final expression is not dependent any more on the artist’s presence. The specific challenge for orality as an expression, simultaneous in time and place, is that the distance between the expression and the person expressing is non-existent.

To make different types of art expressions one needs to develop different skills and use different materials. In the development part of the planned research project we try out the basic arts educational model for development of teacher identity through interpretative work with oral expression practice. A methodological innovation in this project is the performative, aesthetic approach emanating from practice, and focusing on stop moments as learning moments, which we connect to a meta-perspective on the transformative development of the professional practitioner.

The third perspective we introduce in this paper is a learning perspective relevant for PO. The perspective is based on Mezirow’s transformative learning theory and further developments.

Adults’ experiential transformative learning – being pushed towards the edge of one’s personal comfort zone

How adults learn is illuminated with Mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning theory. In the Nordic countries, Illeris (2013) has elaborated the theory and connects transformative learning to identity as professional practitioner. Adult learners can become more knowledgeable, more insightful, less prejudiced, more reflective and emotionally open for change. Mezirow (2006) suggests two basic learning forms: instrumental learning that gives answers to the question of how something is performed, and communicative learning that gives answers to the question why and can be connected to understanding of arrangements in the surrounding world based on norms and values.

Mezirow (2000) described four degrees of potential transformation in the adult in a learning process: adjusting the existing frames of reference; exchanging the frames with new ones; relocating oneself to make new meaning perspectives visible; and learning new habits of mind. The adult has already, in earlier formative phases, acquired understandings and convictions, which do not easily change. New frames of reference may perhaps provoke resistance, both cognitively, emotionally and socially. The learner must therefore see the benefit/usefulness and purpose with the new frames of reference and habits of mind.

Taylor and Jarecke (2009, p. 282–284) sum up what different authors in Transformative Learning in Practice have brought to the forefront as important in adults’ learning. They write, ‘… learners are most susceptible to new learning when they are on the edge of their comfort zones – their learning edge’.

Illeris (2013, p. 26–28) refers to Taylor and Jarecke in an interpretation of some principles representative of transformative learning processes. Illeris mentions as the first principle that the learning should be meaningful and explorative. Your starting point is something familiar, but the goal is to end up with something qualitatively new. Another principle that Illeris describes is to confront power positions and to involve oneself in differences. A third principle is fantasy and imagination. Emotional experiences, creativity and emotional engagement play an important role in learning. Furthermore, Illeris mentions the exploration of boundaries and articulates (2013, p. 27, our translation) the following when a participant runs into their own limits: ‘Many examples show that uneven sequences with obstacles, breaches, problems and challenges promote emotional intensity and innovative thinking and thus promote transformative learning’.

The principle that transformative learning implies reflection is central, but Illeris points out that this reflection must imply self-reflection and critical reflection to contribute to transformative learning. Finally, Illeris mentions that one should not underestimate the model function in the inspiration the participants get from the teacher as a person; as a model they want to resemble.

We have now introduced three perspectives of importance for training and for the study of professional oral skills. In the next section we take a critical stance in approaching some attitudes towards the training of professional orals skills, and we ask why PO is so scarcely focused on and prioritised in basic teacher education.

Conclusion

In the description of the state of art we have identified a certain interest in parts of the knowledge field, PO. We have found studies relevant to PO within a broad spectrum of disciplines. We have also found, as an answer to our analytical question, that what is not yet strongly focused on is a specific professional focus on orality, grounded in an ethical awareness and obligation regarding credibility, responsibility and integrity, defined as a cross-disciplinary, transdisciplinary field of knowledge. We have also, as one part of the answer to the analytical question in this paper, presented a basic arts educational model for training of PO in Figure 3. The lack of a collected knowledge base makes the knowledge field also lack the weight of a subject milieu and a demarcation of the field of knowledge that it might contribute to.

In this position paper, we have articulated the need for research that (1) explicitly contributes to the identification of which specific skills are important in what we describe as professional orality; (2) maps which forms of knowledge are at stake and which resources from different existing subject fields it is appropriate to use; (3) develops concrete teaching modules, where learning aims, progression, knowledge contribution and educational thinking are challenged and can be motivated, and (4) explores what the training of professional oral skills and the development of a profession-specific oral expression competence can contribute regarding the professional practitioner’s self-understanding and integration of professional identity as a teacher.

Finally, we suggest that there is a need for research on a transdisciplinary basis:

*Acknowledging that oral utterances are not writing, have other means of expression and interpret and communicate with sensuous-embodied, intuitive and performative means and modes;

*Acknowledging professional orality as a special field of research;

*Acknowledging oral precision and clarity as an ethical obligation in relational professional practice;

*Acknowledging orality as simultaneous in both time and (mostly) place, as an immediate expression of credibility, responsibility and integrity.