Teachers' practices and theories of teaching reading and implications for professional development by distance education

English is the required language of instruction in secondary schools in the Philippines. Secondary school teachers have therefore had the task of teaching reading in English. However, there has been considerable disquiet about the effectiveness of the pedagogy employed, given the official reports of reading ability of school students. This has resulted in calls for the professional development of reading teachers to enhance their pedagogical skills. To identify the professional development needs of reading teachers, this study investigated the teaching practices and implicit theories about teaching reading of secondary school teachers. This information was used to develop guidelines for a university award course in teaching reading delivered by distance education.

Using a constructivist methodology, I visited twelve secondary schools in Region IX where I interviewed reading teachers and observed their teaching of reading. Each teacher was interviewed and observed teaching reading once. In order to construct a broader picture of reading teachers' practices and theoretical beliefs about teaching and learning of reading, I also posted questionnaires to one hundred teachers teaching reading to schools located in rural remote areas.

From transcripts of the interviews, the classroom observation data and responses to the questionnaires, an inferential picture of the teachers' practices and beliefs about reading was constructed. Few of the teachers seemed to have a working knowledge of contemporary approaches or theories about teaching reading. They tended to follow the teaching approaches suggested in the textbook, with little understanding, and supplemented this with an eclectic set of approaches which were also influenced by the physical circumstances which shaped their workplace.

Guidelines for professional development arising from the findings include:

a) introduction of a wider repertoire of reading teaching strategies to support and extend existing practices; b) development of teachers' facility in modelling reading for meaning strategies especially for students having difficulties in learning to read in English; c) development of teachers' awareness of their theories in practice of reading in English and its teaching; and d) demonstration of the use of more diverse technology in teaching reading.