Métodos y enfoques en la enseñanza de idiomas

A large body of international research supports the view that school leadership can have a significant indirect impact on student learning outcomes (Leithwood et al., 2006, Robinson, Lloyd & Rowe, 2008). In South Africa, Ngcobo and Tikly (2008) concur that school effectiveness and improvement depend on effective leadership. School leadership

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achieves this indirect impact by shaping conditions that build school capacity for change and foster effective teaching and learning (Southworth, 2002). In a similar vein, Harris and Chapman (2002) argue that there are claims that school improvement and effectiveness are associated with democratic and participatory styles of leadership. On the basis of their research with students, Ruddock and Flutter (2004:133) concluded that

‘opportunities for consultation and enhanced participation in schools have a direct impact on pupils’ engagement’. Hallinger and Heck’s (2010) study that attempted to locate what forms of leadership practice contribute to sustained school improvement proved that some forms of distributed leadership (collaborated) leadership has an impact on school effectiveness and improvement.

Descriptively, though challenging, distributed leadership allows for the possibility of a range of modes of co-ordination and role interdependencies such as spontaneous collaboration between actors, synergistic partnerships (Gronn & Hamilton, 2004). It is based on trust and requires “letting go” by senior staff rather than just delegating tasks and “redistribution of power” (Grant, 2010:57). Therefore, distributed leadership is based on the premise that teachers can and must lead. This implies that leadership needs not be located only in the formal management positions, but should be “stretched over multiple leaders” (Spillane, 2006:15), including teachers. In essence, expertise needs to be engaged whenever it exists within the school rather than seeking this only within formal positions or roles. In line with this thought, Harris and Muijs (2005:133) contend that

“both senior managers and teachers have to function as leaders and decision makers and try to bring about fundamental changes”. It is this fundamental change that can enhance moral purpose in schools as teachers start to contribute towards school improvement.

Allowing teachers to work as a collective provides them with a legitimate source of authority (Williams, 2011). However, inviting teachers into the practice of leadership does not displace the crucial role of the school principal. This means that the practice of

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distributed leadership does not undermine the legal framework of the South African’s education system that place the school principal as an ultimate accounting officer.

Arguing in accordance with this, Mbatha, Grobler and Loock (2006) state that within this framework the school principals possess statutory delegated authority. By virtue of their positional power, school principals cannot abdicate their accountability but must instead become the leader of leaders (Ash & Persall, 2000, Harris & Lambert, 2003). As ‘leaders of leaders’, it is their responsibility to build a school culture premised on trust and mutual learning, both of which, are key to ensuring that distributed leadership takes place (Grant, 2006).

In addition to the principal taking a role as the ‘leader of leaders’, Fullan (2003:22) argues that “for distributed leadership to come to full fruition the structural framework which is provided by hierarchical forms of leadership is prerequisite”. This means that, in practice, the SMT members serve as gate-keepers to distributed leadership in the school, and should, therefore, have a powerful and real relationship amongst themselves and teachers who take on leadership roles as they emerge. Furthermore, SMTs should know how distributed leadership looks like in practice, that is to know which leadership responsibilities and activities to distribute and how. The distributed leadership studies by Spillane (2006) and Spillane, Diamond, Sherer, and Coldren (2005) claim that distribution of leadership activities can be modeled as collaborated distribution, collective distribution or coordinated distribution.

They argue that collaborated distribution characterises practice that is stretched over the work of two or more leaders who work together in place and time to perform the same organisational routine or task, while collective distribution characterises practice that is stretched over the work of two or more leaders who co-perform a leadership routine by working separately but interdependently. In contrast, coordinated distribution refers to situations where leadership routine involves activities that have to be performed in

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particular sequence. All these forms of distribution clarify how school management teams can engage in distributed leadership as a means of ensuring that all members of staff in the school engage in activities that promote the sharing of moral purpose.

The claimed benefits of the distributed leadership approach are that “it improves effectiveness, increases engagement and self-esteem, enhances organisational capacity, and leads to greater organisational capability to deal with challenges of complexity and work intensification” (Woods, 2005: 30). Flowing from this, distributed leadership can be seen as an approach that can assist school management teams in tapping the ideas, creativity, skills and energies of the staff, thus unleashing a greater capacity for organisational responsiveness and sustained improvement. Unleashing greater organisational capacity can also improve the organisational capability to deal with challenges of complexity and work intensification. This suggests that since instructional improvement requires that people with multiple sources of expertise work in concert around a common problem, distributing expertise will lead to school improvement.

Despite the prominence of and possibilities provided by distributed leadership enshrined in the international literature, Grant’s (2008) study of the reality of distributed leadership in a small sample of schools in KwaZulu Natal revealed that in practice distributed leadership and teacher leadership were not something that schools embraced. Elements of distributed leadership were found in the SMT structures but in most cases this did not extend to all teachers. In this regard, Williams (2011) enumerated factors that can inhibit distributed leadership in South African schools. In his interrogation of factors militating against distributed leadership becoming actualised, Williams use three categories suggested by Woods (2005:73-86), namely, context, people and practice.

Firstly, in the context-based factors category, Williams (2011) identifies that the authoritarian ethos that existed before 1994 still pervades the education system at the micro and macro levels. These entrenched bureaucratic and hierarchical management

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practices inherited from the apartheid tradition inhibit distributed leadership at different levels of the system (DoE, 2003). At school level, Grant (2006:513) asserts that school principals are only exhibiting a “rhetorical commitment” to democratic deliberations.

This implies that most school management teams, though claiming to be committed to democratic principles, their practical interactions with the staff prove otherwise. Williams (2011) further states that context-based factors result in people-based factors. This means that factors such as strict bureaucratic and hierarchical management practices in school can result in the evolvement of people who develop certain attitudes in order to adapt and survive in such schooling contexts.

Secondly, people-based factors are factors that are associated with the school principal that perpetuate “autocratic affinity in South African schools” (Grant, 2006:525). These factors include authoritarian mentality, fear of the loss of power, values and skills as well as ethnicity, cultural and gender biases. Grant (2006) furthermore identified teacher-related factor that promote hierarchical management practices in schools, namely, a sense of insecurity on the part of the teachers, perhaps due to official policy which emphasises principal accountability. As such teachers are relegated to a “mere ciphers or automatons devoid of any semblance of human agency” (Williams, 2011:194). Consequently, the persistence of the authoritarian ethos in schools hinders the establishment of the free collaborative space where creative interactions take place.

Thirdly, practice-based factors, like people-based factors are influenced by context-based factors. Another consequence of the authoritarian form of leadership has been the development of a tradition of non-participation in the decision-making process at the school level on the part of the teachers (Williams, 2011). This tradition has led to uncertainty about the value of greater participation and insufficient skills and lack of confidence to use these skills. The practice-based factors involve those factors which cause other members of the staff to become sidelined from participating in leadership and

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management activities or functions in schools. Notwithstanding the foresaid inhibitors, the distributed leadership has major benefits for this study. It foregrounds the understanding of how SMTs have to operate to enact moral purpose because it is regarded as being characterised by a strong framework of values, purposes and structures (Wood, 2005:87). This framework is fundamental to this study as it provides a sense of values and common purpose which reflect essential elements of moral purpose in a school.

2.5.2. The moral leadership perspective for influencing the values and behaviour