Reframing teaching knowledge in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL): A European perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucilla Lopriore

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is a recent teaching approach widely adopted in numerous international contexts, especially in Europe where it was promoted as a way to promote language learning within the educational system. When implemented, CLIL predominantly involves subject content teachers using English to teach their subject. This has required the development of specific teacher education programs in Italy. This contribution illustrates how the teaching knowledge of both content and English language teachers is evolving as CLIL is implemented within Italian teacher education courses.

Author(s):  
Carmel Sandiford

Purpose – This article aims to report on a qualitative study that investigates the enculturation of a group of pre-service English language teachers over four years of a Bachelor of Education degree offered in a women ' s college in the United Arab Emirates. Design/methodology/approach – Bourdieu ' s “thinking tools” of field, habitus and capital provide the overarching theoretical framework and analytic tools to examine the processes of enculturation which impact on the student teachers as they participate in a program based on Western-oriented theories and practices. The study draws upon data gathered from focus group interviews with student teachers in the first and fourth years of the program to provide insights into their ways of thinking as future Emirati English language teachers. The article discusses the priorities that emerge as these student teachers validate, or otherwise, the theoretical principles and practices legitimated through the program. Findings – The findings suggest that influences bound by local, cultural and social forces contribute significantly to the student teachers ' perceived capacity to think and act as future Emirati English language teachers. Research limitations/implications – The study is limited to one site but, given the findings, similar investigations into processes of enculturation and the appropriation or resistance of essential aspects of English language teacher training could be undertaken. Originality/value – There is limited research into English language teacher education programs in the Arab world. This research has potential applications for English language teacher education programs where there is intent to effect educational reform.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-406
Author(s):  
Bogum Yoon

Abstract The reality that English language learners (ell s) have not been receiving adequate support in the mainstream classroom calls for urgency to prepare teachers in teacher education programs. Grounded in the theoretical construct of praxis and linguistically and culturally relevant approach (lcra), the purpose of this article is to share the author’s experience on how she supported monolingual teachers to engage in equity-based pedagogy. This article will focus on the specific projects that the author’s graduate students (mostly white and monolingual teachers/teacher candidates) conducted as a way to better understand the diverse needs of ell s in the dominant English context. The projects include: reflecting on monolingual identities through being in ell s’ shoes, building professional capital through theories of language learning, discussing and critiquing texts on ell s with a critical lens, designing lessons that integrate ell s’ culture as well as conducting the fieldwork in local schools, and synthesizing learning through the options of multiple final projects including learning a new language (e.g., ell s’ primary language). These activities intended to promote monolingual teachers’ transformative thinking process through the process of praxis and lcra in teacher education programs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-214
Author(s):  
Rishi Ram Rijal

Learning English language and becoming English language teacher have attracted many people in our country but because of various factors only the weak intake admit in teacher education courses. The aim of this article is raising a question ‘who is to blame’ giving some examples of poor performance of the prospective English language teachers, some factors causing this and ways of attracting quality intake to the teacher education courses. The information used in the analysis has been taken from the answer books, randomly snatched up from ten different small packages of the B.Ed. campus of different parts of the country. The writing performances have been compared with the objectives specified to grade nine and ten by the Secondary Education Curriculum 2071 B.S. It was found that the prospective teachers are weak not only in using the language mechanism but they are also very weak in understanding the content as well as producing the organized, coherent writing.


RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822098527
Author(s):  
Benjamin Luke Moorhouse ◽  
Yanna Li ◽  
Steve Walsh

Interaction is seen by many English language teachers and scholars as an essential part of face-to-face English language classrooms. Teachers require specific competencies to effectively use interaction as a tool for mediating and assisting learning. These can be referred to as classroom interactional competence (CIC). However, the situation created by the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic which began in early 2020, and the recent advancement in technologies have led to teachers conducting synchronous online lessons through video-conferencing software. The online environment is distinctly different from the face-to-face classroom and teachers require new and additional skills to effectively utilise interaction online in real time. This exploratory study used an online mixed-method survey of 75 university level English language teachers who had engaged in synchronous online teaching due to COVID-19, to explore the competencies that teachers need to use interaction as a tool to mediate and assist language learning in synchronous online lessons. Teachers were found to require three competencies, in addition to their CIC – technological competencies, online environment management competencies, and online teacher interactional competencies – which together constitute e-CIC. The findings provide greater insights into the needs of teachers required to teach synchronously online and will be of interest to teachers and teacher educators.


2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Epstein

The client analysis conducted in this study explores the professional development needs of11 language teachers, five in South Africa and six in Canada. The study employs a questionnaire and interviews to discover how each teacher's background and context affects his or her perceived professional development needs. Interviews show that teacher educators cannot necessarily predict teachers' professional development needs based on their backgrounds and contexts alone. A variety of inputs from recipients over an extended time is desirable and would yield more accurate predictability of an individual's professional development needs. This would result in teacher education programs that more accurately meet a teacher's real needs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 139
Author(s):  
Seyyed Hatam Tamimi Sa’d ◽  
Fereshte Rajabi

Vocabulary constitutes an essential part of every language-learning endeavour and deserves scholarly attention. The objective of the present study was three-fold: 1) exploring Iranian English language learners’Vocabulary Learning Strategies (VLSs), 2) examining language learners’ perceptions of vocabulary learning, and 3) exploring Iranian English language teachers’ Vocabulary Teaching Strategies (VTSs). In total, 145  intermediate learners of English as a foreign language, consisting of 114 males and 31 females aged 15 to 27, participated in the study. The triangulated data were collected using three tools: questionnaires, interviews, and class observations. Sixty-seven learners (31 females and 36 males) filled out a 56-statement questionnaire, adopted and adapted from Takač (2008) and translated into Persian. The questionnaire comprised two parts, enquiring as to the learners’ VLSs and the teachers’ VTSs. The findings indicated that females and males differed significantly in their reported VLSs and their teachers’ use of various VTSs. Additionally, 78 learners were interviewed as to their perceptions of effective and ineffective VLSs as well as VTSs. The findings revealed that the most effective VLSs were reported to be: a) reciting, repeating and listening to words, b) using words, and c) memorising words while the most effective VTSs revolved around: a) explanation, b) repetition, and c) dictation. The observations also confirmed the findings obtained via the questionnaire and interviews. In general, the findings are indicative of the limited repertoire of vocabulary acquisition techniques employed by Iranian EFL learners, hence the need for strategy training in how to acquire vocabulary. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Mehmet DEMİREZEN

Accurate pronunciation is an important part of learning any language, and especially when non-native students are trained to be English language teachers. Good pronunciation is more than just mastering individual sounds since it also requires understanding intonation, stress, pitch and junctures. In this respect, first things first, two functional issues come to the stage: Spelling pronunciation versus relaxed pronunciation. Spelling pronunciation depends on the use of a pronunciation that is based on spelling that includes common pronunciation of the silent vowel and consonant letters. The converse of spelling pronunciation is pronunciation spelling which produces the creation of a new spelling form on the basis of pronunciation. In this study, the contrastive positioning of spelling pronunciation versus pronunciation spelling in English words, phrases, clauses, and sentences will be analyzed to train the English teachers.


Author(s):  
Lucas Moreira dos Anjos-Santos ◽  
Michele Salles El Kadri ◽  
Raquel Gamero ◽  
Telma Gimenez

This chapter aims to demonstrate how a group of educators from a southern Brazilian state university designed and implemented formative workshops to sustain English language teachers' professional development through digital and media literacies. The chapter maps important changes that have happened in language teacher education in Brazil and the convergences these changes share with digital and media literacies coming from a sociocultural paradigm. It also presents and discusses the extent to which the instructional material the group of educators produced for the continuing education of English language teachers integrated 21st century skills and the standards from the TESOL technology framework. As a way to evaluate the instructional material, the chapter analyzes the representations and identities schoolteachers constructed when engaging with digital and media literacies through the instructional material. The chapter concludes by advocating more social, political and collaborative future research in language teacher education and digital and media literacies.


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