Teachers as slaves or masters to their coursebooks: An in-depth study on two English language teachers’ coursebook utilization

Addressing an underappreciated research area, this study reports on how two English language teachers in a Turkish tertiary education context use a global coursebook. At the beginning of the study, a metaphor elicitation task and pre-study interviews were employed to detect the teachers’ coursebook conceptualizations. Then, a total of 12 lessons were video-recorded and adaptations were identified using a research-informed framework developed for this study. The participants examined and evaluated their own practices in stimulated recall sessions, reflective conversations and journal writing. The study was concluded with post-study interviews. Data revealed that the teachers’ instructional practice was driven by the coursebook to a large extent as they stuck to minor adaptations and followed the guidance given by the coursebook. Along with the institutional constraints, the teachers’ practices were influenced by their own personal preferences, attempts to make coursebook tasks accessible to learners, lack of planning and the highly structured delivery of tasks in the coursebook. However, pedagogic considerations were not foregrounded by the teachers. The results of the study call for professional teacher development on coursebook utilization, coursebook-based instead of coursebook-led program planning alongside redesign of coursebooks as resources rather than instructions.

Teacher Development: Strategies and Perception

Saptagandaki Journal ◽

10.3126/sj.v8i0.18464 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. 69-78

Author(s):

Padam Lal Bharati ◽

Subas Chalise

Keyword(s):

Professional Development ◽

Teacher Development ◽

English Language ◽

Development Strategies ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Efl Teachers ◽

English Speaking ◽

Teachers Professional Development ◽

Clear Idea

Aspects of teachers’ professional development in general and EFL teachers in non-English speaking countries in particular are issues that warrant constant research. Although these are widely researched areas internationally, within Nepal grounded professional development studies have been sparsely carried out. A considerable section of practicing English language teachers has no clear idea of the issue although it directly concerns themselves. Against this backdrop, this article explores some EFL teachers’ perception on the concept of teacher development in a relatively sophisticated centrally located town of Nepal.The Saptagandaki Journal Vol.8 2017: 69-78

Investigating Iranian English Language Teachers’ Practices and Perceptions of Vocabulary Teaching

Theory and Practice in Language Studies ◽

10.17507/tpls.0801.07 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 52

Author(s):

Sara Mirzaie ◽

Fatemeh Hemmati ◽

Mohammad Aghajanzadeh Kiasi

Keyword(s):

English Language ◽

Data Gathering ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Private Language ◽

Qualitative Research Design ◽

Stimulated Recall ◽

Language Schools ◽

Traditional Approaches ◽

Stimulated Recall Interviews

This study aimed at exploring English language teachers’ practices and perceptions of vocabulary teaching in Iranian private language schools. Using a qualitative research design, four competent language teachers were purposefully selected and their perceptions of vocabulary teaching were investigated from several dimensions. Three qualitative data gathering techniques including interviews, classroom observation, and stimulated recall interviews were utilized to have a thorough understanding of the participants’ practices and perceptions about vocabulary instruction. Findings revealed that although EFL teachers possessed sufficient knowledge and perspectives with respect to vocabulary teaching strategies, such stated declarative knowledge did not serve the full purposes of vocabulary teaching. Participants typically utilized decontextualized strategies more extensively than contextualized ones in their actual practices indicating that their tendencies are somehow towards traditional approaches in teaching vocabulary. In other words, teachers’ instructional practices did not capture all their stated beliefs. Furthermore, it was found that the implemented policies in English language schools which are greatly towards time economization might be a liable reason cheering teachers to deviate from their real beliefs. Finally, contributing to developmental aspects of language teaching, findings of this particular study possess several implications both for teacher education institutions and stakeholders in private language schools in Iran and other similar contexts.

Introducing Critical Pedagogy to English Language Teachers at Tertiary Education in Oman: Definitions and Attitudes

Critical Issues in Teaching English and Language Education ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-53297-0_11 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 261-293

Author(s):

Thuraya Al Riyami ◽

Salah Troudi

Keyword(s):

Critical Pedagogy ◽

English Language ◽

Tertiary Education ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Letting Go and Letting the Angels Grow

International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies ◽

10.4018/ijwltt.2015010102 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 14-26 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Paul Breen

Keyword(s):

Focus Group ◽

Communities Of Practice ◽

Teacher Development ◽

English Language ◽

New Technologies ◽

English For Academic Purposes ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Small Scale ◽

Group Sessions

This paper describes a small-scale qualitative research study conducted within a community of English Language teachers, and explores how teacher development workshops can be used to foster or cultivate Communities of Practice. The study was situated in a Language Centre within the domain of UK Higher Education where there was an institutional drive to better integrate the use of new technologies with traditional approaches to pedagogy. Data was collected through focus group sessions with a team of English Language teachers before, during and after a series of teacher development workshops on the use of technology in the English for Academic Purposes classroom. These focus group sessions were then followed up with individual interviews, drawing on a framework of stimulated recall. The data was then analysed through an established discourse analysis framework in the early stages, followed by a more inductive approach of thematic analysis in the later stages; triangulated by classroom observations of all participants. The purpose of the paper is to understand the functioning of a Community of Practice in terms of its contribution to teacher development The core argument within this paper is that Communities of Practice theory can contribute much to the fields of EAP (English for Academic Purposes), and teacher development in both theoretical and practical terms. It advocates a loosening of the reins on the part of organisations so that teachers are allowed to develop at their own pace and in a manner that is self-directed and tailored to their individual needs. It draws on Vygotskian-based theories of teacher cognition which suggest that in order for development to occur in a teacher education programme, participants need some form of prompting to move from within their “zone of proximal development” (Manning & Payne, 1993, p. 361). This prompting or scaffolding, as described in Vygotsky's own work (1934), generally takes place through a combination of support from more experienced practitioners in the first instance and then “situated engagement and negotiation” with peers and practitioners within a teaching community (Samaras & Gismondi, 1998, pp. 715-733).

Pedagogical Implications of Corpus-based Approaches to ELT in Pakistan

Journal of Education and Educational Development ◽

10.22555/joeed.v5i2.1565 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 259

Author(s):

Tehseen Zahra ◽

Akhtar Abbas

Keyword(s):

English Language Learners ◽

English Language ◽

Language Teachers ◽

English Language Teaching ◽

Spoken English ◽

Wide Range ◽

Reference Corpus ◽

Depth Study ◽

Lexical Items

The advent of corpora has opened new vistas for language study and restructured linguists’ and academicians’ approaches to lexicography and English language teaching (ELT). After 1980s, the use of online language corpora and computer tools garnered tremendous attention of English language teachers and academicians. Keeping in view the modern trends and needs of learners, this research focused on the practical implications of online corpora for ELT and its utility in the Pakistani context. Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) is used as a reference corpus for this research. MICASE is a collection of nearly 1.8 million words of transcribed speech (almost two hundred hours of recording). The transcribed data of MICASE includes wide range of speech events like seminars, lectures, advisory meetings and lab sessions. The study identified the utility of lexical items at syntactic level and its usage in various contexts. Furthermore, the layers of meanings and uses of lexicons through in-depth study of right and left collocates were explored in the reference corpus. The results showed that lexicons can be used as noun, verb and adjective depending upon the context of the study and right and left collocates play a significant role in understanding the meanings of lexical items in various contexts. Thus, this strategy can be fruitful for English language learners and academic discourse community who are interested in understanding the versatile uses of lexical items and their contextual meaning.Keywords: collocate, context, corpus, ELT, MICASE

Learning From Collaborative Teacher Development in an EAP/ESP Context

Journal of language and Education ◽

10.17323/2411-7390-2016-2-1-72-78 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 72-78

Author(s):

Elena Velikaya

Keyword(s):

Teacher Development ◽

Research University ◽

English Language ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Clear Understanding ◽

Peer Observation ◽

Collaborative Process ◽

Wide Range ◽

Almost All

‘Collaborative teacher development is an increasingly common kind of teacher development found in a wide range of language teaching contexts’. Teachers can collaborate with other teachers in writing materials, books, doing research, and analysing observed lessons. Even the format and the content of a teaching journal can be developed in cooperation with other colleagues. The article reports on collaborative teacher development of English language teachers at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE) in Moscow, Russia. The study used a survey to investigate needs for teacher development at NRU HSE. Findings reveal that not all teachers practise self-observation; many teachers believe that feedback must be personal; the majority of teachers find peer observation subjective; almost all teachers have teaching journals but their understanding of what a teaching journal is seems to be erroneous. These results indicate that without a clear understanding of the listed above issues and their implementation in a given context professional development can hardly be possible. The author analyses the results of this research and makes suggestions about teacher development as a continuous and collaborative process.

TEACHERS LEARNING ABOUT ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA ON FACEBOOK: INSIGHTS FROM A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

Estudos Linguísticos e Literários ◽

10.9771/ell.v1i65.36473 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (65) ◽

pp. 147

Author(s):

Luciana Cabrini Simões Calvo ◽

Michelle El Kadri ◽

Telma Gimenez

Keyword(s):

Teacher Development ◽

English Language ◽

Teacher Educators ◽

Virtual Communities ◽

Basic Education ◽

National Curriculum ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Collaborative Problem Solving ◽

Lingua Franca ◽

Communities of practice is a concept widely adopted by teacher educators affiliated with a practice-based education and situated learning. It provides a lens to examine how experienced and novice teachers engage in collaborative problem-solving and learn from each other in emergent interactions. Both face-to-face and virtual communities of professionals provide room for learning opportunities, with dynamic trajectories from more peripheral to more central forms of participation. According to this theoretical framework (LAVE; WENGER, 1991; WENGER, 1998; WENGER et al., 2002, 2011), teachers learn from engagement with others and build their understandings upon interactions focused on the practice of the community. ELF is a concept that is not yet reified among English language teachers in Brazil but is beginning to catch the attention of a wider group of professionals, since English is now compulsory in basic education and the national curriculum defines English as a lingua franca. In this paper we analyze interactions in a Facebook community of teachers (BrELT Brazil´s English Language Teachers) who, over a period of two months, discussed the meanings of ELF and how it was/could be contextualized in their classrooms. We looked into the various ways in which the sharing of information and experiences were displayed and the strategic resources employed to advance their learning on this theme. The BrELT group reconstructed their knowledge on ELF, interacting in democratic ways and showing how they care about their domain. Also, the group revealed to be a potential learning site, as they engaged in the activity and negotiated new meanings. Finally, the BrELT community illustrates how social media can play an important role in teacher development, as it can bring together professionals with different levels of expertise who are willing to share their experience.

Grammar Errors Made by ESL Tertiary Students in Writing

English Language Teaching ◽

10.5539/elt.v10n5p16 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 10 (5) ◽

pp. 16 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Charanjit Kaur Swaran Singh ◽

Amreet Kaur Jageer Singh ◽

Nur Qistina Abd Razak ◽

Thilaga Ravinthar

Keyword(s):

English Language ◽

Tertiary Education ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Grammar Instruction ◽

Complex Sentence ◽

Esl Teachers ◽

Common Error ◽

Verb Agreement ◽

Grammatical Errors ◽

The educational context in Malaysia demands students to be equipped with sound grammar so that they can produce good essays in the examination. However, despite having learnt English in primary and secondary schools, students in the higher learning institutions tend to make some grammatical errors in their writing. This study presents the grammatical errors made by tertiary students in their writing. The participants were a group of Diploma students who sat for a university entrance exam. One hundred and forty-four written essays of the students were collected and analysed using content analysis. Findings revealed that subject-verb agreement and tenses were the most common type of errors. Students over-generalised and perceived that the tenses could be used interchangeably. Another common error found was in the students’ construction of complex sentence. In such constructions, they failed to include essential and nonessential clauses. If teachers do not teach strategies to assist students in comprehending the concept of Subject-Verb Agreement (SVA), tenses, essential and nonessential clauses, these students will continue to make such errors in their tertiary education. The findings may have useful implications for English language teachers as understanding students’ learning difficulties and providing appropriate grammar instruction is the key to effective teaching for ESL teachers.

Identity Performance and Negotiation of Multilingual English Language Teachers in New Zealand - A Multiple Case Study

10.26686/wgtn.14853936.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Polpiti Acharige Apsara Kalpanie Wimalasiri

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

English Language ◽

Teacher Educators ◽

Language Education ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Language Teacher ◽

Teacher Identities ◽

Stimulated Recall ◽

Interactional Functions

Identity is constituted in and through language (Norton, 2005) demonstrating social, political and cultural ideologies of individual selves in interaction. Exploring identities of individuals as language users, learners and teachers allows linguistic and applied linguistic researchers to disclose meanings behind complex language related behaviours. This supports insights for the development of language education. In the current study, I explore identity performance and identity negotiation of multilingual English language teachers (MELTs) in New Zealand (NZ). I define MELTs as English language teachers who speak any other language(s) in addition to English. Exploring how MELTs perform and negotiate their identities in NZ is important due to several factors. First, people in society have various ideological assumptions regarding multilingual teachers involved in teaching English in an English speaking country; therefore, MELTs are required to negotiate their linguistic and social identities to suit the expectations of the institutions and students they serve. Secondly, there is no known study in NZ focused on MELT identities, even though the population of NZ is diverse, comprised of multilingual communities. Thirdly, revealing identity negotiation of MELTs supports language teacher educators to understand language teacher identities with regard to classroom realities. This provides insights to develop language teacher education programmes accordingly. I employed four different research methods: semi-structured narrative interviews, identity portraits and classroom observations followed by stimulated recall sessions to explore how MELTs perform negotiated identities in the classroom (RQ 1) and what ideological and interactional functions are served when they perform negotiated identities (RQ 2). Data from narrative interviews provided insights to understand teacher identities revealed through their biographies and classroom stories. In addition, teachers’ narratives revealed how teacher identities are constructed and positioned while being negotiated in their stories. Identity portraits and the recorded interactions provided insights to understand how teachers make semiotic links to various linguistic and social identities they perform as English language teachers, providing various indexical meanings to those identities. I observed how teachers perform negotiated identities in interaction with students through classroom observations. I also conducted stimulated recall sessions to investigate teacher responses for classroom scenarios. Triangulated data from all the sources generated themes answering the two research questions. The findings of the study show that MELTs perform multiple negotiated identities in interaction with students and myself with reference to the micro and macro social contexts in which they are situated. MELTs also demonstrate positive and negative identity practices in the classroom based on their English language and English language teaching ideologies. Furthermore, MELTs’ identity performances were observed to serve various ideological and interactional functions in the classroom. For instance, their negotiated identities support them practicing either monolingual or multilingual friendly language teaching. Moreover, some MELTs employ their negotiated linguistic identities to translanguage in the classroom, catering to the language needs of multilingual students. They also negotiate their teacher identities based on contextual factors. Thus, the findings of my study support language teacher educators, researchers and administrators to understand the contribution of MELTs towards English language education in New Zealand.