scholarly journals Internal and external forces: Technology uses among English language teacher educators in South Korea

2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ksan Rubadeau

Surprisingly little has been written about the technology-related roles and practices of teacher educators. Even less is known about the adoption of technologies by teacher educators in the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), even in the technology-rich nation of South Korea. The purpose of the present in-depth instrumental multiple case study was to explore internal and external forces in the integration of digital technologies into the pedagogical practices of TESOL teacher educators at a university in South Korea. Data collected over 20 weeks included four rounds of semi-structured interviews and two sets of classroom observations for each of the five focal participants, interviews with an administrator, written reflections, field notes, photographs, and document review. Five key forces were identified that worked in tension with voluntary use of technologies to mediate their extensive use in the teacher educators’ practice. This study contributes to research gaps on the roles and technology-related practices of TESOL teacher educators. TESOL program administrators and teacher educators will particularly benefit from the light shed on teacher educator cognitions and praxis in this study.

2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valerie Kinloch ◽  
Kerry Dixon

Purpose This paper aims to examine the cultivation of anti-racist practices with pre- and in-service teachers in post-secondary contexts, and the tensions of engaging in this work for equity and justice in urban teacher education. Design/methodology/approach The paper relies on critical race theory (CRT) and critical whiteness studies (CWS), as well as auto-ethnographic and storytelling methods to examine how black in-service teachers working with a black teacher educator and white pre-service teachers working with a white teacher educator enacted strategies for cultivating anti-racist practices. Findings Findings indicate that for black and white educators alike, developing critical consciousness and anti-racist pedagogical practices requires naming racism as the central construct of oppression. Moreover, teachers and teacher educators demonstrated the importance of explicitly naming racism and centralizing (rather than de-centralizing) the political project of anti-racism within the current socio-political climate. Research limitations/implications In addition to racism, educators’ racialized identities must be centralized to support individual anti-racist pedagogical practices. Storying racism provides a context for this individualized work and provides a framework for disrupting master narratives embedded in educational institutions. Originality/value Much has been written about the importance of teachers connecting to students’ out-of-school lives to increase academic achievement and advance educational justice. Strategies for forging those connections include using assets-based practices and linking school curricula to students’ community and cultural identities. While these connections are important, this paper focuses on teachers’ explicit anti-racist practices in urban education.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-28
Author(s):  
Maria Antonietta Impedovo ◽  
Sufiana Khatoon Malik ◽  
Kinley Kinley

Abstract This article explores Pakistani and Bhutanese teacher educators’ digital competences about the use of social media, digital resources and professional online communities and implications of this on professional learning. The two countries, less discussed in international educational literature, are facing a growing use of the Internet in teaching and learning. Data include a survey completed by 67 teacher educators from Pakistan and 37 teachers from Bhutan, as well as semi-structured interviews from both countries. This study provides evidence of how teachers’ interaction on social networks and the use of digital resources play a central role in the introduction of innovative pedagogical practices of teacher educators, and teacher educators remain interested in knowledge sharing through social media for their professional learning.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Juliet Hilary Munden

AbstractExperiencing literature is part of the English as a foreign language (EFL) subject in Norway. It is both challenging and possible to educate competent reading teachers who can foster this experience. The present article is a thematic exploration of some of these challenges and possibilities. The challenges are discussed under four headings: the profession of the teacher educator; the complaint that student teachers do not read enough; the role of national tests in forming how reading in English is taught in school; and the challenge of making sense of the concept of reading strategies. The second part of the article considers possibilities. These are grounded in the principle that teacher educators should not primarily lecture. Instead, they should alternate systematically between enactment and metacognition. The article describes scenarios in which students try out a sequence of pre-, during- and post-reading activities related to the short story “The Demon Lover” by Elizabeth Bowen. After engaging with each activity, the students take part in a reflection led by the teacher educator on their experience as readers, the learning potential of the activity, and questions related to its adaptation and organisation in a diverse school classroom. This operationalisation of a pedagogy of enactment (Grossman et al., 2009) allows student teachers to gain experience of and reflect on core practices. In the present case, the core practice is the planning and teaching of coherent and motivating learning sequences that promote increased reading motivation and proficiency in the English language classroom.Keywords: teacher education, subject English, reading strategies, learning sequence, metacognitionUtfordringer og muligheter i utdanningen av leselærere i engelskfagetSammendragLitteraturopplevelser hører til i engelskfaget i norsk skole. Det er både ut-fordrende og mulig å utdanne kompetente leselærere som kan fremme slike opplevelser. Denne artikkelen er en tematisk utforskning av noen av disse utfordringene og mulighetene. Utfordringene diskuteres under fire overskrifter: lærerutdanneren som profesjonsutøver; misnøyen med at studenter ikke leser nok; betydningen av nasjonale prøver for hvordan lesing i engelsk er undervist i skolen; og utfordringen med å forstå lesestrategier som konsept. Den andre delen av artikkelen tar for seg mulighetene som ligger i prinsippet om at lærer-utdannere ikke primært skal forelese. Isteden bør de veksle systematisk mellom utøvelse og metakognisjon. Artikkelen beskriver en sekvens hvor studenter prøver ut før-, under- og etter-lesningsaktiviteter tilknyttet Elizabeth Bowens novelle “The Demon Lover”. Etter å ha engasjert seg i hver aktivitet, deltar studentene i en refleksjon ledet av lærerutdanneren, hvor de drøfter sine opplevelser som lesere, aktivitetens læringspotensial, og spørsmål om tilpasning og organisering av aktiviteten i et mangfoldig klasserom. Denne operasjonaliseringen av en enactment-pedagogikk (Grossman et al., 2009) gir lærerstudenter anledning til å skaffe seg erfaring med og reflektere over kjerne-praksiser. I dette tilfellet er kjernepraksisen det å planlegge koherente og moti-verende læringssekvenser som fører til økt lesemotivasjon og kompetanse i det engelske klasserommet.Nøkkelord: lærerutdanning, engelskfaget, lesestrategier, læringsøkt, metakogni¬sjon


Author(s):  
Iman Abbas

This article is a case study that aims to understand and explore a teacher's perspective about integrating Facebook as an informal social platform into the EFL classroom in a higher education context in Oman. The study further aims to identify the attitudes and perspectives of a group of students belonging to the same context. Research data came from semi-structured interviews with a teacher participant and a survey questionnaire with student participants. The study provides a set of findings based on interview data analysis and questionnaire survey analysis. The study's findings revealed the teacher and students' positive attitudes and perspectives towards the role of Facebook in boosting pedagogical practices and increasing English language skills learning. This study contributes to knowledge by providing insights on the integration of Facebook as an informal platform into the formal curriculum-based learning in TESOL. The insights and findings are of value to the teachers and instructors in EFL higher education contexts. Pedagogical implications for ESL (English as a second language) and EFL (English as a foreign language) and researchers are offered in the light of these results.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-110
Author(s):  
Anna Roumbanis Viberg ◽  
Karin Karin Forslund Frykedal ◽  
Sylvana Sofkova Hashemi

This study takes an exploratory approach to investigating Swedish teacher educators’ perceptions regarding their profession in relation to the digitalization of society and education, including higher education. Eighteen semi-structured interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings show that the teacher educators perceive digitalization on a scale that ranges from simply using tools to being part of a technology-initiated revolution of educational institutions and society. From this range of digital developments emanate individual, group, and organizational requirements/demands, needs, and consequences for being, that is, personal experiences of how digitalization affects the work, and acting, that is, doing something in response to the demands of using and teaching with digital technology. The teacher educator is situated primarily in being with the requirements for working professionally and acting as a teacher, which creates tensions and challenges for the individual and the professional self.  


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelhak Bouslama ◽  
Fawzia Bouhass Benaissi

Intercultural competence (IC) has been promoted by many educationalists as the most exalted type of competence in modern foreign language teaching (FLT). Among the difficulties to incorporate IC into FLT can be due to the fact that teachers may not have sufficient knowledge on the concept. To test this hypothesis, we attempt to answer the following question: how do Algerian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers perceive the concepts of culture and IC as well as the objectives of the intercultural approach (ICA) in English language teaching (ELT) contexts? The present study proceeds to analyze teachers’ knowledge, perceptions and understanding of the concepts of culture, IC and the ICA and seeks to identify any potential deficiencies that may hinder effective IC teaching. The main aim of the study is then to help teacher trainers establish training programs that address more efficiently targeted teachers’ needs with regard to IC teaching. This paper will hopefully assist in improving the implementation of IC into FLT classrooms. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with eight teachers and then analyzed thematically. The findings revealed that many EFL teachers displayed a lack of theoretical understanding concerning the ICA and its objectives, which may well impact negatively on their IC teaching practices. Teacher educators therefore need to focus more on updating EFL teachers’ on both the theoretical and practical levels that learners are today expected to grow as cultural mediators equipped with a set of skills rather than as native-like proficient language users.


RELC Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003368822110220
Author(s):  
Parawati Siti Sondari

To address a student-teacher educator perspective in the engagement of critical pedagogy (CP), I employed a critical and analytical autoethnography to self-investigate my lived experiences during coursework in a doctoral program in the United States. Framed in postcolonial CP in border-crossing notion, I engaged in critical and analytical autoethnography. I critically carried out thematic analysis on learning artifacts and personal memory during the Summer course 2020 which was expanded to analytical thematic analysis as I drew on artifacts and personal memory during coursework from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020. The analysis was intended to explore how CP was enacted during coursework and the implications of the enactment. Three key themes were identified: ideology work; co-construction of knowledge and mutuality; and imagined spaces and unfinishedness. The themes embodied the perceived enactment of CP in my coursework experience and they revealed how criticality intersected CP is with pedagogical practices, transformed identities, and spaces. They further served as the basis for implications for English teacher education programs and teacher educators in Indonesia to implement CP in a higher educational landscape.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Metz

Purpose This paper aims to address concerns of English teachers considering opening up their classrooms to multiple varieties of English. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the author’s experience as a teacher educator and professional developer in different regions of the USA, this narrative paper groups teachers’ concerns into general categories and offers responses to the most common questions. Findings Teachers want to know why they should make room in their classrooms for multiple Englishes; what they should teach differently; how they learn about English variation; how to balance Standardized English and other Englishes; and how these apply to English Learners and/or White speakers of Standardized English. Practical implications The study describes the author’s approach to teaching about language as a way to promote social justice and equality, the value of increasing students’ linguistic repertoires and why it is necessary to address listeners as well as speakers. As teachers attempt to adopt and adapt new approaches to teaching English language suggested in the research literature, they need to know their challenges and concerns are heard and addressed. Teacher educators working to support these teachers need ways to address teachers’ concerns. Social implications This paper emphasizes the importance of teaching mainstream, White, Standard English-speaking students about English language variation. By emphasizing the role of the listener and teaching students to hear language through an expanded language repertoire, English teachers can reduce the prejudice attached to historically stigmatized dialects of English. Originality/value This paper provides a needed perspective on how to work with teachers who express legitimate concerns about what it means to decenter Standardized English in English classrooms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-110
Author(s):  
Ігор РОМАНИШИН

In the article, the author describes the procedures and results of the implementation of the pedagogical technology – the design and delivery of the three-hour session ‘Introduction to Communicative Language Teaching and the History of Method’ to the second-year pre-service English teachers at Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, Ukraine aimed at enhancing students’ understanding of basic ELT concepts and becoming prepared for the new methodology content to be covered in the spring term of the academic year of 2019/2020. The study is based on the material of the experimental Core Curriculum “English Language  Teaching Methodology. Bachelor’s Level” implemented within the framework of the joint project of the British Council Ukraine and the Ministry of Science and Education of Ukraine “New Generation School Teacher”. The author applied the research methods of comparison, generalisation, synthesis, induction and deduction, as well as carried out the classroom action research using such instruments for qualitative and quantitative data collection as teacher classroom observations, student surveys, and student self-assessment checklists. The analysis of the obtained results demonstrates that the suggested pedagogical technology (materials, activities, methods/techniques, interaction of the subjects of educational process, etc.) helped the teacher educator and students to reach the objectives of the experimental study. The results of the study might be useful for the wider community of pre-service English language teacher educators in Ukraine and beyond.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 317
Author(s):  
Dheifallah Altamimi ◽  
Radzuwan Ab Rashid

Saudi university students who learn English as a foreign language face multiple difficulties during the process of learning especially while mastering writing skill and its component (spelling). This paper aims to explore the most recommended teaching strategies to eliminate the Saudi university students’ spelling errors. The research participants were 15 students in English Language Department at Tabuk University and 15 English language lecturers from the same department. Group structured interviews were designed for the lecturers and students. The findings reveal that, there are different effective teaching strategies to master English spelling such as, practicing spelling, lecturers’ pedagogical practices and Learners’ Engagement. This paper concludes that, the spelling problems of EFL learners could be addressed by a variety of intervention strategies such as, instructors should be introduced to a range of teaching methods such as simulation situations where they can experience problems arising from poor spelling and roleplaying .Students should also be encouraged to engage in the learning process by setting tasks like, learning the spelling of a few selected words, which they can test each other on in pairs class and so evaluate their own and their peer’s work. This paper hoped that, the findings revealed in this study will help the policymakers in taking necessary actions in improving the learning experience of Arab learners of English.


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