EFL teachers’ identity in self-directed learning: A work-from-home phenomenology

Major potential effects of abrupt changes in educational settings particularly for education stakeholders such as teachers have been somewhat interesting to examine. This study examines how teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in different schooling levels acclimatize their experiences due to the unanticipated Covid-19 outbreak, which forced them to pursue Online Distance Learning (ODL). Employing a phenomenological approach, eight teachers from various educational and psychometric backgrounds in three different provinces in Indonesia shared their experiences in coping with the changes. Before engaging in two semi-structured interviews, they were invited to complete an e-reflection to share their feelings, concerns, difficulties, and challenges. To get to the core of their experience, the data were scrutinized following an interpretive phenomenological analysis which includes an early focus on the lines of inquiry, central concerns and important themes, identification of shared meanings, final interpretations, and the dissemination of the interpretations. The findings demonstrated that the changes created an ambivalent experience of being challenged and bored, prompting teachers to reflect on their existing practice and respond appropriately by combining empathy, new roles, and technology paramount through their self-directed learning (SDL). Further implications on teacher agency and identity are discussed to shed light on the reshaping of teacher identities due to ODL and SDL.

In the Beginning was the Commons: Transformative Learning as Praxis for Regenerating the Cultural Commons

Culture is the medium through which human capabilities are transmitted. In this respect, culture may be understood as a commons that is consequential to the future of other forms of commons. Regenerating the commons is inherently and intrinsically associated with democratizing and partnering. The commons of shared meanings that enable truth telling are exploitable by the market when education is dominated by the market. If educational institutions are at the behest of the market and the state, education can neither be a commons nor be in the service of the commons. We can frame this circumstance as an enclosure of learning. Transformative learning facilitates a shifting from the mindset of exploiting the commons to a mindset of regenerating the commons. In fact, the core transformation that occurs in transformative learning is the liberation of awareness from identity enclosure. Such a liberation prepares the ground for growing partnership capabilities from the intimate to the global, essential for preserving and regenerating the commons. An education that transforms seeks to re-sacralize and regenerate culture as a commons, which can then enable partnership-based care towards all other forms of commons.

Investigating the Implementation Process of a Curriculum: A Case Study from Papua New Guinea

<p>The purpose of this study was to investigate how policy intentions of the curriculum were received and practiced by teachers and to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation process. The study probed three levels of an implementation process of an Outcomes-Based English Education curriculum in two urban secondary schools in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. The specific focus of implementation was on: the initial introduction process, teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, and classroom practices. This research was an exploratory one using focus group discussions, structured interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. A case study method was used; two qualitative studies situated within the constructivist and symbolic interactionism paradigms were used to probe alignment of policy with practice using the diffusion of innovation theoretical lenses. Content, discourse, and document analyses were used to give interpretations to themes resonating with the research focus; these themes were derived both deductively and inductively from data. Findings revealed that the curriculum change was challenging as policy expectations failed to align with practices. There were little shared meanings between teachers’ views and classroom practices; this lack of connection contradicted policy intentions. There also appeared to be no connection by policy makers of the inbuilt tensions inherent in the outcomes-based model of education adopted for PNG. In relation to this, findings from this study revealed the need for collaborative professional development if policy is to be aligned with practice. Hence, this study offers a working tool called a Kibung PD framework as a priority for curriculum implementation at the classroom level.</p>

Investigating the Implementation Process of a Curriculum: A Case Study from Papua New Guinea

<p>The purpose of this study was to investigate how policy intentions of the curriculum were received and practiced by teachers and to evaluate the effectiveness of the implementation process. The study probed three levels of an implementation process of an Outcomes-Based English Education curriculum in two urban secondary schools in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. The specific focus of implementation was on: the initial introduction process, teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, and classroom practices. This research was an exploratory one using focus group discussions, structured interviews, participant observations, and document analysis. A case study method was used; two qualitative studies situated within the constructivist and symbolic interactionism paradigms were used to probe alignment of policy with practice using the diffusion of innovation theoretical lenses. Content, discourse, and document analyses were used to give interpretations to themes resonating with the research focus; these themes were derived both deductively and inductively from data. Findings revealed that the curriculum change was challenging as policy expectations failed to align with practices. There were little shared meanings between teachers’ views and classroom practices; this lack of connection contradicted policy intentions. There also appeared to be no connection by policy makers of the inbuilt tensions inherent in the outcomes-based model of education adopted for PNG. In relation to this, findings from this study revealed the need for collaborative professional development if policy is to be aligned with practice. Hence, this study offers a working tool called a Kibung PD framework as a priority for curriculum implementation at the classroom level.</p>

Developing bonds: An exploration of the development of bonds between mentors and young people

The article describes a piece of research exploring young people’s experience of a mentoring service (PROMISE). The scheme has been developed to offer vulnerable young people a supportive relationship to assist their lives. This article explores the nature of the mentoring relationship, including how mentors and mentees view its development. Conjoint interviews were conducted which also permitted an analysis of the nature of the conversational processes between the pairs, including how they constructed shared meanings of the development of their relationship. This provided a window into the emotional dynamics of their mentoring relationships. Implications for similar mentoring programmes are discussed alongside wider implications for assisting this group of young people.

Flying Less for Work and Leisure? Co-Designing a City-Wide Change Initiative in Geneva

Geneva prides itself on being an international city, home to the United Nations and international organizations. The airport plays an important role in this image, tied to a quest for hypermobility in an increasingly globalized society. Yet, mobility accounts for close to one quarter of the territory’s carbon emissions, with flights responsible for 70% of these emissions. With recent legislation that includes ambitious targets for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the role of air travel can no longer be ignored. In 2020, a partnership was formed between the City, the University of Geneva, and a community energy association to explore the possibility of co-designing a city-wide change initiative, focused on reducing flights through voluntary measures. The team consulted with a variety of actors, from citizens who fly for leisure, to those who fly for professional reasons, with a spotlight on academic travel. A review of the scientific and grey literature revealed what initiatives already exist, leading to a typology of change initiatives. Inspired by this process, we then co-designed a series of workshops on opportunities for flying less in Geneva. We demonstrate the value of going beyond an ‘individual behaviour change’ approach towards understanding change as embedded in socio-material arrangements, as well as identifying interventions that seek to address both negative and positive anticipated outcomes. We conclude with insights on how a social practice approach to understanding mobility reveals both material and immaterial challenges and opportunities, involving infrastructures and technologies, but also social norms and shared meanings.

Being Together at a Distance, Talking and Avoiding Talk: Making Sense of the Present in Victory Square, Tianjin

This paper explores a “public gathering” which took place every evening from 1991 to 2017 in Victory Square (Shengli guangchang 胜利广场), a public square in Tianjin. The essay opens with an analysis of the type of publicness that stems from the way participants “do things together.” It then describes how a specific public realm appears through the way participants “talk together.” It finally suggests that even if they are overrun with doubt, indeterminacy and anxiety, or embedded in a specific distance-based sociality, the conversations on Victory Square are not a minor, secondary activity. On the contrary, they take place on a common stage where participants interact with one another, reveal themselves as unique individuals and discuss their everyday affairs and common practices. Grasped as an “intermediary public sphere,” this type of gathering engenders and reinforces not only shared meanings and evaluations but also practical knowledge whose validity goes beyond this situated gathering.