THE CONTRIBUTION OF ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES IN ACTIVATING STUDENTS’ ORAL COMMUNICATION

The paper is aimed at describing the procedures of three active learning strategies which can be used to design a learning situation for learners to speak English actively. The three active learning strategies are live interview, short conversation, and long talk. Specifically, the implementation of each strategy can give impact to the learners’ speaking performance in terms of accuracy, fluency, and comprehensibility. Each strategy promotes the learners’ self-confidence and thinking skills. The implementation of each strategy considers four aspects, namely: the roles of teacher, the classroom interaction, the material, and the learning process. Each strategy evokes variation in those aspects.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES IN ACTIVATING STUDENTS’ ORAL COMMUNICATION

The paper is aimed at describing the procedures of three active learning strategies which can be used to design a learning situation for learners to speak English actively. The three active learning strategies are live interview, short conversation, and long talk. Specifically, the implementation of each strategy can give impact to the learners’ speaking performance in terms of accuracy, fluency, and comprehensibility. Each strategy promotes the learners’ self-confidence and thinking skills. The implementation of each strategy considers four aspects, namely: the roles of teacher, the classroom interaction, the material, and the learning process. Each strategy evokes variation in those aspects.

Evidence-informed teaching and practice-informed research

In this commentary, I seek to join the ongoing conversation about evidence-informed educational practice that has been threaded through this special issue. I do so by drawing on related insights from the fields of teachers' beliefs and epistemic cognition and considering the roles of teacher education and educational research in improving (preservice) teachers' use of educational research. In particular, I focus on the merits of explicit research-based practice in teacher educators' teaching and ways that they can encourage preservice teachers' interactions with educational research in class, and methods of changing the beliefs that may underlie (preservice) teachers' engagement with educational research evidence, and finally, the need for clearly communicated research, including details of implementation.

Just Sitting and Just Saying: The Hermeneutics of Dōgen’s Realization-Based View of Language

This paper explicates the complex relationship between contemplative practice and enlightened activity conducted both on and off the meditative cushion as demonstrated in the approach of the Sōtō Zen Buddhist founder Dōgen (1200–1253). I examine Dōgen’s intricate views regarding how language, or what I refer to as just saying, can and should be used in creative yet often puzzling and perplexing ways to express the experience of self-realization by reflecting the state of non-thinking that is attained through unremitting seated meditation or just sitting (shikan taza). In light of the sometimes-forbidding obscurity of his writing, as well as his occasional admonitions against a preoccupation with literary pursuits, I show based on a close reading of primary sources that Dōgen’s basic hermeneutic standpoint seeks to overcome conventional sets of binary oppositions involving uses of language. These polarities typically separate the respective roles of teacher and learner by distinguishing sharply between delusion and insight, truth and untruth, right and wrong, or speech and silence, and thereby reinforce a hierarchical, instrumental, and finite view of discourse. Instead, Dōgen inventively develops expressions that emphasize the non-hierarchical, realization–based, and eminently flexible functions of self-extricating rhetoric such that, according to his paradoxical teaching, “entangled vines are disentangled by using nothing other than entwined creepers,” or as a deceptively straightforward example, “the eyes are horizontal, and the nose is vertical.”

Unexpected Opportunities

In the spring of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation's schools closed. Students and families were asked to shelter-in-place and the nation's schools were charged with the challenge of educating students through online modalities. Novice and veteran teachers alike needed to quickly assimilate to virtual teaching and online learning modalities. Students were asked to adjust from face-to-face lessons to screenshots of material from within the confines of their homes. Parents were asked to assume the roles of teacher assistant, tutor, and learning support, all while juggling other personal or work challenges. Leading and coordinating all of these efforts in towns and cities across our nation were school leaders, many of whom may have felt lacking in their own skill set related to online teaching. This research study will explore the perceptions of these leaders. Almost 50 North Carolina leaders shared their perspectives on their own experiences. Conclusions from this research will be pertinent in recommending steps and considerations for future events of this magnitude.

Exploring the Roles of Coursework and Field Experience in Teacher Candidates’ Assessment Literacy: A Focus on Approaches to Assessment

Recognising that assessment literacy is a complex construct comprised of knowledge, skills, and dispositions, we sought to better understand how teacher candidates develop assessment literacy by focusing on the dispositional construct of approaches to assessment. We analysed 34 teacher candidates’ approaches to classroom assessment at three points in their preservice programme: (1) prior to a one-credit assessment course; (2) after their assessment course; and (3) after 10 weeks of full-time student teaching. By way of comparison to the student teachers’ assessment approaches, the assessment approaches of 23 co-operating teachers were also analysed. Results indicated that teacher candidates’ approaches to assessment did not vary at different points in their development. Co-operating teachers’ and teacher candidates’ assessment approaches were closely aligned in terms of the dominant approaches each group reported. This study contributes understandings about the possible limitations and potential roles of teacher preparation programmes in the development of teacher candidates’ approaches to assessment.