“I love foreigners’ attitudes towards life”: Reproducing lifestyles in an Iranian English language teaching context

An important aspect of learning a foreign language is encountering the sociocultural orientations associated with it. The present qualitative study focuses on an Iranian setting of English language teaching (ELT) to explore the potential reflection and reproduction of certain cultural attitudes and lifestyles in this context. A total of 200 hours of 10 ELT classes with 62 students were observed and/or recorded in 4 months, and 20 teachers and students were interviewed. Based on a grounded theory approach, the bodies of data were explored through coding procedures and the emerging thematic structure was used to illustrate aspects of the possible reproduction of lifestyles. The context of concern appeared to provide a potential arena of naturalising aspects of imported lifestyles associated with the foreign language. Although students show various extents of adherence to their own culture, prolonged involvement in ELT discursive practices may contribute to the subtle alteration of their lifestyle orientations.     

The politics of naming: critiquing “learner-centred” and “teacher as facilitator” in English language and humanities classrooms

“Learner-centred” and “teacher as facilitator,” among the most influential concepts (re)shaping education over the past decades, are often represented as bringing democratic participation, equality, and empowerment to learners and helping transform and liberate societies. At the same time, these concepts are constructed in binary terms with “teacher-centred” and “teacher as authority” projecting the two ends as being mutually exclusive. Drawing on data collected through interviews and scholarly works from teachers teaching Humanities and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in Asian and English-speaking Western universities, this article examines their positionings, mode, and form of critique/criticality of learner-centred education. It demonstrates in what ways equality as the starting point (Ranciere) is not embedded in how learner-centred education has largely been promoted in these contexts. As well, while Ranciere’s concepts of equality and dissensus may empower those seen as marginalised and disadvantaged, these concepts fail to acknowledge the multiplicities and dynamics of positions of those presupposed to be “powerful” and “privileged.”     

“Latino night”: Performances of latino/a culture in northwest Ohio

It's something they can relate to. You know, assimilate. They go there, talk in Spanish, not worry about it, drink, have fun, do it all in a language they're accustomed to, or at least with people they feel more comfortable with. I guess that's why a lot of them come Monday nights from these distances. That's what I was trying to explain to Chris. If you have a Latino night it's going to be successful because us as Latinos don't have a lot of options for us to go or places for us to go.     

A response to an article entitled “Improving teacher professional development for online and blended learning: a systematic meta-aggregative review”

Educational technology research and development - This response reviews the article entitled “Improving teacher professional development for online and blended learning: a systematic...     

“They made me feel like a teacher rather than a praccie”: sinking or swimming in pre-service drama education

Support, professional guidance and modelling of teaching practice offered by quality mentor teachers are important components in preparing teachers for the profession. Yet research confirms the impact of poor mentoring on pre-service teachers’ developing pedagogy. This paper reports findings from a qualitative study with pre-service drama teachers and their mentors as a way of better understanding how mentoring impacts their developing pedagogy, in a learning area that is highly interactive and relational. Data comprised of observations of planning and teaching, participant interviews, journals and field notes representing five pre-service drama teachers’ experience of mentors during an extended teaching practicum. These data revealed the considerable variance and disparities in mentoring styles and quality and the repercussions for the pre-service drama teachers. The discussion addresses the implications of these findings in light of those mentor attributes identified as most conducive to creating competent and confident beginning drama teachers.     

“Somebody to count on”: Mentor/intern relationships in a beginning teacher internship program

The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to illuminate mentor and intern participants' relationships in one state-mandated beginning teacher internship program. We analyzed interview data from 29 mentors and interns using within- and cross-case analysis and generated categories and properties with supporting interview excerpts to show how mentors and interns interpreted and adapted their roles. Findings of the study indicate that mentors and interns jointly construct their relationships; these relationships are undergirded by the respect and trust the two individuals have for each other. Furthermore, interns appear to need mentors who first, and foremost, support them as fledgling teachers. Interns also need mentors who assume flexible roles and who adapt their roles based on interns' needs.     

“They are teaching us to deliver lessons and that is not all that teaching is …”: Exploring teacher trainees’ language for peer victimisation in schools

This paper reports on qualitative findings from the larger Safe Schools Longitudinal Study and explores what trainee teachers understand by the term ‘bullying’, its prevalence, and the barriers to responding to it. Twenty-four teacher trainees at an Initial Teacher Education programme in Scotland took part in two waves of qualitative interviews three years apart. Findings show trainee teachers use the term ‘bullying’ to cover a range of behaviours - with uncertainty around whether verbal insults are bullying. Key factors that impact teacher responses are discussed - with the attitude of the head teacher being pivotal to school climate.     

“Regressed experts” as a new state in teachers’ professional development: lessons from Computer Science teachers’ adjustments to substantial changes in the curriculum

Due to a program reform in Israel, experienced CS high-school teachers faced the need to master and teach a new programming paradigm. This situation served as an opportunity to explore the relationship between teachers' content knowledge (CK) and their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). This article focuses on three case studies, with emphasis on one of them. Using observations and interviews, we examine how the teachers, we observed taught and what development of their teaching occurred as a result of their teaching experience, if at all. Our findings suggest that this situation creates a new hybrid state of teachers, which we term “regressed experts.” These teachers incorporate in their professional practice some elements typical of novices and some typical of experts. We also found that these teachers' experience, although established when teaching a different CK, serve as a leverage to improve their knowledge and understanding of aspects of the new content.     

The difference biocultural “place” makes to community efforts towards sustainable development: Youth participatory action research in a marine protected area of Colombia

The Latin American concept of “(collective) biocultural heritage” arose from Indigenous knowledge and practices with respect to local natural resources and environment, including the food being hunted, the crops being grown, and the landscapes being created. The term is now used more widely to describe community practices, goals and priorities that are determined, maintained and managed by diverse cultural relationships with “place”. The study presented in this article investigated biocultural place relationships in connection with well-being and sustainability. In the context of learning and action for sustainability in Isla Grande, an island in a marine protected area of Colombia, this study targeted the significance of place to the everyday lives of Afro-Colombian youth – from their perspective. Beyond aiming to merely observe and collect data, the methodology included a research design which actively involved local youth and incorporated the aspect of place. The authors describe and reflect on the processes, learning and action that emerged throughout the research, as well as the study’s limitations. They discuss broad implications in terms of how place relationships influence research, and how research influences place relationships. Local implications include supporting the voice of youth in community efforts to re-imagine and transform place relationships in response to critical place issues such as climate change, top-down resource management, privatisation, commodification and growing environmental injustice.     

Linguistic discrimination in writing assessment: How raters react to African American “errors,” ESL errors,and standard English errors on a state-mandated writing exam

Raters of Georgia's (USA) state-mandated college-level writing exam, which is intended to ensure a minimal university-level writing competency, are trained to grade holistically when assessing these exams. A guiding principle in holistic grading is to not focus exclusively on any one aspect of writing but rather to give equal weight to style, vocabulary, mechanics, content, and development. This study details how raters react to “errors” typical of African American English writers, of ESL writers, and of standard American English writers. Using a log-linear model to generate odds ratios for comparison of essays with these error types, results indicate linguistic discrimination against African American “errors” and a leniency for ESL errors in writing assessment.