English language teachers becoming more efficacious through research engagement at their Turkish university

While it is generally recognized that teacher research can be a very beneficial form of continuing professional development (CPD), there is still relatively limited research available on the impact this activity has on teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, which are of interest to educational psychologists because, while being open to constant change, these beliefs influence the way in which knowledge is transformed into action. There is also a relative lack of available research into how teachers develop as researchers; the processes whereby they gain practical knowledge and more positive self-efficacy beliefs in planning, conducting, analysing, presenting and writing up research require further exploration. This qualitative multi-case study addresses these issues, exploring the development of three in-service teachers of English on a foundation programme at a Turkish university. Findings reveal that engaging in CPD which directly benefited their learners helped all three teachers develop positive teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and deeper practical knowledge in relation to the specific tasks that concerned them. Furthermore, from a starting point of having low self-efficacy beliefs in conducting practical research, which reflected their lack of prior knowledge in this area, they all became more efficacious as they gained research experience and developed practical knowledge of research. This study highlights the benefits, then, of helping teachers become more efficacious through CPD that engages them as knowledge-generators. Enthusiastic mentoring, autonomy support and the opportunity to present their research more widely all helped the teachers in this Turkish context to develop.     

Novice supervisors’ practices and dilemmatic space in supervision of student research projects

Growing interest in student research projects in higher education has led to an emphasis on research supervision. We focus in this study on novice supervisors’ approaches to research supervision as they explore their practices and experience difficulties supervising medicalstudents. Teacher noticing was used as a sensitising concept and relations with teacher dilemmas were explored in the research supervision context. To provide in-depth insights into supervisors’ practices and pedagogical choices, twelve stimulated recall interviews with supervisors were analysed. The supervisors were involved in individual undergraduate or master degree student research projects at a research-intensive university. Analysis revealed four kinds of dilemmas which may influence research supervision practices, namely questions regarding regulation, student needs, the student-supervisor relationship and supervisors’ professional identity. We explain the relationship between novice supervisors’ practices and dilemmas in detail. Implications are given to enhance initiatives for professional development of supervisors.     

Transforming critical and participative teacher research into communicative action: a possible direction for teacher professional learning

ABSTRACT

This paper is an account of how a group of Japanese English language teachers, who questioned current teacher professional education and English language education reforms, learnt to challenge the dominant discourse and find ways of conducting more democratic teacher professional education. It describes how those teachers, including the author, generated a collective theory on communicative competence through the process of their inquiry. It explains how they came to appreciate the action research methodology used for this study, grounded in reflective practice, which in turn helped to develop the author’s understanding of second person action research. It also tells how the teachers learnt to take the initiative in communicating the thinking which informed their practices to others and began to engage in ‘communicative action’ As a result of these outcomes, the paper suggests a potential new form of teacher professional learning aimed towards more democratic relationships between participants. It is hoped that the implications of the research findings could contribute to broader discussions about policy pertaining to teacher professional development.     

Teaching emerging teacher-researchers: examining a district-based professional development course

Using critical constructivism as the theoretical lens, the teacher educator-researcher used practitioner research to systematically examine the experience of PreK-12 teachers in his district-based teacher research professional development course, while also examining his development as a teacher educator. The results of this study showed that, as the teachers made progress toward becoming teacher-researchers, they expressed being empowered by the teacher research process. Moreover, they showed a growing critical awareness in their work, while the teacher educator was challenged to re-examine his conceptions of teacher research. Finally, the teachers faced several important barriers in adopting an inquiry stance in their practice. This research generates both local and global knowledge about teacher research as a form of in-service teacher education.     

‘You never know what research is like unless you’ve done it!’ Action research to promote collaborative student-teacher research

In contrast with its high level of popularity in both research and practice for in-service teacher development, teacher research has received much less attention in pre-service language teacher education as a reflective learning approach, particularly in China’s context. Action research, as a major form of teacher research, has rarely been employed by teacher educators. This action research study undertaken by a teacher educator aimed to address this dual gap by examining the effect of collaborative research experience undertaken by a cohort of English as a foreign language pre-service teachers in China. Triangulated research methods were employed to gather two sets of data respectively reflecting the student-teachers’ views of their collaborative research and the teacher educator’s perceptions of the action research. It was found that both groups highly endorsed their research experience. Meanwhile, issues also arose in terms of the sustainability of such research experiences for both groups. The study highlights the necessity of incorporating collaborative student-teacher research and teacher educators’ action research into pre-service teacher education programmes, which entails the need to transform the existing foundationalist teacher education paradigm into a post-foundationalist paradigm, and to recognize teacher educators’ action research on pertinent issues in teacher education.     

试论新课程改革背景下职前英语教师研究者素质的培养

面对新一轮的课程改革,教师教育应该着眼于提高教师的教学研究能力,使他们承担起教学研究者的角色。我国中学英语教师的研究者素质普遍缺乏,着眼于建设职前英语教师研究者素质的课程模式,加强职前英语教师研究者素质的培养是当前高等院校英语教师教育改革的新视角。     

Democratizing knowledge of teaching and learning through student leadership projects

ABSTRACT

The central focus of this multilayered educational action research project was three-fold: (1) to provide opportunities for public school student leadership activities grounded in participatory and youth participatory action research; (2) to support a group of teacher-researchers in practicing and innovating in participatory action research frameworks; (3) to practice linking an educational action research project in a local region to the larger movement for democratizing education knowledge production and dissemination. Project participants included 11 teacher-researchers, a staff-developer, a consultant, a university-based faculty member, and students in K-8 schools in the Lehigh Valley region of Eastern Pennsylvania USA. To move from a traditional top-down administrative and curricular decision- making model to a distributed and more democratic model of leadership, the team argues that (1) children must be permitted to play a leading role in their own learning, leading, and researching; (2) teacher offers significant advantages over traditional in-service based professional development models; and (3) in an era of increased deskilling and deprofessionalization, teachers must have the opportunity to reclaim their profession as they conduct research, create new knowledge, and share their findings publicly.     

Operationalizing the mentoring processes as perceived by teacher mentors

ABSTRACT

Mentoring plays a critical role in providing a quality professional experience for pre-service teachers in their initial teacher education. There have been numerous studies about pre-service teacher mentoring, yet actual mentoring practice still remains varied and poorly understood. Consequently, there is a need for mentoring processes that can enhance graduate teacher quality. In response to this call, this study aims to elucidate an understanding of how mentoring is operationalized, as perceived by the teacher mentor. Semi-structure interviews, with experienced teacher mentors, provided understanding on mentoring practices used within differing school contexts. These findings increase our understanding of actual mentoring processes that are used during the different phases of support for the preservice teachers. Understanding how the mentor–mentee relationship is operationalized has implications for supporting and enhancing quality mentoring experiences.     

Teacher Educators: hidden professionals?

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what ‘teaching’ means in 21st century learning environments. These changes also require teachers to be supported in learning to ‘teach’ in different ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and to the contexts in which they work throughout their career. In this article, it is argued that a more integrated and collaborative approach to teacher education is needed with better understanding of those who take up the roles of teacher educator across a teacher's career. With a particular emphasis on ‘teacher educators’ working in school to support teachers' career-long professional learning it is argued that currently many do not recognise themselves as teacher educators nor are they recognised by those they work with as teacher educators. Drawing on an empirical study carried out with mentors in schools in Scotland, it is suggested that these teacher educators may be ‘unrecognised’ and remain ‘hidden professionals’ because of the identities they construct for themselves, the values and priorities that they or others attach to their roles or because of the institutional structures and cultures in which they work. It is concluded that it will be difficult to recognise and value these ‘hidden teacher educators’ and the distinctive contribution they can make to teachers' career-long professional learning without further clarification by them and others of the roles and responsibilities they hold.     

Reading sources and academic freedom as determinants of trends in English language teacher research in Egypt: an interview-based study

Little attention has been given to investigating the experiences of teacher researchers while undertaking their studies. In an attempt to explore what accounts for the stereotyped and imitative trends in the studies conducted by English language teachers in Egypt, the present study has explored how they select research topics and the factors influencing their research orientations and processes. The study used semi-structured interviews with 25 Egyptian teachers who were doing MA and Ph.D. studies in TESOL. It was found that they view good language teaching research as either testing the effectiveness of instructional techniques or evaluating textbooks, though most of them opt for experimental research due to its practical nature. The study also revealed that reading sources and academic freedom are the two main determinants of research trends in this context. Apart from the association found between the teacher researchers’ perceived academic freedom and the type of literature they read, the following three other factors also accounted for the relative variance in such freedom: (a) the stage undertaken in the research, (b) the number of supervisors available or assigned and (c) the research degree registered for. The article concludes with discussing the implications of these results.     

Do intentions and perceptions always meet? A case study regarding the use of a teacher appraisal scheme in an English language teaching environment

This article reports research examining a group of English language teachers’ perceptions of the teacher appraisal scheme with a developmental purpose. Specifically, the researchers tried to find out if there is a discrepancy between what the institution intended to achieve and how teachers perceived the scheme before and after their participation in it. The findings of the study, which were obtained by analysing the data collected from the teachers and appraisers in the form of two structured interviews revealed some significant clues for the institutions which are involved in or interested in running teacher appraisal schemes in their workplace.     

Perceptions About the Dominance of English as a Global Language: Impact on Foreign-Language Teachers’ Professional Identity

Using a novel theoretical framework that incorporates teacher identity, a school as community of practice, and English as a global language from a linguistic-imperialism perspective, this qualitative interview study with foreign-language teachers in Scotland, France, and Germany (N = 13) explores connections between foreign-language-learning decline and the impact of this decline on teachers’ identity across the three countries. Findings indicate similar trends across contexts in the dominance of English over other languages (and the identities of those who teach them) and support previous research on the importance of considering subject area, and its valuing by a range of stakeholders, as fundamental to teacher identity. Directions are proposed for future research and practice that emphasise taking an interdisciplinary approach to the notion of a subject area’s decline.     

The role of university-based induction in beginning elementary teacher enactment of effective mathematics teaching

The purpose of this paper is to describe the school-based contextual constraints perceived by beginning elementary teachers as they attempted to enact their visions of effective mathematics teaching and the components of a mathematics-specific, university-based induction program designed to support elementary teachers in their teaching of mathematics. A significant number of beginning teachers in the program indicated that curriculum pacing guides and grade level teachers often discouraged their enactment of effective mathematics teaching. We describe the components of the induction program in general and then discuss the specific ways that program mentors, who were elementary teachers with expertise in mathematics teaching, supported beginning teachers in navigating the constraints identified. Data suggest that supporting teachers’ pedagogical agency to navigate local school contexts should be an additional consideration in teacher preparation and induction programs.     

Examining the Impact of Explicit Language Instruction in Writers Workshop on ELL Student Writing

abstract

In the context of our work as literacy specialists, we taught teachers to use sentence frames to support ELL students’ writing. We then studied the impact of their instruction on students. Our analysis of student writing samples revealed no groupwide developmental trends so we posed deeper questions about their work using the data analysis methods learned through the action research process. We report our findings about the relationship between student writing development and language instruction. We discuss our learning as well as implications for our work supporting teacher instruction.     

Catering for teachers’ individual teaching differences in China: the case of forming reciprocal coaching circles supported by university-based teacher educators

Opportunities for high quality teachers’ continuing professional development (CPD) are considered scarce in Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. In addition, there seem to be few sustainable outcomes of teachers’ CPD. The present study aimed to address English teachers’ dissatisfaction with their own CPD in China. With some university-based teacher educators’ support, reciprocal coaching circles were formed by English teachers, where they identified common teaching problems and worked out practical solutions appropriate for their local contexts collaboratively. The findings suggest multiple benefits, including higher confidence in teaching, an expanded repertoire of teaching strategies, and teachers’ professional communities. Both in-service teachers and university-based teacher educators contribute to reciprocal coaching circles in complimentary ways, with local teachers being the main agent for change and university-based teacher educators being facilitators.     

Transformational practice: critical teacher research in pre-service teacher education

This article traces the experiences of three pre-service teachers as they engaged in teacher research as part of their teacher education program and considers how teacher research might disrupt dominant paradigms that aim to de-contextualize teaching and offer one-size-fits-all solutions to address inequities. In particular, the article examines: the role of the teacher’s personal and academic history in the design of their teacher research projects; how their research worked to disrupt and complicate classroom cultures and practices; and the ways in which the pre-service teachers interpreted their research in light of new contexts during their first year of teaching. This work has critical implications in an era when teacher education programs are under attack, including: the value of drawing on pre-service teachers' lived experiences as an entry point into inquiry; creating highly localized inquiries; and positioning novice teachers as knowledgeable practitioners who are able to share research with colleagues.     

Korean EFL teachers’ perceptions of the impact of EFL teacher education upon their classroom teaching practices

This study employed qualitative data collection and analysis methods to investigate the influence of English as a foreign language teacher education programme on Korean teachers’ classroom teaching practices. Six in-service secondary-school teachers participated in semi-structured interviews. Thematic analysis was applied to the data collected from these interviews. Findings from the analysis included that: a) most of the teachers were dissatisfied with the largely theory-oriented pre-service teacher education programmes that they attended; b) a major source of influence on their teaching was their experience of in-service teacher training programmes with practical curricula; c) observation of other fellow teachers’ teaching had the strongest impact upon the teachers’ teaching practices; and d) the teachers’ low English proficiency and the washback effect of the Korea Scholastic Aptitude Test hindered the maintenance of the changes brought about by in-service teacher education programmes. This study ends with a discussion of the implications of these findings.     

Clear Mentoring: Contributing to Mentees’ Professional Self-confidence and Intention to Stay in their Job

Researchers have highlighted developmental mentoring as being beneficial and judgmental mentoring as hampering the potential positive outcomes of mentoring. We introduce the construct clear mentoring as a beneficial form of mentoring. The findings suggest that newly qualified teachers who perceive higher levels of mentoring characterized by mentees’ opportunities to reflect upon their own practice, openness to different approaches to being a teacher, and an atmosphere of relational trust are more likely to report lower levels of self-efficacy. In contrast, mentees who perceive higher levels of mentoring characterized by clear communication of feedback and advice are more likely to report higher levels of self-efficacy and lower levels of intention to quit. This study contributes to the field of mentoring by illuminating how mentors’ communication of evaluations, advice, and feedback can positively affect mentees, and how mentoring dominated by mentees’ perspectives can negatively affects mentees.