Taking It with You: Teacher Education and the Baggage of Cultural Dialogue

This case study contributes to counterpoints made to world culture theory and underscores that at the micro, classroom-level, rural Chinese teachers in a reform-oriented professional development course, and reform-oriented U.S. teacher trainers, understand educational reform, and the realities of education in these two cultures, very differently. This study examines interviews conducted with U.S. teachers of English who taught the Oral English Training Course (OETC), a professional development course for rural Chinese teachers of English in Jiangxi province from 2007 to 2013. These teachers reveal how their own understandings and assumptions around teaching and learning shape what and how they teach, and how they evaluate the work of others. This study explains that included in the literal baggage of these foreign teachers teaching in China, is their figurative baggage, which includes their own cultural lens. The thrust of this study lies in uncovering the ideologies, assumptions, and educative constructs of foreign teachers, how these may be perceived by the Chinese teachers that they teach, and how all of this is steeped in the realities in education and the individual experiences of local actors. This study ends with recommendations for collaboration between foreign teachers of English in China, and their students, particularly Chinese teachers of English in China.     

English teachers’ uses of motivational strategies beyond an established framework

ABSTRACT

Background: Although the usefulness of Dörnyei’s framework of motivational strategies to language teachers has been widely tested, motivational techniques that are not within the framework have less commonly been accounted for.

Purpose: This study explores the uses of motivational strategies beyond Dörnyei’s taxonomy, and the factors that cause English teachers to use them.

Methods: In total, 22 teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Hong Kong participated in this study. Reflective journal data and interview data, supported by classroom observations, were collected and analysed qualitatively.

Findings: The results reveal that, while most of the reported strategies corresponded closely to Dörnyei’s recommendations, two additional macrostrategies – routine teaching activities and uses of authentic materials – were employed. The most predominant factor leading to the use of these two macrostrategies was a concern about feasibility.

Conclusions: This study hence suggests the need for a new line of research on strategies that are primarily instructional and secondarily motivational, as well as further studies that take the feasibility of motivational strategies into greater consideration.     

Integrating philosophy into English curriculum: The development of thinking and language competence

Abstract

This article reports the results of a study that assesses the effectiveness of a Philosophy in Schools (PIS) program in developing English as a Second Language (ESL) students’ thinking skills and English competence in Hong Kong. In the study, training and support were provided for two English teachers to enable them to teach PIS to their Secondary 4 ESL students during English lessons. The students were found to be capable of reasoning and arguing about philosophical problems arising from various stimuli prepared by their teachers according to the English curriculum. Also, PIS was found to play an important role in promoting the students’ critical and creative thinking and enhance the development of their English language proficiency to a significant extent. The findings of this study suggest that integrating philosophy into the English curriculum can promote critical thinking, creative thinking, and English language proficiency in ESL students.     

Reading Skills in Emotionally Disturbed,Institutionalized Adolescents

Abstract

Good behavior ratings were found to accompany good marks in all subject areas studied (commerce, English, math, foreign languages, science, and social studies), and unsatisfactory behavior ratings were found to accompany failing marks in all subject areas except foreign languages for 441 tenth and eleventh grade Negro girls who attended school for at least 150 days during the school year. Teachers, whether they were male or female, who gave favorable behavior ratings also tended to give higher grades than teachers who gave unfavorable behavior ratings. Social studies teachers gave the highest proportion of excellent behavior ratings, and English teachers gave the highest proportion of unsatisfactory behavior ratings.     

Foreign Language Teaching to Adults: Implicit and explicit political education

Political education may occur within skills-based subjects such as foreign languages. However, this may be problematic in that learners wish to develop linguistic rather than political skills, and teachers are unprepared political educators. A language course is also about the cultures of the peoples who speak the language, including political institutions. Politics has a logical place within a language course but the word culture does not inevitably evoke political institutions. Within Europe, language education is part of the political project of creating a more integrated market and transnational political entity. Political education is an implicit part of the study of a foreign language. This article examines some of the materials provided to adult, part-time students of the British Open University's language courses. It highlights some elements of the courses that are quite explicitly political education. It also draws on interviews with some of those involved in making the courses to explore the debates and decisions concerning the cultural content and particularly the representations of the target culture. It attempts to make explicit some of the implicit assumptions behind the making of a language course.     

ESL student teachers' perceptions of a short-term overseas immersion programme

In recent years there has been an increasing demand for teachers to develop the international knowledge and skills necessary to help promote their students' global perspectives. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has seized the initiative to provide mandatory overseas immersion programmes for pre-service English teachers to enhance their language proficiency and cultural understanding. This study involved a group of Hong Kong English language student teachers who joined a six-week immersion programme in Auckland. The aim of the present investigation was to address our dearth of knowledge as to the impact of such a programme on student teachers, and the benefits that they could derive from it. Several obstacles that might hinder maximal benefits were also identified.     

美国优秀外语教师语言文化素养标准评介及启示

以美国国家专业教学标准委员会制定的《优秀外语教师标准》（第2版）为例,从“文化知识”和“学习的多元渠道”方面评介美国优秀外语教师语言文化素养标准,并展开其我国中小学英语教师职后语言文化素养发展的启示.     

浅析课程改革中大学英语课堂中教师文化身份认同

文章旨在分析英语教师双重文化身份认同与教学对象互动形成的原因,在课堂教学中双重身份的体现应用以及作用,以及就如何充分发挥中国的英语教师的双重文化身份的优势,提出几点建议,以期对广大英语教师有所启示。     

The Politics of Emotions in ELT: Structure of Feeling and Anxiety of Korean English Teachers

ABSTRACT

Using the notion of structure of feeling by Raymond Williams, this article seeks to illuminate an ideological understanding of Korean English teachers’ anxiety and deep sense of insecurity in English language teaching (ELT). Through a discussion of how their anxiety is grounded deeply within unequal social relations and how they reframe their anxiety through critical reflection on the cultural and ideological bias of their own anxiety, it points out the intricate relationship between ideology and emotion; teachers’ emotions are shaped by dominant ideologies that constitute the social structures constraining their position as teachers, while their engagement with those emotions also enables their self-transformation towards gaining confidence as teachers. The results of the study emphasise the tension between social structure and agency in teachers’ emotional experiences and discuss implications for teacher education and development.     

The pentagonal implicit theory of giftedness revisited: A cross‐validation in Hong Kong

This article addresses the cross‐cultural generalization of the pentagonal implicit theory of giftedness (Sternberg & Zhang, 1995) as well as differential expectations regarding excellence for girls versus boys. First, we used an instrument based on the pentagonal theory with a sample of in‐service and pre‐service teachers at the University of Hong Kong. Second, we administered a questionnaire designed to assess conceptions of “excellence,” one of the attributes for giftedness described in the pentagonal model, to a different sample of in‐service and pre‐service teachers at the same university. We found a good fit of the pentagonal model to the data collected, paralleling results obtained in the U.S. We also found, however, that in Hong Kong, however, unlike in the U.S., participants had higher expectations of excellence for boys than for girls. These outcomes have implications for identification, instruction, and programming for the gifted.     

Present Research on the Flipped Classroom and Potential Tools for the EFL Classroom

ABSTRACT

The flipped classroom can support the implementation of a communicative, student-centered learning environment in the English as a foreign language classroom. Unfortunately, there is little research which supports the incorporation of flipped learning in the English as a foreign language classroom. Numerous studies have focused on flipped learning and other subject areas, but more research needs to be done on the English as a foreign language classroom. With this in mind, there are many effective tools available to enable teachers to create a communicative, English as a foreign language learning environment. Even though technology is constantly changing, the tools presented here will give teachers an idea of how to incorporate and use technology when developing an active, communicative learning environment.     

On the Importance of Cultural Input in English Teaching

English as a foreign language has been a subject in middle school of China for years. Teachers and educators generation by generation have been trying to find an optimal method of teaching foreign language to help students master it better. After unceasing exploring, traditional teaching pattern has been improved and new teaching approaches appear such as Task-based language teaching and communicative language teaching. However, whatever teaching methods English teachers use in the class, they should not ignore the cultural input in English teaching. The successful and efficient English teaching should transform the single language teaching into the combination of language teaching and cultural teaching. The thesis is concerned with the significance of culture in English teaching. More specifically, some consideration will be given to the reasons and ways of teaching culture.     

Barriers associated with the use of English in the teaching of technology in grade 9 at some schools in Eastern Cape Province

ABSTRACT

English is the language of learning and teaching in most schools in South Africa. The ability of teachers and students to understand and communicate with each other in English contributes to better performance in Science and Technology subjects. This article explores the challenges posed by the use of English in the teaching and learning of Technology at schools in Eastern Cape. The study was undertaken in order to gauge the commonness of problems related to the use of English. The sample for the questionnaire comprised 57 teachers who taught Technology at different schools in the district. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with five subject specialists in Technology. The findings revealed that the use of English militates against effective learning and teaching of Technology. In order to enhance the communication skills of students, it is recommended that teachers increase dialogue in English by means of small-group discussion, exploratory talk and argumentation.     

外语学习动机与大学英语教学

本文拟通过对外语学习的动机释义、类型的分析,探讨了我国大学生英语学习的动机,并给大学英语教师提出几点启示。     

人－文化的生物－－论英语教学中外教与本土教师的合理搭档

中国空前的改革开放力度，使中国的英语教学领域也因中国社会的飞速发展正在发生着巨大的变化。大批外籍教师在中国英语教学中的参与，给中国的英语教学带来了许多英语及其承载的多姿多彩的英语化。这种英语化的多元性在当今的英语教学中，与中国传统化，包括中国传统的英语教学化既发生冲突，又相互适应。外籍教师与中国本土教师分别为不同化的生物，为不同的化所塑造。在英语教学中，看到中外教师的各自优势，认识到中外教师在教学中搭配的必要性与合理性，是一个十分重要的问题。在这种搭配合作中，一些值得注意的问题不可小视。     

The Creation of the ‘Hong Kong Visual Arts Education Web’ and the Use of the Inquiry‐Based Teaching Approach

This article describes a collaborative action research conducted by a lecturer and several primary school art teachers, who between 2001 and 2006 created the Visual Arts Education Web (‘iii web’) in Hong Kong. The creation of the ‘iii web’ was accomplished through research that employed questionnaires, focus group discussions and individual interviews. Teachers' perceptions of using websites in teaching were examined, art education websites from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mainland China and the USA were compared, in order to create a website that could meet the needs of Hong Kong primary school art teachers. Inquiry‐based learning is one of the important teaching approaches that were introduced during the Hong Kong Education Reform in 2003. An example of using the ‘iii web’ to teach public art is described to illustrate how the teacher and students used inquiry‐based learning in art education.     

The humanities in English primary schools: struggling to survive

ABSTRACT

This article surveys the state of the humanities in English primary schools drawing on evidence from serving head teachers, current literature and policy documents. The findings suggest that whilst the humanities are highly valued in schools, there are serious challenges which threaten the ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum. It is suggested that a greater focus on spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) education and engagement with subject associations and alternative learning environments can help to rectify this imbalance. Such an approach recognises looming social, cultural and environmental threats, which have the potential to support children’s psychological health and well-being.     

中外英语教师在师范类英语课中的小组合作教学与教师发展

在师范类教法课上或英语师资培训课上实行中外英语教师小组合作教学是一项新的研究课题。本文主要探讨小组合作教学类型及其在中国师范类教法课中的应用,讨论中外英语教师在组建合作队伍、顺利进行合作教学中应注意的事项、对策和措施,最后提出小组合作教学能更好地利用外教资源培训中小学英语教师,使中小学英语教师尽快熟悉任务型教学方法,培养跨文化意识,体验和理解外国文化,适应和达到在中国中小学实行的英语新课程标准的要求。