“To tell you the truth,I did not choose early childhood education”: Narratives of becoming a pre-primary teacher in Tanzania

The current global focus on expanding access to early childhood education (ECE) is accompanied by calls to professionalize the ECE teaching force. In Tanzania, efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning at the pre-primary level led to the development of a new pre-primary diploma training program. In this article, I examine this effort from the perspective of 12 prospective teachers. By tracing their narratives of becoming a pre-primary teacher, I demonstrate how diploma students navigated competing discourses and incorporated institutional discourses into their own narratives as a way of exercising agency in a context of constrained opportunity.     

建构主义视域下促进大学英语教师专业发展的有效措施

大学英语教师的专业水平和自我发展能力是大学英语教学改革成败的关键,也是实现大学可持续发展的必备条件。当前我省大学英语教师的专业发展面临诸多的困难。要摆脱困境,可以借助于建构主义理论给予我们的一些有益启示,从大学英语教师专业发展的三个阶段,即教师教育、教师培训和教师发展出发,从完善教师发展机制入手,寻找有效措施,实现教师的可持续发展。     

The Difficulty of Teacher Dispositions: Considering Professional Dispositions for Preservice English Teachers

This article explores the place of teacher dispositions in English teacher preparation by contextualizing the issue of dispositions in English teacher preparation. This allows consideration for the importance of developing professional dispositions during English teacher preparation by recognizing that various stakeholders (teacher educators, university supervisors, mentor teachers, and preservice teachers) in teacher education often understand dispositions differently. The authors reflect and offer suggestions on how professional dispositions might be more effectively addressed in an English teacher education program through richer interactions among all stakeholders.     

Learning from School-based Teacher Training: Possibilities and constraints for experienced teachers

This article presents findings from a study of teachers' development conducted in a large English 'comprehensive' school during a period of intense educational reform. In particular, it considers the ways in which experienced teachers contributed to and claimed benefit from a new national system of school-based initial teacher training (ITT). In addition to outlining the professional development possibilities for experienced teachers involved in school-based ITT, the article highlights a range of factors that appeared to constrain this development. By drawing on the English experience, the paper considers the implications of recent Danish policy related to school-focused teacher education, both in terms of the potential benefits for experienced teachers from involvement in such training, as well as more generally in terms of the quality and appropriateness of such forms of teacher preparation.     

Preparing teachers for diversity: lessons learned from the US and South Africa

The world's predominant growth populations are largely students of color who have historically struggled for high-quality educational opportunities. Within this context, educational reformers around the globe are challenging teacher preparation programs to prepare teachers to work effectively with students from diverse backgrounds. This article reports on a cross-national study that investigates a program designed to facilitate the development of teachers who are committed to teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students. It presents an analysis of US and South African teachers’ developing discourses that revealed differences in the development of commitment among teachers who engaged in talk-related activities in a teacher education program versus those teachers who engaged in talk-related activities in addition to theory–enacting activities within diverse classrooms. Through the analysis, I explore how teachers’ developing commitment can be facilitated by carefully designed classroom activities and show how those developing commitments are revealed in the teachers’ discourse practices. My intent in presenting this investigation is to help us better understand how applications of activity theory can assist us in addressing the global challenges that face teacher education programs.     

探析高职英语教师职业发展的途径

高职英语教师职业发展是一个迫切问题。该文从分析高职英语教师职业发展的现状入手,探讨了促进高职英语教师职业发展的三条途径,并指出其有很大的发展空间。     

大学英语教师专业发展研究综述

改革是新世纪中国教育的关键词,高等学校的英语教学也不例外.为了适应大学英语教学改革的需要,尽快提升大学英语教师的专业素质和能力,促进教师的专业发展,本文对国内外教师专业发展的研究现状进行了简要回顾,包括内涵研究、发展阶段研究和发展途径研究,以便为我们的后续研究奠定基础.     

Mentor teacher professional identity development in a year-long teacher residency

In this article I examined the professional identity development of five mentor teachers in a year-long, clinically rich teacher residency partnered between a university-based teacher education program and schools in a southern state of the United States. Qualitative data were collected through classroom observation and individual semi-structured interviews with a focus on participants’ mentoring activities and the ways they enacted and described their identities. Participants came to new mentoring beliefs and practices as they navigated the residency and developed a multifaceted identity to mediate their learning to become mentors and teacher educators. Implications for mentor teacher professional support, teacher preparation, and future research were discussed.     

A professional development program for primary school English language teachers in Turkey: designing a materials bank

This paper presents and discusses an in-service teacher development program that focussed on establishing a materials bank for English language teachers at a private primary school in Ankara, Turkey, and teachers’ evaluations of the program. The program aimed to lead to teacher change as growth and learning, to address school-based needs, and to provide overall quality improvement. Feedback obtained during the professional development program and after its completion demonstrates that teachers improved their knowledge and skills on materials design and curriculum related issues as well as improving the overall quality of instruction and developing a positive attitude towards professional development.     

Teachers’ professional development for differentiated instruction in mixed-ability classrooms: investigating the impact of a development program on teachers’ professional learning and on students’ achievement

The present article reports the results of a study performed to investigate and examine the characteristics of a teachers’ professional development program (Teachers’ Professional Development Program for Differentiated Instruction [PDD]) specially designed to support teachers in the design and application of differentiated instruction. Considering the characteristics of high-quality professional development programs (i.e. active learning, collective participation, closely related to the curriculum and the existing teaching realities, sufficient duration and continuance), the PDD aimed to facilitate change in both attitudes and practices of the participants. The study provides evidence of the success of the program, both in terms of teacher professional development and student achievement, and discusses the elements that made this program successful.     

医科院校师资英语口语培训项目研究

高校专业课向双语教学和全英语教学方向发展的教学要求对专业课教师的英语水平提出了新的挑战。为适应时代发展需要、培养高素质人才并提高师资队伍水平,基于校本资源的师资英语口语培训班成为解决这一问题的有效途径。从哈尔滨医科大学师资英语口语培训项目的办学宗旨、办学特色、考核体系等方面着眼,介绍培训项目的实施情况,并对项目的进一步开展和实施提出展望。     

Exploring the Connections Between Action Research and Teacher Leadership: A Reflection on Teacher-Leader Research for Confronting New Challenges

ABSTRACT

This reflective article examines the relationship between teachers’ engagement in action research and their ability to lead within their schools. As part of The New Educator’s special issue, “Developing an Inquiry Stance toward Instructional Improvement: Teacher-Leader Action Research,” this article demonstrates the development of an inquiry stance. It shares the story of two practicing teacher leaders within the new and challenging circumstance of adjusting to, and studying, the professional development they provided to help teachers deal with a challenging transition to a radically different school space. This article examines the ways practitioner inquiry supported these teachers to be leaders in the new architectural space designed to promote innovative instruction for twenty-first-century teaching and learning. We posit that coupling teacher leadership and teacher research enables teachers (a) to lead with literature, (b) to lead from data, (c) to lead through sharing, and (d) to lead by example.     

Teacher knowledge: a complex tapestry

Teachers need to know a great deal, in many areas and in multiple ways. Teacher knowledge is a complex tapestry, and teachers must successfully weave the multiple threads. In this article, I present a conceptualisation of teacher knowledge that provides a framework for describing the complexity of teacher knowledge. The framework describes three ways of knowing: “knowing how,” “knowing why,” and “knowing what” and then applies these three knowledge discourses across six domains of teacher knowledge. The framework was developed from a study of 14 teachers in their first year of teaching, and in this article the framework is applied to their experiences to illustrate specific gaps in their teacher knowledge. It is proposed that this conceptualisation of teacher knowledge allows those involved in teacher education and induction to more clearly identify professional learning needs and develop their programmes with specificity.     

‘Fitting in’ or ‘being different’? Integration,separation, and identity construction during a teaching practicum in Hong Kong

This paper reports the results of a qualitative study that examined the perspectives of one group of teacher educators and pre-service teachers about a teaching internship in Hong Kong. Reflecting recent interest in both a practice turn in pre-service teacher education as well as teacher identity construction, the study uses in-depth interviews to reveal how both teacher educators and pre-service teachers construct the meaning of a teaching internship. The results suggest that two discourses dominate such meanings: the discourse of integration and the discourse of separation. The study not only reveals the presence of these discourses but, moreover, considers how their interplay provides affordances for and constraints upon the capacity of pre-service teachers to construct their professional identities during the teaching internship. This exploration suggests that this interplay can lead to identity conflict for pre-service teachers. Implications for overcoming such conflict in ways that support the construction of pre-service teachers’ professional identities are considered and suggestions for future comparative research discussed.     

高校大学英语教师专业发展——走合作教学路径

根据《大学英语课程教学要求》和基于目前高校大学英语教师专业发展现状,深入剖析通过合作教学实现高校大学英语教师专业发展的可行性,最后提出具体对策分析。     

大学英语教师专业发展理论探究

随着社会的进步,教育改革也越来越深入,教师专业发展也越来越备受重视。文章通过全面梳理关于国内外教师专业的相关发展理论,从而进一步提出更新颖的、更有利的英语教师专业的发展理论,并进一步阐述英语教师专业发展相关基本理论。     

中学教师专业发展与英语教师教育职前培养探究

中学教师专业发展有其阶段性存在,而教师教育职前培养和教师在职专业发展,是一个统一完整和持续不断的专业发展过程。当前教师教育职前培养,对英语师范生素质结构,英语教育界已有广泛的认同,但对其素质培养的途径和方法的教学实践,收效却不甚理想。我们认为,英语专业师范生素质培养,在注重专业知识、专业技能和专业素养培养的同时,切不能忽视几种核心能力的培养：1．专业发展规划意识和能力;2．自主学习态度和能力;3．教学技能实践与反思能力;4．教学科研能力。     

The challenge of repositioning: Teacher learning in the company of others

In this article, the author uses positioning theory to better understand the complexity of teacher learning about culture in the company of diverse colleagues. Analysis of a yearlong dialogic professional development experience among high school English teachers revealed that although an African American male's storyline informed the group of otherwise white teachers, his position as cultural “expert” limited his and his colleagues ability to reposition themselves. Teacher educators working with increasingly diverse teacher cohorts must consider how best to maximize learning opportunities, open communication, and free participants from subject positions (such as “expert”) that may inhibit overall group learning.     

TESOL professional standards in the “Asian century”: dilemmas facing Australian TESOL teacher education

Australian teacher education programmes that prepare teachers of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) are confronting the nexus of two facets of globalization: transformations in the Asian region, captured in the notion of the “Asian century”, and shifting conceptions of professionalism in TESOL in non-compulsory education. In booming Asian economies, English language learning is integral to the demand for high-quality education. This has produced increases in TESOL Teacher Education Programme (TTEP) enrolments of both domestic Australian students and international students from Asia. Growth in demand for TTEPs has necessitated that they cater to student diversity, and the intended contexts of practice. This demand has coincided with a concurrent movement towards professional standards for TESOL that, we argue, confronts complexities around quality, accountability, and professional identity and achieving conceptual and contextual coherence. Drawing on discourses of managerialism and performativity, this paper explores tensions between increased student demands for TTEPs, professional standards discourses which are part of the global policy discourses on teacher quality, and the achievement of programmatic conceptual and contextual coherence from the perspective of Australian TTEPs.     

CFG与大学英语教师专业发展

促进教师专业发展是大学英语教学质量提高的关键.然而作为一个特殊的教师群体,大学英语教师发展存在着诸多障碍.CFG作为一种全新的教师专业发展模式,弥补了传统训练指导模式的不足.通过对CFG模式的概念和组成要素的介绍,分析了这一模式在教师发展过程中的实施条件、障碍和策略,对促进大学英语教师专业发展有理论上和实践上的借鉴意义.