Second tier professionals: English teachers in England

The policy context for mother-tongue educators at all levels in England has been dominated by a matrix with four key elements,running along two spectra, one of learning (content↘assessment) and one of teaching (autonomy↘accountability). In each case the trend has been towards increasing external control and decreasing professional autonomy. Whilst some imposed changes have been recognised as intrinsically valuable, the majority are viewed as detrimental to teachers' status and obstructive for students. The research community has been largely marginalised and has had little scope to influence proceedings. A rapidly developing crisis in teacher retention may yet reverse these trends as the government is forced to recognise the long-term implications of their treatment of the profession.

Reading is now 'cool': a study of English teachers' perspectives on e-reading devices as a challenge and an opportunity

E-reading devices such as The Kindle have rapidly secured a significant place in a number of societies as at least one major platform for reading. To some extent they are part of the overarching move towards a fully digitised world but they have a distinctiveness in being deliberately “book-like”. Teachers generally have some suspicion towards “New Media”, especially when it challenges their established practice and nothing dominates the school more than the physical book. What may be the challenges but also the benefits of e-readers to teachers and students? What may be the particular challenges to those teachers who are, traditionally, the guardians of the book, that is the teachers of mother tongue literature? This article reports on a survey of English teachers in England to gauge their reactions to e-readers, both personally and professionally and describes their speculations about the place of e-readers in schools in the future. There is a mixed reaction with some teachers concerned about the demise of the book and the potential negative impact on reading. However, the majority welcome e-readers as a dynamic element within the reading environment with particular potential to enthuse reluctant readers and those with special or linguistic needs. They also, some grudgingly, view the fact that reading using this form of technology appeals to the “e-generation” and may succeed in making reading “cool”. This form of technology is, ironically (given that it appears to threaten traditional books) likely to be rapidly adopted in classrooms.

'Thou glorious kingdome, thou chiefe of empires': Persia in seventeenth-century travel literature

This article discusses a series of texts by or about travellers to Safavid Persia in the early seventeenth century, and in particular the literature surrounding the Sherley brothers. It looks at the ways in which, in order to encourage support for the voyages they described, English travel writers emphasised the potential for closer Anglo-Persian relations. In doing so, such narratives took advantage of a developing awareness of sectarian division within Islam in order to differentiate Persia from the Ottoman Empire. The article then examines how The Travailes of the Three English Brothers (1607) by Day, Rowley and Wilkins, built on the possibilities suggested by the travel writings, and specifically their recognition of Islamic sectarian division, to develop an idealised model of how relations between Persia and England might function. More broadly, these texts demonstrate travellers’ interest in looking for potential correlation between Christian and Muslim identities during this period.

One size fits all: the increasing standardisation of English teachers' work in England

English teachers in England have experienced a lengthy period of external constraint, increasingly controlling their practice. This constraint was originated in the 1989 National curriculum. Although in its first version it was in harmony with practice, its numerous revisions have moved it a long way from teachers’ own values and beliefs. This move is illustrated through research into the teaching of literature, which is seen by English teachers as often arid and driven by examinations alone. This period has been increasingly dominated by high-stakes testing, school league tables and frequent school inspections. Another powerful element has been the introduction of Standards for teachers at every career level from student teachers to the Advanced Skills Teachers. Research demonstrates that this introduction of Standards has had some beneficial effects. However, research also shows that the government decision to replace all these, hierarchically structured standards, with a single standard is seen by many teachers as a retrograde step. Evidence from Advanced Skills Teachers of English shows that the government’s additional proposal to bring in a Master Teacher standard is equally problematic. The decline of the National Association for the Teaching of English, the key subject association for English teachers, is discussed in relation to this increasingly negative and constraining environment, concluding that many English teachers are choosing a form of local resistance which, while understandable, weakens the credibility of the profession and erodes the influence of its key voice, NATE.

The role of undisclosed reserves in English open outcry auctions

This study considers the role that reserve prices may play in residential property auctions. In comparison to much of the previous empirical work, this study has access to undisclosed reserve prices from English auctions. Consistent with theoretical arguments in the auction literature, the results obtained illustrate that whilst higher reserve prices increase the revenue obtained for the seller, they also reduce the probability of sale. The findings also highlight the importance of auction participation, with the number of individual bidders and the number of bids significant in most specifications.

Learning to think in a second language: effects of proficiency and length of exposure in English learners of German

The aim of the current study is to investigate motion event cognition in second language learners in a higher education learning context. Based on recent findings showing that speakers of grammatical aspect languages like English attend less to the endpoint (goal) of events than speakers of non-aspect languages like Swedish in a nonverbal categorization task involving working memory (Athanasopoulos & Bylund, 2013; Bylund & Athanasopoulos, this issue), the current study asks whether native speakers of an aspect language start paying more attention to event endpoints when learning a non-aspect language. Native English and German (a non-aspect language) speakers, and English learners of L2 German, who were pursuing studies in German language and literature at an English university, were asked to match a target scene with intermediate degree of endpoint orientation with two alternate scenes with low and high degree of endpoint orientation, respectively. Results showed that, when compared to the native English speakers, the learners of German were more prone to base their similarity judgements on endpoint saliency, rather than ongoingness, primarily as a function of increasing L2 proficiency and year of university study. Further analyses revealed a non-linear relationship between length of L2 exposure and categorization patterns, subserved by a progressive strengthening of the relationship between L2 proficiency and categorization as length of exposure increased. These findings present evidence that cognitive restructuring may occur through increasing experience with an L2, but also suggest that this relationship may be complex, and unfold over a long period of time.

The role of undisclosed reserves in English open outcry auctions

This study considers the role that reserve prices may play in residential property auctions. In comparison to much of the previous empirical work, this study has access to undisclosed reserve prices from English auctions. Consistent with theoretical arguments in the auction literature, the results obtained illustrate that whilst higher reserve prices increase the revenue obtained for the seller, they also reduce the probability of sale. The findings also highlight the importance of auction participation, with the number of individual bidders and the number of bids significant in most specifications.

Teachers' habitus for teaching English

In this examination of monolingual and multilingual pedagogies I draw on literature that explores the position of English globally and in the curriculum for English. I amplify the discussion with data from a project exploring how teachers responded to the arrival of Polish children in their English classrooms following Poland’s entry to the European Union in 2004. While both Poland and England are a long way from Australia, the sudden arrival of non-native speaking children from families who have the right to work and settle in the UK is interesting of itself as a development in the migration agenda affecting many nations of teachers in the 21st century. Indeed, this view of migration adds to the overview of migration in an Australian context and recent Australian immigration settlement policies often mirror this with new arrivals moving to rural areas resulting in an EAL presence in schools which may be new. Until recently it was most commonly the case that teachers in schools in inner city and other urban parts of the UK might expect to teach in multilingual classrooms, but teachers in smaller towns and in areas identified as rural were unlikely to confront either linguistic or ethnic differences in their pupils. I use the theories of Bourdieu to analyse the status of the curriculum for English expressed in research literature, and the teachers’ interview data. This supports a level of interpretation that allows us to see how teachers’ practice and the teaching of English are formed by schools’ and teachers’ histories and beliefs as much as they are by the wishes of politicians in creating educational policy. It adds to the view presented in the first article in this issue that provision for EAL/D learners sits within a monolingual assessment structure which may militate against the attainment of non-native English speakers. I present a wide-ranging discussion intentionally, in order that the many complexities of policy impact and teacher habitus on teachers’ practice are made apparent.