How does the act of writing impact on discursively mediated professional identities? A case study of three teachers

This paper explores the effects participation as writers has on the identities teachers take on when they are both writers who teach and teachers who write. This paper focuses on three interview participants and explores their encounters as writers as they engaged in the ‘risky’ business of being writers, within and beyond school. A narrative inquiry methodology is used to interrogate the data about the teachers’ lived experience of being writers while also being teachers of writing. ‘Participant narratives’ are used to present the data and to explore the impact being a writer has on participants’ discursively mediated identities.

The role of play in teaching English as foreign language in early childhood settings in Indonesia.

This research highlights a teacher’s transformative thinking which has profound implications on how teachers conceptualise child play and learning, thus leads to a way of thinking about English as a foreign language (EFL) could better be supported through the use of play-based pedagogies, especially dramatic play in Indonesian context.

Conceptions of responsibility within and beyond neoliberal frames: a story of leadership in an English primary school

This paper explores different conceptions of responsibility within and beyond neoliberal frames. Such exploration draws on the experiences and accounts of ‘Ashleigh’, a head teacher at a primary school in outer London that is part of an academy chain. Ashleigh and her school were key participants in a study that explored matters of accountability, performativity and equity. Through the presentation of interview data gathered from Ashleigh and six of her staff, the paper theorises ways of being a head teacher as aligning with the responsible neoliberal subject – a self-determined and rational actor who readily takes up the modes of regulation and measurement expected of them. It also highlights how this subjectivity sits within and alongside relations of care and concern for the welfare of students and teachers. The paper critically examines the implications of these different conceptions of responsibility in their production of different versions of professionalism. It also seeks to broaden current scholarly understandings of the responsible neoliberal subject and provide a counter-story to the tendency within public and political discourse for responsibility to be constructed in largely neoliberal terms.

Engaging the ‘maximal’ intentions of the citizenship curriculum: one teacher’s story

Exploring how the transformative intentions within the mandated citizenship curriculum framework for English schools demand a particular kind of citizenship teacher – one who ‘acts against the grain’ of the inequities and injustices of the social world – this paper presents Mr C's story. Mr C is a secondary teacher at an Upper School located north of London. The paper considers the significance of his philosophies and knowledge in enabling practice aimed at developing students' socially inclusive but critical understandings of diversity and difference. Mr C's well‐defined personal philosophies about justice and the ‘common good’ and his capacity to translate these philosophies into practice are presented as central to mobilising the transformative or ‘maximal’ intentions of the citizenship curriculum. In highlighting the complexities and sophistication in Mr C's approach, however, the issues presented in this paper further strengthen the critique regarding the curriculum's depoliticised approach. While Mr C draws on the curriculum as a political device to support equity goals, it cannot be assumed that citizenship teachers more generally will have the requisite philosophies and knowledge necessary to do so.

Supplement to A Teacher’s Guide to African American Historic Places in South Carolina : integrating art into classroom instruction

Within this booklet, teachers will find instructional resources covering a wide array of genres, including, dance, choral music, general music, instrumental music, media arts, theatre, and the visual arts. These lesson plans are explicitly designed to integrate artistic expression and comprehension with other academic disciplines, such as English, History, and Social Studies. Each submission highlights the grade level, artistic genre, sources, learning objectives, instructional plans, and modes of evaluation. This Arts Integration Supplement to the Teacher’s Guide to African American Historic Places in South Carolina outlines 22 lesson plans that meet the 2010 Visual and Performing Arts Standards of South Carolina and integrates the arts into classroom instruction. Where applicable, other standards, such as those for math and social studies, are listed with each lesson plan. The teaching activities in this supplement are provided to aid in the development of lesson plans or to complement existing lessons. Teaching activities are the simplest means of integrating art in classroom instruction.

The teaching of reading English in a foreign language in Libyan universities: methods and models

This study focuses on the learning and teaching of Reading in English as a Foreign Language (REFL), in Libya. The study draws on an action research process in which I sought to look critically at students and teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Libya as they learned and taught REFL in four Libyan research sites. The Libyan EFL educational system is influenced by two main factors: the method of teaching the Holy-Quran and the long-time ban on teaching EFL by the former Libyan regime under Muammar Gaddafi. Both of these factors have affected the learning and teaching of REFL and I outline these contextual factors in the first chapter of the thesis. This investigation, and the exploration of the challenges that Libyan university students encounter in their REFL, is supported by attention to reading models. These models helped to provide an analytical framework and starting point for understanding the many processes involved in reading for meaning and in reading to satisfy teacher instructions. The theoretical framework I adopted was based, mainly and initially, on top-down, bottom-up, interactive and compensatory interactive models. I drew on these models with a view to understanding whether and how the processes of reading described in the models could be applied to the reading of EFL students and whether these models could help me to better understand what was going on in REFL. The diagnosis stage of the study provided initial data collected from four Libyan research sites with research tools including video-recorded classroom observations, semi-structured interviews with teachers before and after lesson observation, and think-aloud protocols (TAPs) with 24 students (six from each university) in which I examined their REFL reading behaviours and strategies. This stage indicated that the majority of students shared behaviours such as reading aloud, reading each word in the text, articulating the phonemes and syllables of words, or skipping words if they could not pronounce them. Overall this first stage indicated that alternative methods of teaching REFL were needed in order to encourage ‘reading for meaning’ that might be based on strategies related to eventual interactive reading models adapted for REFL. The second phase of this research project was an Intervention Phase involving two team-teaching sessions in one of the four stage one universities. In each session, I worked with the teacher of one group to introduce an alternative method of REFL. This method was based on teaching different reading strategies to encourage the students to work towards an eventual interactive way of reading for meaning. A focus group discussion and TAPs followed the lessons with six students in order to discuss the 'new' method. Next were two video-recorded classroom observations which were followed by an audio-recorded discussion with the teacher about these methods. Finally, I conducted a Skype interview with the class teacher at the end of the semester to discuss any changes he had made in his teaching or had observed in his students' reading with respect to reading behaviour strategies, and reactions and performance of the students as he continued to use the 'new' method. The results of the intervention stage indicate that the teacher, perhaps not surprisingly, can play an important role in adding to students’ knowledge and confidence and in improving their REFL strategies. For example, after the intervention stage, students began to think about the title, and to use their own background knowledge to comprehend the text. The students employed, also, linguistic strategies such as decoding and, above all, the students abandoned the behaviour of reading for pronunciation in favour of reading for meaning. Despite the apparent efficacy of the alternative method, there are, inevitably, limitations related to the small-scale nature of the study and the time I had available to conduct the research. There are challenges, too, related to the students’ first language, the idiosyncrasies of the English language, the teacher training and continuing professional development of teachers, and the continuing political instability of Libya. The students’ lack of vocabulary and their difficulties with grammatical functions such as phrasal and prepositional verbs, forms which do not exist in Arabic, mean that REFL will always be challenging. Given such constraints, the ‘new’ methods I trialled and propose for adoption can only go so far in addressing students’ difficulties in REFL. Overall, the study indicates that the Libyan educational system is underdeveloped and under resourced with respect to REFL. My data indicates that the teacher participants have received little to no professional developmental that could help them improve their teaching in REFL and skills in teaching EFL. These circumstances, along with the perennial problem of large but varying class sizes; student, teacher and assessment expectations; and limited and often poor quality resources, affect the way EFL students learn to read in English. Against this background, the thesis concludes by offering tentative conclusions; reflections on the study, including a discussion of its limitations, and possible recommendations designed to improve REFL learning and teaching in Libyan universities.

Niveles de actividad física, contenidos-contextos de la clase e intervención docente durante la clase de educación física y su asociación con el tipo de profesor

Resumen: Objetivo: determinar la asociación entre el tipo de profesor (especialista y no especialista en educación física), con el nivel de actividad física, el contenido-contexto de la clase y el comportamiento del profesor. Método: Estudio descriptivo de corte transversal en un colegio distrital de Bogotá. Fueron evaluadas 57 clases de educación física, y dos docentes (uno con formación académica en Educación física), por medio del Sistema para la observación del tiempo de instrucción de la condición física (SOFIT). Las variables observadas fueron analizadas con estadística descriptiva en cantidades relativas a los minutos y proporción de la clase. Para establecer la asociación entre el género de los estudiantes y el tipo de profesor se usaron test t para muestras independientes y U de Mann-Witney. Resultados: La duración promedio de la clase fue 82,7 minutos, 69% del tiempo programado; los estudiantes pasaron la mayor parte del tiempo de pie 29% (25 minutos), el contenido predominante de la clase fue el de tipo general 21% (25 minutos) y los maestros ocuparon en promedio el 36% (29 minutos) de la clase observando. Los estudiantes pasaron 53% (44 minutos) en actividades físicas moderadas a vigorosas (AFMV). Los niños fueron más activos que las niñas (53.94% vs 50,83%). Se observó una asociación positiva entre el género y casi todos los niveles de actividad física de los estudiantes (p<0,05). Se identificó que existe una diferencia estadísticamente significativa (p<0,05), para las categorías sentado y estar de pie de la variable Niveles de Actividad física tanto en los resultados expresados en minutos, como en la proporción del tiempo de la clase y para la categoría caminando expresada en tiempo de la clase. Para la variable contenido-contexto se determinó una asociación para la categoría conocimiento, tanto en la proporción como en el número de minutos, y para la categoría contenido general en los resultados expresados en proporción de la clase. Finalmente, para la variable comportamiento del profesor expresada tanto en minutos como en proporción de la clase tuvo significancia estadística en todas sus categorías a excepción de la categoría promover Conclusiones: hay una diferencia importante en la forma como los dos tipos de maestros desarrollan la clase y los niveles de actividad física en que involucran a los estudiantes. La educación física en la escuela debe ser impartida por profesionales formados en el área, que tengan las destrezas y habilidades necesarias para desarrollar una educación física de calidad.

Some common fallacies about learning and teaching English as a Lingua Franca

Over the past decades, English language teachers have become familiar with several terms which attempt to describe the role of English as a language of international communication. Presently, the term English as a lingua franca (ELF) seems to be one of the most favoured and adopted to depict the global use of English in the 21st century. Basically, the concept of ELF im-plies cross-cultural, cross-linguistic interactions involving native and non-native speakers. Conse-quently, the ELF paradigm suggests some changes in the language classroom concerning teachers’ and students’ goals as far as native speaker norms and cultures are concerned. Based on Kachru’s (1992) fallacies, this article identifies thirteen misconceptions in ELT regarding learning and teach-ing English varieties and cultures, suggesting that an ethnocentred and linguacentred approach to English should be replaced by an ELF perspective which recognizes the diversity of communicative situations involving different native and non-native cultures and varieties of English

EXPRESSIVE ARTS – EMBODYING INCLUSIVE TEACHERS

The Declaration of Salamanca proposes a deep reformulation of educational praxis which has as a main goal to create an environment where all students can enjoy learning, improve and grow in confidence, in a perspective of Inclusive Education. In this sense, it is necessary that teachers acquire scientific and educational skills but, also, development of personal and interpersonal competences that are crucial for a flexible and adequate professional praxis. The concept of competences integrates knowledge, skills, personal values and attitudes that are acquired through work experience and learning by doing. On other side, experiential work is lived through a body in movement. Acknowledging these ideas and considering active methods and expressive arts as valorous contributions to the positive model of inclusive education in this paper, the authors propose the training in Expressive Arts to promote Inclusion but mainly to develop personal and interpersonal competences of teachers to the Inclusion