The present paper discusses the components of language teachers' awareness, which should differ qualitatively and quantitatively from that of language learners and users. It is argued that especially ...teachers of English, the European lingua franca, should develop plurilingual awareness to train learners to become multilingual citizens. This awareness involves crosslinguistic, metalinguistic and psycholinguistic knowledge concerning multiple language acquisition. Apart from that, teachers should ideally be multilingual themselves. The paper reports on a survey carried out on over 230 pre-service and in-service Polish teachers of English. It compares their levels of plurilingual awareness relative to their teaching experience, bilingualism/multilingualism factors and the level of L3-Ln languages known. Their awareness seems to be linked with both teaching experience and multilingualism, but it is higher for multilingual teachers proficient in several languages. The paper also presents a qualitative study in the form of a guided interview on a focus group of five in-service teachers. This provides in-depth insight into how they understand plurilingual language teaching. Finally, conclusions are drawn concerning changes in teacher training that would enable teachers to promote plurilingual approaches in class.
Purpose: The aim of this study was twofold. First, it investigated the extent to which in-service teachers of English were personally and professionally ready to carry out culturally responsive ...teaching (CRT). Second, it aimed to understand teachers' perceptions of CRT. Research Method: This study was carried out in a sequential explanatory mixed methods design. Accordingly, first quantitative data were gathered in the first phase through administering CRT readiness scale. In the second phase, qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews to gain detailed insights about their perceptions. A total number of 415 in-service teachers of English participated in the quantitative phase of the study, and 12 teachers participated in the semi-structured interviews. Findings: Quantitative findings showed significant differences between teachers' personal and professional readiness, novice and experienced teachers, and graduates of ELT departments and graduates of ELL and ACL departments. Qualitative findings showed that experience alone was a distinguishable factor for CRT and also underlined the necessity for and the importance of culture-oriented courses in undergraduate English language teacher education. Implications for Research and Practice: Accordingly, enriching undergraduate English language teacher education programs with culture-oriented courses is a need. Such courses should cover both theoretical and practical sides of multicultural education and CRT. There is also a need to provide more opportunities for teacher candidates to execute teaching practices in real and culturally diverse classrooms. Furthermore, the need for studies focusing on field-specific competencies and real classroom settings are also underlined.
The English language has become the so called “world wide language” due to the fact that it is used globally in many spheres of everyday life - education, business, labour market, technology, ...tourism, travel and others. In Slovakia, the educational system supports schools in the acquisition of the language by granting more English classes per week, by financing textbook materials, by bridging teaching practice with research as well as making English a mandatory subject of school leaving exams.
One of the crucial components in the English language education of Slovak learners appears to be the pronunciation. This language feature has its specificities and therefore it must be approached carefully. Although many researchers in Slovakia have focused on various aspects of English pronunciation, this article aims at the English teachers and their perception of this important issue. The survey focuses on Slovak teachers’ opinions about teaching English pronunciation to non-native learners, more specifically, about teaching techniques, error corrections, textbook materials and university teacher training.
This article is an overview of the major developments in the field of communication in education. From the history of the national association over 100 plus years, specific attention is paid to ...changes leading to the advent of this publication. Changes in nomenclature, conferences, publications, research, and educational trends are discussed. The essay is intended to provide a view of history as setting for inauguration of the 'Journal of Communication Pedagogy'. It also is intended to invite and stimulate other scholars' reflections on the nature and evolution of the field.
This book addresses how Western universities have constructed themselves as global providers of education, and are driven to be globally competitive. It examines how the term "international" has been ...exploited by the market in the form of government educational policies and agencies, host institutions, academia and the mass media. The book explores matters relating to the role of the English language in international education in general and the field of TESOL in particular. It demonstrates how English and TESOL have exercised their symbolic power, coupled with the desire for international education, to create convenient identities for international TESOL students. It also discusses the complexity surrounding and informing these students' painful yet sophisticated appropriation of and resistance to the convenient labels they are subjected to.
Basically, one of the requirements for the implementation of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' ability to use computers effectively. ...Educational authorities and planners should identify EFL teachers' computer literacy levels and make attempts to improve the teachers' computer competence. This mixed-methods study set out to uncover perceptions of 263 Iranian EFL teachers on their computer literacy levels. A computer literacy questionnaire and a general computer literacy test were administered to the participants. Follow-up in-depth interviews were further conducted with 24 EFL teachers who had also participated in the survey. The results of the study illustrated that the participants' levels of computer literacy were not adequate for the implementation of CALL. Statistical analyses of the results demonstrated that the EFL teachers did not make use of a wide range of computer applications. The qualitative and quantitative data demonstrated that there are several factors which would impede the improvement of EFL teachers' computer literacy. These main impeding factors include lack of computer literacy training in teacher education programs, lack of support from EFL authorities to improve EFL teachers' computer literacy and lack of time to improve teachers' computer literacy. In addition, it was shown that the EFL teachers adopted positive attitudes toward improving their computer literacy. This article proposes suggestions and recommendations for EFL authorities on how to prepare and educate EFL teachers to use technology in their teaching for the implementation of CALL.
•Novice English teachers may struggle with grading their language to make it intelligible for their learners.•Teacher talk comprises different kinds of meaning, and may rely on both the immediate ...situational context and the broader cultural context for understanding.•The study provides a framework that can be used to analyze the intelligibility of spoken discourse both inside and outside the classroom.
This qualitative study critically examines the intelligibility of the teacher talk of novice native speaker English language teachers. It focuses on difficulties teachers face in adjusting their own English so that their learners can understand them. The paper uses two data sources: learners’ perceptions of recorded teacher talk and analysis of the teacher talk itself. For the teacher talk analysis, the study develops an integrated framework based on key concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). This analysis showed the complex interplay between different levels of meaning, as well as the roles played by both the immediate situational context and the broader cultural context. In particular, the analysis illustrated the crucial roles that both textual meaning (e.g. coherence and cohesion) and context play in the intelligibility of teacher talk. The broader implications of the study for research and teaching relating to intercultural discourse both inside and outside the classroom are discussed.
The federal government has conducted a review into VET with consultations across the sector taking place between November 2018 and January 2019. Steven Joyce, the former New Zealand Minister for ...Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, has conducted the review on behalf of the Morrison government. The findings are to be presented in March 2019. This article presents an overview of the responses to the review, which are relevant to the adult literacy sector, include those submitted by the Australian Council of Adult Literacy (ACAL), Adult Learning Australia (ALA) in conjunction with Neighbourhood Houses Victoria, Community Colleges Australia (CCA), and the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA).
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