Session Information
ERG SES G12, Education, Management and Teachers' Practice
Paper Session
Contribution
Research question, objectives and theoretical framework
This pilot study explores the question ‘What is the variation in the ways of experiencing being a foreign national modern languages teacher at the beginning of a teaching career in the English education system?’ The outcomes of the study are relevant to the European context as the expansion of the European Union enables more and more European citizens to train and teach in other European countries.
According to Whitehead and Taylor (1999) up to a third of Modern Language teachers in England are foreign nationals. This is confirmed by a study by the National Foundation for Educational Research (nfer 2007) referring to Modern Languages teachers in London. However, little seems to be known about how foreign nationals experience training to be a teacher and working in another country’s education system. Subtirelu (2011) offers a case study of a non-native instructor of English in the United States with a focus on identity. He finds that his participant uses various strategies to be recognised and speak as authority in his classroom despite being a non-native speaker. Chambers (2007) explores two teachers’ experience of both the English and German Initial Teacher Training and Education system. He brings to light the difficulties especially one of the two German trainees experiences when faced with the English education system. The findings from these studies highlight the importance of the topic of foreign national teachers and how to support them. This phenomenographic study offers a different, non-dualist perspective and complements the identification of implications for Initial Teacher Training and Education and mentoring of newly and recently qualified foreign national teachers, their recruitment, retention, and personal and professional well-being in the teaching profession.
Prosser’s and Trigwell’s constitutionalist model of student learning (1999)
presents the world and the individuals as ‘internally related through the individuals’ awareness of the world’ (ibid: 13). Prosser and Trigwell (1999) refer to lecturers’ ability to change the learning and teaching context. This implies that the learning and teaching context in their model is formed by tutors, lecturers or teachers but it does not explain how this environment is produced in specific teaching and learning interactions (Ashwin 2009). Neither does it, due to its non-dualist perspective, consider that the interaction between the teaching and learning context and the individual’s situation can be seen as situated in other contexts, like institutional, political and social contexts (Mann 2000). It is strongly focused on agency rather than structure (Ashwin 2009).
Other perspectives might not emphasize agency as much and also consider structural factors. The learner and teacher would not be seen in isolation in an ahistorical context, not taking into account, for instance, identities and power relations (Ashwin 2009). Mann (2000) and Trowler (2008) support this view by raising the point that it is not solely the learning and teaching context that influences the individual’s experience of learning.
This is why, following Hallett’s (2009) example, the study aims to map variation in experiences and consider the context that influences these experiences using Engeström’s (2011) Activity Theory. Activity Systems theory is employed as a tool to contextualise the difficulties for foreign national (trainee) teachers when moving from one system to another. This is relevant to the individual but also in the context of different European education systems interacting, or not interacting, with another (Engeström 2011).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Åkerlind, G. S. (2012). Variation and commonality in phenomenographic research methods, Higher Education Research & Development, 31(1), 115-127. Ǻkerlind, G. S. (2005a). ‘Learning about phenomenography: Interviewing, data analysis and the qualitative research paradigm’, in: J. Bowden and P. Green (eds.), Doing developmental phenomenography. Melbourne: RMIT University Press. Ashwin, P. (2009). Analysing Teaching-Learning Interactions in Higher Education: Accounting for Structure and Agency. London: Continuum. Ashwin, P. (2005). Variation in students’ experiences of the Oxford Tutorial, Higher Education 50, 631-644. Ashworth, P. and Lucas, U. (1998). What is the ‘World’ of Phenomenography? Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 42(4), 415-431. Bowden, J. A. and Green, P. (eds.) (2005). Doing developmental phenomenography. Melbourne: RMIT University Press. Chambers, G. N. (2007). German trainees’ reflections on two approaches to initial teacher training. European Journal of Teacher Education. 30 (1), 3-20. Engeström, Y. (2011). ‘Activity Theory and Learning at Work’, in: M. Malloch, L. Cairns, K. Evans and B. N. O’Connor (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning. London: Sage. Hallett, F. (2009). The reality of study support: a phenomenographic and activity theory analysis, Diss., Lancaster University. Kvale, S. (1996). InterViews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mann, S. (2000). The student’s experience of reading, Higher Education, 39, 297-317. Marton, F. (1995). Cognosco ergo sum. Reflections on reflections. Nordisk Pedagogik, 15(3),165-180. Marton, F. (1994). Phenomenography, in T. Husén & T. N. Postlethwaite (eds), The International Encyclopaedia of Education, 2nd ed. Vol. 8. Oxford: Pergamon. Marton, F. and Booth, S. (1997). Learning and Awareness. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. nfer, National Foundation for Educational Research, (2007). http://www.diversityinleadership.co.uk/uploaded/files/TDA%20-%20recruitment%20and%20retention%20on%20initial%20teacher%20training.pdf Prosser, T. and Trigwell, K. (1999). Understanding Learning and Teaching: The experience in Higher Education. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. Subtirelu, N. (2011). Juggling Identity and Authority: A Case Study of One Non-Native Instructor of English. The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language. 15 (3), 1-30. Trigwell, K. (2006). Phenomenography: An Approach to Research into Geography Education, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 30(2), 367-372. Trowler, P. (2008). Cultures and Change in Higher Education: Theories and Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Whitehead, J. and Taylor, A. (1999). Teachers of Modern Foreign Languages: foreign native speakers on initial teacher training courses in England. Bristol: University of the West of England.
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