Abstract
The autoethnographic study aims to explore the teacher researcher’s dilemmas about the practices of English language teaching in the public school context in Turkey and the reasons behind them. Narratives were used to depict the experiences which led to the dilemmas; the researcher’s journey of learning, lived experiences and interactions in the community of practice. The narratives, which portrayed the emergence of dilemmas, were analysed through reflections on them. The reflections were also supported by the other mixed methods studies, theoretical and regulatory documents. The results demonstrate that the dilemmas arise from the gap between the theory and practices of English language teaching in the public school context in Turkey. The study is situated in the interpretivist paradigm of research and holistic-content analysis was used as a technique of narrative analysis. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of learning, Wenger’s community of practice, Dewey’s reflective practice, and Miller’s teacher identity concepts establish the theoretical framework of the study.
Highlights
I have been teaching English at public schools for fifteen years and I am very proud to be a member of this community
The results suggest that the daily practices of English language teaching (ELT) are not contingent on the relevant theoretical and regulatory recommendations
The teacher researcher’s professional identity cannot be fully achieved due to the conflict between her apprehension and the others’ comprehension from the theoretical documents, which proves that the way we teach, we assess form our professional identity, but our professional identities cannot be fully accomplished if they are not validated by the others in the community of practice as it was stated by Miller (2009)
Summary
I have been teaching English at public schools for fifteen years and I am very proud to be a member of this community. As it was contended by Vygotsky (1978) in the theory of mind, human learning can occur through interaction; interacting with symbolic artifacts (books) and other people in the society Teachers can continue their professional development through engaging in dialogic interaction with other teachers in their community of practice (Lave, 1991) and www.techniumscience.com professionals that can be accessed through “interrelated communities of practice” (Wenger, 2000, p.229). In his theory of experiential learning, Kolb emphasizes the importance of dialogue to negotiate between the private meaning which is apprehended by an individual and the meaning which is comprehended by a group of people, that is, public meaning (1984, as cited in Roberts, 2016). Right at which my dilemmas about the practices of English language teaching (ELT) in the Turkish public school context emerge
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