Local English Teachers Research Articles

“It Is Tough to Come Back. Who Am I Now as a Language Teacher?”: The Re-Positioning of Three Vietnamese Teachers of English Language Returning from Overseas Programs

Theoretically grounded in positioning theory, this study aimed to unpack three stories of Vietnamese teachers of English’ transformation of teaching theory and practice due to their international and intercultural overseas experiences. Our ethnography study was centered on those teachers' varying perceptions of what and how to teach. Our examination of the teacher candidates’ written critical reflection and interview was conducted over one year after they returned to teach in Vietnam. Particularly, these teachers’ perceived teaching and learning changes were a possible consequence of their experiences of intercultural engagement in many local settings in their host countries where they had previously stayed before returning. Using positioning and transformative learning as a theoretical lens, the researchers explored how teachers’ transformation was revealed after their return, suggesting that there were themes of positioning, including their modified cognition, awareness, attitudes, and behavior. More specifically, the findings implied that educational nation-level and school-level policy should pay more attention to the local English teachers’ privileges and threats that drive how they navigate their professional careers, considering academic qualifications and personal attributes. While the former was related to implications for teacher education programs (that help them identify teaching philosophy, methodology, and teaching environments), the latter involved teacher characteristics, aspirations, and accumulated capital.

The models of co-teaching and a spectrum for assessing collaboration: Examining English language co-teaching practices in South Korea

Many countries have developed co-teaching programs pairing native-English-speaking teachers with local English teachers. Despite the optimistic aims of these programs, research has revealed challenges for co-teaching, such as with teachers’ contrasting belief systems or cultural differences. However, research has yet to examine the models of co-teaching applied and the extent of collaboration observed with multiple co-teaching pairs across different teaching contexts as is done in the present study. The study uses qualitative analysis, aiming to examine the approaches to co-teaching and the degree of collaboration with 14 pairs of co-teachers across different school levels (primary, middle, and high schools) in South Korea. Based on classroom observations and interview data, the study found that of seven models of English-language co-teaching (one teaching / one assisting, team teaching, one teaching / one assessing, parallel teaching, alternative teaching [pre-teaching], alternative teaching [re-teaching], and station teaching), the one teaching / one assisting model was prevalent for 10 dyads and the team-teaching model for four dyads. The other models of coteaching were not used or reported to be used by these participants. In addition, by focusing on the observed and stated practices of these participants, the study adds to the literature by showing how co-teaching collaboration occurs across a spectrum, from no collaboration to full collaboration, with differing levels of engagement throughout. The study suggests that this proposed spectrum will be useful for researching and assessing co-teaching practices, and it implies that the efficacy of co-teaching could be increased by supporting fuller collaboration and multiple approaches to co-teaching beyond the dominant one teaching / one assisting model.

Development of Bilingual Education –A case study of a junior high school with a bilingual curriculum in Taipei City of Taiwan

<p>本研究旨在探討臺灣雙語教育政策的影響之下，雙語實驗學校如何透過雙語教師專業發展社群以及雙語教師增能來發展並培育雙語教學團隊。本研究以質性個案研究作為研究架構，以深入了解個案學校具體如何推行雙語教育，並以「沃土」雙語模式為分析架構探討影響國中階段推行雙語教育的因素，以及雙語教師專業發展社群與雙語教師增能如何影響校內推動雙語教育。研究結果發現，雙語教師增能幫助教師提升自我效能感並精進教師的雙語教學技巧，而在內容與管道上必須多元化並賦予更多彈性空間。此外，雙語教師專業發展社群協助雙語教師精進雙語教學，其組成需為本國籍英語教師搭配學科教師。最後，透過個案學校的經驗提出對於臺灣國中階段實施雙語教育之省思與建議，並作為臺灣推動雙語教育時之參考。</p> <p> </p><p>The purpose of this study is to explore how a bilingual teaching team is formed and cultivated through a professional bilingual teacher learning community and teacher professional growth. This study chose qualitative case study as its research framework to deeply understand how to implement bilingual education in junior high schools. It selected a bilingual experimental curriculum school in Taipei and analyzed the background and development of its bilingual education. This study used the “fertile” bilingual model as the analysis framework to explore those factors that could affect the implementation of bilingual education in junior high schools. The findings are as follows. First, bilingual teachers could benefit from attending teacher training programs, workshops, and related activities in the aspect of their self-efficacy and to increase their teaching strategies. Second, the contexts and accesses of bilingual teacher training should be verified, diversified and given more flexibility. Third, a bilingual teacher professional community provides a platform for maintaining bilingual teachers’ instruction strategies and cooperation between administrators and teachers. Fourth, the composition of the community should be local English teacher and bilingual subject teachers. Lastly, this study put forward some reflections and suggestions on the implementation of bilingual education in junior high schools in Taiwan and serves as a reference for Taiwan to promote bilingual education nationwide.</p> <p> </p>

Facts and Fictions of Native Speakerism: Local EFL Teachers’ Experiences and Viewpoints

Most literature on native speakerism has criticized its impact especially in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts where native English-speaking teachers, who are deemed to be more competent and desirable, enjoy more benefits and privileges than their nonnative counterparts. However, recent research has suggested that such assumptions associated with native speakerism may not accurately reflect what is actually happening in EFL school settings. The current study examines Korean English teachers’ views on various dimensions of native speakerism in order to capture the impact of native speakerism as experienced by local English teachers. Data were collected from 37 in-service teachers working in elementary and secondary schools in South Korea via surveys and interviews. The survey results showed negative effects of native speakerism for some constructs; however, the qualitative results revealed that concerns surrounding native speakerisms were not as problematic as one might hypothesize based on the existing literature. The results are discussed with suggestions aimed at alleviating any negative effects of native speakerism in EFL settings.

Student and Teacher Perspectives on Co-created CLIL-Appropriate Materials Focused on Critical Thinking and Active Citizenship

The International Relations English program at a university in the north of Colombia is a CLIL-based program. Students share an interest in issues related to rights and politics, both locally and globally. Colombia arrived at a historical juncture with the signing of the peace accords between the government and FARC guerrillas in 2016. However, this coincided with an extreme polarisation of political discourse. This polarisation was evident throughout the 2016 plebiscite on the peace agreements and further intensified in the build-up to the 2018 presidential elections. In response, teachers and students created a web series where students outlined the candidates’ critical proposals without revealing the candidates’ identities. Students researched the proposals and worked with a teacher to prepare English transcripts of the proposals. Eight videos were created, shared via social media, and made available to local English teachers at secondary and university levels. The project’s purpose was to encourage active citizenship and foment a more critical analysis of the candidates’ proposals. To achieve this, students utilised the anonymity of the candidates and English as the chief medium of communication. This project allowed teachers to use authentic and relevant student-generated materials to encourage more critical discussion. The students involved in the project reported feelings of political efficacy and civic engagement. Teachers expressed satisfaction at having contextually rich language materials. This project indicates the potential for student-generated materials to provide contextually relevant and highly motivating educational materials.

The Team Teachers' Beliefs about Their Roles in Collaborative Team Teaching in Indonesia Context

This study aims to report the results of qualitative research using a case study design on the team teachers’ beliefs about their roles in collaborative team teaching between native-English speaking teachers (NESTs) and local English teachers (LETs) in Indonesian secondary schools and aspects that shape their beliefs. Two pairs of English team teachers at two Junior High Schools in Ponorogo were interviewed and their classroom practices were observed. Then, the data were analyzed by using the interactive model proposed by Miles Huberman. The findings showed that NESTs and LETs possessed different beliefs about their roles in team teaching in which NESTs perceived their roles primarily dealing with linguistic and cultural aspects. Meanwhile, LETs played roles as the main teachers who led the classes by writing lesson plans, choosing the materials, focusing on theory (delivering basic materials), and assessing students. Furthermore, three factors shape teachers’ beliefs about their roles in team teaching, namely training, teaching experience, and learning experience. This research findings are expected to provide some recommendations to wide range of stakeholders to re-examine the practice of team teaching between NESTs and LETs by focusing on their respective strengths to generate the best classroom practices.

Native-Speakerism in a Locally Developed Indonesian EFL Textbook: A Critical Discourse Study

The objective of the study is to examine to what extent native- speakerism is embedded in an EFL textbook for senior high school students in Indonesia. Native-speakerism is an ideology that legitimates native speakers as superior models of English. The textbook was developed by local English teachers and supervised and published by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture (Widiati et al., 2017). The study focuses on analyzing critical elements in the passages in the textbooks. Eighteen passages were analyzed qualitatively using a set of guideline questions developed from Fairclough (2001) three dimensions of discourse analysis. The findings show that native-speakerism is the second major ideology after Indonesia-center. It is embedded in four passages. Three passages contain native-speakerism that can be recognized on the sentence level. Another passage, disguised as Indonesia-center, transfers native-speakerism implicitly as it cannot be identified on the sentence level. The findings are presented descriptively with excerpts from the passages followed by an illustrated scenario for each excerpt. Suggestions on how to lessen native-speakerism transfer are presented in conclusion.

Representations of foreign English teachers in Colombian newspapers: A critical discourse analysis

In an effort to increase the English proficiency level of their citizens and thus become more competitive in the global economy, many Latin American countries have resorted to the importation of foreign English teachers (FETs) to support local English teachers (LETs) in schools. The phenomenon has been widely documented by the Colombian press, which exerts a strong influence on people’s opinions. This article reports the results of a case study which explored the representations of these FETs in three major Colombian newspapers published between 2010 and 2015 and the linguistic mechanisms employed to represent them this way. The study drew on critical linguistic theories and used Fairclough’s (1992) model for critical discourse analysis (CDA). The analysis reveals a systematic attempt on the part of the Colombian press to represent FETs as superior, which is achieved through the use of several mechanisms, such as stressing their foreignness and voluntariness; raising their status from inexperienced teachers to tutors, advisors and benefactors; making them the actors; and attributing them superpowers. It is concluded that by doing this, newspapers are contributing to the discrimination of local English teachers, perpetuating native-speakerism ideologies, and disregarding the enormous benefits of having LETs in the educational system, among other aspects.

Local English teachers’ voices from a marginalized lens: Inequality practices and identity construction in the workplace

This article reports on a narrative case study that showcases the local English teachers’ perceived inequality practices and identity construction in Indonesia’s micro-reality context of a private language school domain. Grounded in the social theory of power, privilege, and positional identities, three synchronous online interviews were conducted to explore the LETs voices about what it means to experience the equality of rights and obligations in the workplace. As a result, the study revealed four inequality issues: (1) dissatisfaction with the payroll system, (2) the representation of gender and race in promotional endorsement, (3) the call for decolonizing pedagogy in ELT materials and resources, and (4) perceived identity as legitimate and qualified English teachers. Regarding the workload capacity and role as professional English teachers, they recognized that they deserve equal treatment as their native counterparts. However, this type of discrimination will further widen the gap between LETs and NESTs dichotomy and impede the construction of language teacher identity. This study suggests exploring dedicated strategies to develop information literacy skills for school principals, parents, teachers, students, and policymakers. This study will also contribute to the growth of critically oriented literature and scholarship on teacher identity and critical anti-racist language teaching pedagogy.

Pre‐service English teachers’ understanding about preparing to teach reading skills in secondary schools

AbstractTeacher education in the English as a foreign language context has witnessed a shift from only emphasising expert‐generated professional theories to combining such theories with teacher‐generated personal theories. However, little is known about whether such a combination is beneficial in preparing pre‐service English teachers to teach reading skills. Theoretically informed by the notion of local knowledge, post‐transmission and postmodernism, the present multiple‐case qualitative study aimed at investigating eight secondary school pre‐service English teachers’ learning experience (i.e., knowledge gained about expert‐generated professional theories) and teaching practice in a Teaching Reading and Writing education course (i.e., knowledge of the teacher‐generated personal theories). Data was collected and triangulated from multiple sources, including lesson plans, teaching videos and transcripts of these recordings, and the teacher educator's written feedback on both the lesson plans and the teaching. Results revealed that scanning and skimming were two primary reading skills that the pre‐service teachers perceived to be significant in teaching English reading. However, there was a mismatch between what they planned to teach and what they actually taught. This mismatch did not necessarily indicate incompetency at teaching but instead reflected their individualised personal theories. Implications for fostering pre‐service teachers’ autonomy as practitioners were discussed. Context and implicationsRationale for this studyEnglish as a foreign language teacher training literature has taken a deficient perspective of local English teacher education without consideration of local pre‐service teacher needs.Why the new findings matterCritically evaluating the suggestions provided by teacher education literature when assessing local teaching approaches can potentially lead to more relevant teacher education outcomes.Implications for language teacher educatorsWhen educating student teachers, teacher educators may be accustomed to taking a deficient perspective by designing course content and instructing student teachers in knowledge they believe to be important without considering student teachers’ existing local knowledge or needs. The global influence of mainstream language learning ideologies prevalent in language teaching materials and teacher training materials should be critically evaluated. It is important for teacher educators to consider local teacher needs and get a good understanding of the local context prior to providing teacher education. Otherwise, the teacher educators run the risk of suggesting change that is unrealistic and impracticable.

TERTIARY STUDENTS' CHOICE BETWEEN NATIVE AND NON-NATIVE SPEAKER ENGLISH TEACHERS AND THE ROLE OF ENGLISH PROFICIENCY IN LEARNER PREFERENCES: SOME EVIDENCE FROM POST-COLONIAL HONG KONG

Native-speakerism has generated much debate in the field of English language teaching, with the general assumption that native English-speaker teachers (NESTs) are better teachers and would be learners' preference over non-native English-speaker teachers (NNESTs) given the choice. Despite challenges against such an assumption in recent decades, it is argued that NESTs are still prioritized over NNESTs. Studies on learners' perceptions of NESTs and NNESTs and the factors behind them have produced inconclusive findings, which prompted the present study in post-colonial Hong Kong, where English is a language of privilege. To gain a better understanding of the reality, 253 students from various academic programmes in a tertiary institution in Hong Kong were invited to complete a questionnaire which aimed to elicit their views and preferences concerning teaching by NESTs and local English teachers (LETs, i.e., NNESTs) after being taught by NESTs. Factors affecting their preferences were also explored using open-ended questions and correlation tests. The findings suggest a minor preference for NESTs, but LETs are favoured in terms of effectiveness. Experience with NESTs and learners' English proficiency may also have notable influences over learner preferences. These findings have practical implications for teacher deployment for English courses or programmes at tertiary institutions.

Co-constructing Social Justice: Language Educators Challenging Colonial Practices in Mexico

AbstractThis article involves the work of four language educators/researchers collaborating on an ongoing longitudinal multilingual participatory action research (PAR) project in a Bachelor of Arts (BA) language teaching program in Oaxaca, Mexico. Overall, this PAR project aims at the co-construction of social justice in ELT in Mexico. In particular, it explores an approach that would encourage learners to make full(er) use of their language resources to challenge the colonial othering discourses of inferiority, disability, and backwardness inherent in ELT in Mexico. The analyses reported in this article zooms in on the English learning experiences of three Indigenous background, low-socioeconomic status, female undergraduate students, and their alleged struggle with speaking English in teaching–learning and assessment activities. The purpose of this article is to illustrate how a local English teacher co-constructed social justice with these three students. To fulfill this purpose, we succinctly present the focal students life stories and address three emergent themes: (i) unveiling alienating practices in the classroom; (ii) carving out spaces for multilingualism in the English classroom; and (iii) authoring assessment as a way to enact social justice.

Co-teachers’ perceptions of collaborative EFL teaching: a case study in Taiwan

Co-teaching studies of native English speaking teachers (NESTs) and local English teachers (LETs) have identified numerous factors debilitative to professional collaboration. The aim of this case study is to identify factors facilitative to co-teaching that may lead to more productive avenues of change than continual re-identification of co-teaching problems. A grounded theoretical approach is used to review document and interview data from one NEST-LET pair teaching English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) to young learners in Taiwan. Themes derived from grounded theoretical analysis are then re-categorized according to the framework of social interdependence theory (Johnson & Johnson in JAMA 38:365–379, 2009) to describe how the co-teachers established a positive co-teaching relationship. This study found that the participants’ situated perspectives of co-teaching were more similar than dissimilar, with several identical themes present in both participants’ data. Application of social interdependence theory found negative outcomes in the minority and indications of positive or promotive interdependence in the majority. Although the co-teachers described negative affect and tensions, these phenomena were attributed to external factors or directed at agents outside the partnership. The findings herein suggest that variables pertaining to interpersonal sensitivity can be more critical to co-teaching success than the teaching qualifications of the NEST partner.

Educational Policy: Voices from Local English Teachers and Students towards National Exam in Yogyakarta

<p class="AbstractText">This study is aimed at exploring the voices of English teachers and students of a state senior high school towards the National Exam policy and its implementation in Indonesia. Several theories of psychology and language learning were applied in this study as the theoretical framework. This study used a descriptive qualitative method. The participants were chosen by purposive sampling technique. The data for this study were garnered through a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) conducted to the selected twelfth-grade students and semi-structured interviews done to two English teachers. Both data were analyzed descriptively. Upon the analysis, two paramount themes prevailed: (1) the negative response towards the implementation and accuracy of National Exam (NE) policy in Indonesia; and (2) unintended impacts of NE policy on teaching and learning activity, students’ motivation, and English Language Learning and Curriculum. This study offers information for the government as the policymaker, school leaders, teachers, and researchers to understand how the NE is implemented at the school level.</p>

A Comparative Study of Deixis Used by Foreign and Local English Teachers in Vocational High School

This study aims to analyze the types of deixis by using Levinson’s theory, find out the dominant types of deixis, and the reasons behind the uses of deixis by foreign and local English teachers. The study used a qualitative method particularly a case study. The data sources of this study were the foreign and local English teachers’ utterances. The data were obtained through a classroom observation and interview technique. The data were analysed using Miles and Hubermans’s interactive model. The findings showed that five types of deixis were found in the foreign and local English teacher’s utterances, namely person deixis, place deixis, time deixis, discourse deixis, and social deixis. The dominant types of deixis in both the English teachers’ utterances were person deixis. The reasons behind the uses of deixis were also explained in this study

A culture of collaboration: Forms and factors affecting collaboration between NESTs and NNESTs in extracurricular English activities

Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) assist local English teachers to further the English language development of students around the globe, while simultaneously acting as cultural ambassadors for the United States. ETAs in Indonesia are required to spend between twenty and twenty-five hours each week in the classroom with their teaching counterpart(s) but are also encouraged to engage with their school and community outside of class, and as such many ETAs also spend considerable time developing extracurricular English programming. While some of these extracurriculars are facilitated independently by the ETAs, many are collaborative projects with counterparts from the host institution. As part of a larger five-year research plan initiated by the American Indonesian Exchange Foundation (AMINEF) that seeks to explore the impact of ETAs, this research explores the collaboration within these extracurriculars. It seeks to identify the forms that this collaboration takes, as well as the factors that affect the collaboration. The findings suggest that collaboration within these extracurriculars usually takes the form of either one teach – one assist model, or team teaching, and that logistical and interpersonal factors are of the greatest concern within the collaboration.

Shifting attitudes towards native speaker and local English teachers: an elaborative replication

ABSTRACT Students’ attitudes towards native English speaking teachers (NESTs) and local English teachers has been a fertile area of research for many years, but the commonly used surveys focusing on students’ explicit attitudes have been criticised because of the influence of prejudice. An alternative is to use social psychology instruments such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to investigate both explicit and implicit attitudes as in Watson Todd and Pojanapunya (2009. “Implicit Attitudes Towards Native and Non-native Speaker Teachers.” System 37: 23–33. doi:10.1016/j.system.2008.08.002). This article is a direct replication of Watson Todd and Pojanapunya (2009), but, because the sociolinguistic context in Thailand has changed with greater use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) since the original study, we aim to look for differences between the findings of the original study and those of the current study rather than confirm the original, a process we term elaborative replication. Using an IAT with 439 Thai university students, the results show that, in contrast to our expectations, students’ implicit and explicit attitudes towards NESTs have become more positive in the ten years since the original study, a finding that casts doubt on the wider social impact of the ELF movement.

Native‐English‐Speaking Teachers: Disconnections Between Theory, Research, and Practice

Native‐English‐speaking teachers (NESTs) have long been in demand for perceived benefits of the skills they bring to the classroom. However, the notion that native speakers provide the best models of the target language and thus make the best teachers of the language has been criticised in the literature. This article reports on the disconnection between academic literature on NESTs and the realities they report. Drawing on data from an investigation into NEST schemes globally, the article suggests that lived classroom experiences of NESTs are complex, They are also often bilingual, experienced, and qualified, and regard local English teachers (LETs) they work with as experts and in control of how English is practised in the classroom. These characteristics contrast with much of the academic literature, which explores the concept of native speakerism, which tends to view NESTs negatively. The article proposes that one reason for the disconnection between theory and practice is the parallel lives of researchers and teachers, whether NESTs or LETs. Thus, each group’s realities and concerns are not always understood by the other. The article suggests that a substantial group of bilingual and bicultural NESTs consider the country where work home, so future theorisations of NESTs and native speakerism should take account of these teachers.

Examining English Teacher Professionalism through Dialogic Narrative Inquiry: A Case from Sabah, Malaysia

This study reports the examination of the professionalism of a local English teacher in Sabah, Malaysia, through dialogic narrative inquiry. The purpose of this examination is to understand ways in which professionalism of a local English teacher in a setting where English is minimally spoken is enacted in light of different social entities and objects, as well as prescriptive expectations. Narratives from the teacher, Misha, concerning her teaching were collected over seven months. Subsequently, the narratives were restoried by the researcher and Misha over four months, resulting in narrative constellations which described variables that affected Misha professionally. The constellations are Misha’s self, her students, her colleagues and the English Teaching Assistant, as well as the prescribed materials and pedagogy. The findings support the notion that teacher professionalism is a dynamic and multi-faceted construct. Furthermore, the study provides an avenue for the legitimization of an English language teacher through thoughts and actions reflected through narratives. Keywords: Local English teacher; dialogic narrative inquiry; narrative constellation; teacher professionalism; teacher identity

Experiences of Timorese language teachers in a blended Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

This paper details the experiences of a group of Timorese English language teachers from Lorosa’e English Language Institute (LELI) in Dili, Timor-Leste, who participated in a professional development MOOC entitled Teaching for Success: Lessons and Teaching between March and April 2017. Drawing on the pedagogical principles of blended learning; participants engaged with online course content, and once a week met as a study group to view some video content together and discuss issues arising from it. The authors draw on participant observation, individual and focus group interviews and post-course author reflections to outline the benefits and challenges of doing blended MOOCs in Dili, and propose that they can provide local English language teachers opportunities for subject area knowledge building, language literacy development and more general lifelong learning.