Teacher Education In Countries Research Articles

Encountering challenges in teacher education: developing culturally pluralist pedagogy when teaching dance from contextual perspectives in New Zealand

In 2000, teaching about culturally diverse dances from contextual perspectives became an expectation for New Zealand schools with the inaugural The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum. Responding to the new curriculum the author, as dance lecturer for K-12 generalist teachers attending a seven day in-service dance and drama education course, faced the need to expand course content from emphasising Eurocentric creative dance to pedagogy underpinned by cultural pluralism. This article provides some background to and description of the challenges encountered in a two-part learning experience that aimed to foster understanding of teaching about dance contextually, in theory and practice, as underpinned by culturally pluralist pedagogy. Data collected from the teachers, in a doctorate inquiry completed in 2010, informed a reflective evaluation of the two-part learning experience. In discussing some of the challenges encountered during the course, this article has significance for teacher education in countries that have multicultural profiles.

Ethnocentrism in TESOL: Teacher education and the neglected needs of international TESOL students

This article argues that strong ethnocentrism exists in TESOL teacher education in the Western English-speaking countries, and that teacher educators in these countries have by and large neglected the special needs of international students enrolled in their programmes. The article specifies the major needs of international TESOL students, and provides suggestions about what TESOL teacher education programmes should do to help meet these needs.