Possibilities, Challenges, and Changes in English Teacher Education Today

Possibilities, Challenges, and Changes in English Teacher Education Today
Author: Heidi L. Hallman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2019-05-24
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1475845464

This book focuses on English teacher educators’ experiences concerning professionalization and teacher identity. The term professionalization, itself, can be problematized (Popkewitz, 1994), as it connotes adherence to realities to professional norms that are based within particular histories. Yet, teacher educators must confront how to mentor prospective teachers into the field and how changes to the field manifest changes to what it means to be a professional. In research about changes in English teacher education over the past twenty years, Pasternak, Caughlan, Hallman, Renzi and Rush (2017) presented five distinct foci of ELA programs that have evolved: 1) changes to field experiences within teacher education programs, 2) altered conceptions of teaching literature and literacy within the context of ELA, 3) increased adherence to standardization, 4) changing demographics of students in K-12 classrooms, and 5) increased expectations for use of technology within ELA. These foci impact how professionals in ELA are viewed both from inside and outside the profession and how they navigate these tensions in teacher education programs to define what it means to identify as an English teacher. Throughout the book, chapter authors articulate dilemmas that focus around professionalization and teacher identity, questioning what it means to be an English teacher today. While some chapters suggest methods for increased awareness of tensions within practice, other chapters approach professionalization and teacher identity by asking what the limits of methods classes and teacher education might be in preparing ELA teachers and supporting them to remain in the profession. Today’s political environment devalues teachers and teaching, a situation that has critics deriding the educational standards at institutes of higher education while concurrently lauding alternative programs that do not have to adhere to the same rigorous teacher certification requirements. English teacher educators are now being asked to design programs, soften requirements, and recruit and mentor teacher candidates to a profession that, in the past, certified more new English teachers than it could employ. The chapters in this book explore what it means to educate and be an English teacher educator under these conditions.

Professional Development for Language Teachers

Professional Development for Language Teachers
Author: Jack C. Richards
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2005-04-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 052184911X

This much-needed text provides a coherent and strategic approach to teacher development Teacher Development for Language Teachers examines ten different approaches for facilitating professional development in language teaching: self-monitoring, support groups, journal writing, classroom observation, teaching portfolios, analysis of critical incidents, case analysis, peer coaching, team teaching, and action research. The introductory chapter provides a conceptual framework. All chapters contain practical examples and reflection questions to help readers apply the approach in their own teaching context.

Integrating Technology in English Language Arts Teacher Education

Integrating Technology in English Language Arts Teacher Education
Author: Donna L. Pasternak
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 133
Release: 2019-12-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0429782721

Integrating Technology in English Language Arts Teacher Education investigates the technology practices teacher candidates in the US are being introduced to, how they are using these practices in classrooms, and how technology can be effectively integrated into English teacher education programs. By drawing upon findings from extensive longitudinal studies into teacher education programs in the US, this timely volume addresses critical themes relating to the integration of technology in education, including: • Teaching with technology • Technology for collaboration • Technology for individualized learning and assessment By analyzing the experiences of teacher educators and candidates, and offering detailed analysis of the content, practices, and skills being taught to pre-service English teachers, Pasternak examines the entities that drive or inhibit the adoption of technology into the secondary English language arts (ELA) curriculum. This volume will resonate with an international audience of post-graduate scholars and researchers interested in the fields of teacher education, English language arts, and the relationship between technology and classroom practice.

Empowering Formal and Informal Leadership While Maintaining Teacher Identity

Empowering Formal and Informal Leadership While Maintaining Teacher Identity
Author: Zugelder, Bryan S.
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2021-05-07
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1799865029

Teacher leadership remains at the forefront of conversations in teacher education, with discussions on recruitment, retention, and effectiveness. Teachers are at the core of schooling, and the roles they assume and types of leadership they engage in are multi-dimensional. Teacher leadership comes in many shapes and definitions. In this sense, both opportunities and challenges exist in teacher leadership. While national competencies continue to define dispositional and knowledge base for teacher leaders, there is still work to be done to define and add to the body of scholarship on this topic. Teacher leadership opportunities provide development for teachers as a key retention strategy; however, role ambiguity presents challenges in how to empower teachers for formal and informal roles of leadership while maintaining the teacher identity. Empowering Formal and Informal Leadership While Maintaining Teacher Identity provides a comprehensive look at the opportunities and challenges of teacher leadership, drawing on research and practice that add to the body of knowledge for teacher leadership, which is a niche in education that differs from educational administration. Highlighted topics within this book include models for teacher leadership, teacher education, types of leadership roles, the development and retention of teacher leaders, and leadership across different types of school districts. This book is ideally designed for inservice and preservice teachers, administrators, teacher educators, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in teacher leadership roles and the way in which teacher identity is maintained in relation to these other leadership positions.

Invested Stayers

Invested Stayers
Author: Terri L. Rodriguez
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2020-09-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1475852096

Invested Stayers: How Teachers Thrive in Challenging Times features chapters co-authored by PK-12 teachers and postsecondary teacher educators from across the U.S. that reflect how they persist, remain, and thrive in the teaching profession. Premised on the idea that co-authors are colleagues and mentors to each other, this book conceptualizes contributors as invested stayers in the education profession. Chapters feature how particular catalysts, or landmark changes in education, have been productive sites for growth, agency, and even resistance across the arc of contributors’ professional lives. The book recognizes that teacher educators and teachers persist because of multiple and overlapping factors between our professional and personal lives, including the relationships we develop with each other as colleagues and mentors in our professional learning. In the public sphere, PK-12 educators increasingly face challenges that limit their ability to initiate their own professional learning. In this book, we considered what might occur if educators had space and time to write together and reflect on how they’ve persisted. These authors narrate themselves as invested stayers who invite personal and professional growth through inquiry, creativity, and innovation.

TESOL in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities

TESOL in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities
Author: Zübeyde Sinem Genc
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
Total Pages: 594
Release: 2021-06-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9783631828250

The book includes topics on teaching English as a foreign language, language teacher education, instructed second language learning, and 21st century skills for English language taechers and learners.

New Trends in Foreign Language Teaching

New Trends in Foreign Language Teaching
Author: Raúl Ruiz Cecilia
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1527525473

Language teaching approaches, methods and procedures are constantly undergoing reassessment. New ideas keep emerging as the growing complexity of the means of communication and the opportunities created by technology put language skills to new uses. In addition, the political, social and economic impact of globalisation, the new demands of the labour market that result from it, the pursuit of competitiveness, the challenges of intercultural communication and the diversification of culture have opened new perspectives on the central role that foreign languages have come to play in the development of contemporary societies. This book provides an insight into the latest developments in the field and discusses the new trends in foreign language teaching in four major areas, namely methods and approaches, teacher training, innovation in the classroom, and evaluation and assessment.

Confronting Challenges in English Language Teacher Education

Confronting Challenges in English Language Teacher Education
Author: Salah Troudi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2024-09-04
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1040110118

This edited volume presents an inter- and multidisciplinary approach towards language teacher education, confronting the issues that have continued to pervade the field for the last two decades. Featuring contributions from researchers and teacher educators located within a truly international spread of countries – Mexico, Palestine, Tunisia, Cyprus, and Kuwait to name a few – chapters adopt an ecologically glocalised approach to understand how English language teaching is theorised and practised in different educational contexts across the world. Research gathered from interviews, meta-analysis, and international case studies is showcased as chapters consider both pedagogical and online issues within, as well as critical approaches to, language teacher education. Professional development and evaluation programmes across different educational contexts are discussed in-depth along with guidance and insights for the future of the field. The book will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students working in the fields of English language teacher education, TESOL, applied linguistics, continuing professional development.

Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce

Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2020-07-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0309499038

Teachers play a critical role in the success of their students, both academically and in regard to long term outcomes such as higher education participation and economic attainment. Expectations for teachers are increasing due to changing learning standards and a rapidly diversifying student population. At the same time, there are perceptions that the teaching workforce may be shifting toward a younger and less experienced demographic. These actual and perceived changes raise important questions about the ways teacher education may need to evolve in order to ensure that educators are able to meet the needs of students and provide them with classroom experiences that will put them on the path to future success. Changing Expectations for the K-12 Teacher Workforce: Policies, Preservice Education, Professional Development, and the Workplace explores the impact of the changing landscape of K-12 education and the potential for expansion of effective models, programs, and practices for teacher education. This report explores factors that contribute to understanding the current teacher workforce, changing expectations for teaching and learning, trends and developments in the teacher labor market, preservice teacher education, and opportunities for learning in the workplace and in-service professional development.

English as a Lingua Franca in Teacher Education

English as a Lingua Franca in Teacher Education
Author: Telma Gimenez
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2017-11-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501503855

A lingua franca perspective into English language teaching in Brazil has only recently take flight. As an emerging economy, the country faces enormous challenges when it comes to language education in schools, where English has traditionally been taught as a foreign language. This collection brings the perspectives of academics and language practitioners in their efforts to incorporate an ELF approach into teacher education, thus offering a voice sorely missed in the international community interested in developing new approaches to English in a global world.