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There is a lacuna in research investigating the support needs of “non-native English-speaking teachers” (NNETs) and “native English-speaking teachers” (NETs) in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) and ELT (English Language Teaching) contexts. In addition, most research on English language education reform has drawn from the state English language education sector whereas the non-state English language education sector (e.g., Foreign Language Centres (FLCs)) has been under-researched. The purpose of this case study was to compare and contrast teacher support needs of NNETs and NETs across both public and private FLCs. Forty-three in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with teachers and educational leaders across both public and private FLCs. Thematic analysis was employed to identify, analyse, report and triangulate the patterns of support needs of NNETs and NETs from both teachers’ and educational leaders’ perspectives. Data revealed that there were similarities and differences in the perceptions of teacher support needs between the cohort of NNETs and that of NETs. A significant finding of the study is the gaps and mismatches in the perceptions of teacher support needs between educational leaders and teachers. The findings of the study were employed to generate a multi-faceted teacher support needs framework facilitating teachers and educational leaders. This study argues that educational leaders at FLCs should take a holistic view of supporting teachers within and across the four broad areas that the teachers required, including Administrative Support Needs, Professional Learning and Development Support Needs, Emotional Support Needs, and Personal Support Needs. Moreover, without the full range of educational leadership inclusive of Emotional Support Needs, qualified NNETs and NETs at FLCs may commit teacher turnover or teacher attrition. This is detrimental to both education business and student outcomes.

Teacher agency has become a growing research interest in language education, especially at the critical juncture of widespread globalisation, when many nations including Vietnam, the context of the study, have promulgated a new language policy to respond to this transformation. However, teacher agency remains under-examined despite a small number of recent studies. Therefore, it is a critical issue within the field of language policy (LP) since the roles of teachers are evidenced to be fundamental to policy implementation. In response to the gap in the current LP literature, this qualitative case study, grounded in positioning theory, aims to explore how English teachers exercise their agency in response to the policy under prescribed conditions. A group of English primary teachers, school principals, and regional English managers in a province in Vietnam were purposively selected as study participants. Data were collected from multiple sources including in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and documents. The findings showed that teachers were positioned (by the policy and their institutions) as “mere” policy implementers who were expected to strictly follow the mandates and instructions transferred to them. Their implementation was regularly supervised and inspected by their stakeholders (including DOET, BOET, and school leaders). However, in the classroom context, the teachers attempted to adapt the policy mandates according to their interpretations, preferences, choices, and current teaching conditions. Even though the teachers claimed that they conformed to the policy mandates, this conformity did not mean that they faithfully followed all of them. Teachers’ capacity to act was also informed by their previous professional experience, beliefs and teaching passion and specific contexts. Teacher agency enactment was also found to vary across the regions. The rural and island teachers tended to exercise more on negative agency due to their insufficient suppo

The globalization and commodification of higher education have brought contextual changes to Australian universities such as a substantial growth in international student numbers and increased publication pressure on doctoral scholars and academics. Experiencing these changes, in the Australian Higher Degree Research (HDR) context, increasing attention is being paid to support for students’ scholarly writing such as writing groups or group writing conferences. Despite the growing demand for this type of support, little is known about how the group activity enhances students’ genre knowledge development. Drawing on sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 2012), the study investigates HDR students’ genre learning - namely their thesis writing - through the exchange of oral feedback in group writing conferences at an Australian university. The study takes an ethnographic case study approach and investigates twelve students’ participation in three writing groups over a ten-week period. In these groups, students and a facilitator from the university’s learning centre meet fortnightly for two hours to discuss each other’s writing. Data were collected through observation and audiorecordings of meetings, written drafts, and interviews with the students and facilitators. The study focuses on underexplored areas in the previous studies on oral peer feedback in L2 writing classrooms: group oral interactions as tools for learning and the influences of social contexts inside and outside the classroom settings. Using the sociocultural concepts of mediation (Vygotsky, 1978), activity systems (Engeström, 2001) and Vygotsky’s concept of perezhivanie (lived experience) as analytical lenses, I examined participants’ motives and perspectives, and the groups’ emerging rules and divisions of labour. The findings include (1) the beneficial discursive features of oral interactions (e.g. giving and responding to feedback) and their relationships with oth

The aims of this study were three-fold: (1) to explore the extent of ELT teachers’ research engagement in relation to the national and institutional policies in the context of a Vietnamese university; (2) to understand the contradictions that emerged in ELT teachers’ research engagement and how they resolved them; and (3) to explore how teachers developed their sense of teacher research efficacy (TRE) and practical research knowledge (PRK) as they undertook research. The study adopted a two-stage, embedded case study design and the analytical framework of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1987, 1999, 2001; Leontiev, 1981). Stage One explored the institutional level of research activity through an analysis of national and institutional documents and interview data from four institutional leaders. It was found that the university was managing its research activity under great pressure to increase its research output and transform itself into a research-oriented institution. The research policies it issued emphasised numeric measures of teachers’ research performance. At the same time, however, only a small number of teachers actually conducted empirical research, with most participants adopting survival strategies to meet the requirements. Stage Two analysed the activity systems of two research groups in the university using multiple data sources - periodic interviews, recordings of group discussions, group emails, and research artefacts. The analysis of contradictions in the two groups shed light on the cognitive and emotional experiences of teachers and revealed the need to problematise the notion, process and outcome of collaborative teacher research. Case studies of four individual teachers selected from the two groups provided important insights into teachers’ methodological practices, the relationship between cognition and practice, and the nature of teachers’ TRE and PRK development. Overall, the findings can help to inform the decision-mak

This qualitative case study explores the impact of an Action Research (AR) program on the participating English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students (ELICOS) teachers in Australia. Rooted in social constructivist epistemologies, the study draws on sociocultural theory, in particular theories of cognition, identity, perezhivanie (subjective perception), mediated agency and ecology following Vygotsky (1994), van Lier (2004, 2008, 2011), Johnson (2009a, 2015) and Golombek (2015). The study investigated how the teachers experienced the AR program, how they negotiated action-researcher identities as a result, and the impact the program has had on ELICOS colleges and the ELICOS sector, from teachers and managers' perspectives. A key aspect of exploration was the sustainability of an AR approach for teacher professional development within the ELICOS environment.A detailed and context-specific illustration of the micro, meso and macro forms of impact of the AR program was co-constructed with teacher and manager participants through a qualitative survey, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The findings suggest that teachers have benefited in a variety of ways from AR, developing greater awareness about their teaching, about the role of research, and about their position within their colleges and the ELICOS sector. The teachers also experienced identity shifts as they navigated new research and leadership roles, and received varying levels of support from their colleges and managers. Teacher-researcher identity negotiation is viewed as dynamic, situated and complex, and intricately connected to the teachers' emotional experiences and enactment of agency. While the AR program has the potential to affect wider, sector-level teacher professional development and change common perceptions of research in ELICOS, such shifts are currently constrained by certain features of the sector, such as its transience and status.The study makes a contribution to theor

Although research on teacher cognition has become a well-established domain of inquiry for language teaching over the past few decades, very few in-depth case studies have explored teachers’ beliefs on their pedagogical practices in classrooms in an under-resourced EFL context like Vietnam, where overly large classes, poor equipment, inadequately trained teachers, time constraints and written grammar-focused examinations are the norm (Hoang, 2011; Le, 2011; Le, 2014; Nguyen, Fehring & Warren, 2015).The present qualitative case study seeks to occupy such a research space. Specifically, it aims to explore and understand the perceptions of a small group (N=8) of Vietnamese pre-service teachers, undertaking the same teacher education programme, about the teaching of speaking and how they go about teaching speaking in practice. It also aims to investigate what underlies the participants’ perspectives in order to gain insights into the factors that affect and shape their speaking instructional decisions in the classroom. Data obtained for this study were from multiple sources including semi-structured interviews, document analysis, classroom observations and stimulated recall interviews. Following a data-driven approach, themes were developed and used in analysis for drawing a constant comparison among the participants (Glaser & Strauss, 1999; Merriam, 2009). From analysis of the data, the findings of the study showed that the eight pre-service teachers strongly valued the learning of speaking and favoured communicative methods for the teaching of speaking. However, due to the influence of various contextual factors, for example, students’ low motivation for learning English for communication, teaching materials, large class-size and school teachers’ supervision, the participants’ stated perceptions appeared to diverge in practice. Although the findings of this research cannot be generalized beyond the context in which the data were collected, it contributes to academic u

Premised in the field of second/foreign language teacher education, this study examined language teacher cognition (LTC) from a cultural-historical activity theory perspective. Involving three groups of Cambodian pre-service, novice and experienced teachers of English in a tertiary context in Cambodia, its major aim was twofold: to explore teachers’ cognitions about vocabulary instruction and their interrelations with classroom practices and to map such interrelations in its broader contexts such as the institution in which the teachers worked. Data collected from semi-structured and recall interviews, classroom observations, documentation and the researcher’s field notes spanning a six-month period formed the basis of the analysis. In addition to using Strauss’s (1987) grounded approach to explore the teachers’ cognitions and practices, I employed an activity theoretical framework (Leont'ev, 1978, 1981)—‘activity-action-operation’—to tease out three levels of data analysis. Engeström’s (2015) activity systems analysis model was particularly used to map out interconnections among factors that shaped the teachers’ actions and operations at the classroom level and the teachers’ collective activity at the institutional level. In broad strokes, at the action-level, the analysis focused on the teachers’ cognitions (i.e., mental actions), showing vocabulary was perceived as an indispensable component in the language curriculum. The analysis at the operation-level revealed planned and unplanned vocabulary instructional activities were embodied both explicitly and implicitly, in such a mode as embedding in reading and listening comprehension tasks. The teachers’ mental and physical actions were found to be interrelated with the sociocultural contexts of the classroom, the workplace, the teachers’ respective past and present experiences and their future thinking. Moreover, the analysis at the activity-level uncovered a dynamic set of relations within the activity system: ped

The purpose of this thesis is to gain a cross-sectional view of meaning-making strategies in writing between Japanese EFL learners of different proficiency levels. By adopting Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) as its theoretical framework, the thesis also aims to explore the potential of SFL to clarify what linguistic resources learners have learned and have yet to learn to use in the Japanese EFL context, where the application of SFL to education is still in its infancy.Data derived from argumentative essays, or expository texts, written by 80 Japanese EFL learners were classified into three different proficiency groups. Their strategies of meaning-making in English were investigated through data analysis methods drawing on SFL: complex and abstract realisation of reality through nominalisation and clause-combining strategies in ideational meaning, intersubjective positioning through engaging resources in interpersonal meaning, and cohesive development of text through Theme choice and Theme progression strategies in textual meaning.The thesis contributes to a more theoretically-sound understanding of the current picture of the written texts produced by Japanese EFL learners. From a pedagogic perspective, the description of complex and abstract resources, solidarity management strategies, cohesive devices explored in the study provides useful insights into learners strengths and weakness overlooked in the traditional understanding of Japanese learners written language. The study also proposes further application of SFL to improving as well as understanding learners making meaning strategies, equipping teachers and researchers with common and more language-based terms to discuss their findings. It is argued from this study that an accumulation of practice and research from SFL perspectives will have a great impact on curriculum development in EFL teaching of writing in Japan.

This study used a participatory action research methodology in order to explore influences on literacy development for four women with limited or interrupted formal schooling. The study engaged these four women as co-researchers in the collaborative project of incorporating their perspectives and experiences into curriculum priorities that aimed to extend their reading skills, and further their literacy development across personal, social, educational and vocational goals. Through the phases of an action research spiral, the co-researchers and researcher/tutor trialled and evaluated curriculum and pedagogical initiatives directed at the priorities expressed by the co-researchers, and informed by current theories of literacy and second language reading.The study is underpinned by social theories of literacy (Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Brice Heath, 1983; Gee, 1992; Scribner & Cole, 1981; Street, 1984, 1994) and draws on theorists in second language reading development (Grabe & Stoller, 2002; Koda, 2005) and adult learning (Hartree, 1984; Knowles, 1990) to identify priorities in a flexible curriculum tailored to co-researchers' individual aims of extending their literacy in English to support their diverse goals.The findings locate these women’s literacy experience in global contexts of conflict and human rights transgression that restricted opportunities for first language literacy, and locally in contested views of literacy in community life that limited access to adult literacy instruction in Australia.

This case study investigated the implementation of an EMI program as an educational change in a Vietnamese public university. Using a needs analysis framework, this qualitative-dominant study sequentially collected data from questionnaires, in-depth interviews, and class observations from 148 students and 71 lecturers in the program to provide a thick description of their perceived meaning of the change. The findings revealed that EMI, based on the content and language integrated principles, was promoted as an intended means to improve the quality of the education system in general, and of language teaching and learning in particular, to meet the increasing demand of a previously closed nation toward a more open and market-oriented economy. While the students and lecturers were positive about the benefits of EMI, they were unaware of the big picture of the change and the change process. Therefore, they exhibited uncertainty and confusion about the meaning, actual practices, and outcomes of the innovation. Through the lens of change theory, the study confirmed that these phenomena were common in the change process. It also identified areas that needed to be addressed to effectively enact EMI; for example, clarification of its purposes and implementation model, teacher learning community, teacher and student support, program evaluation, and student recruitment. In other words, the EMI implementation was depicted as a transition from a Confucian-influenced education system towards a Westernised one, in the context of a transforming nation striving to join the rest of the world.

This multi-site case study research project examines the experiences of teachers and adult ESL literacy learners within Australia’s Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program (LLNP). Drawing on elements of identity theory, positioning theory and culturally relevant pedagogy, it examines how teachers of adult ESL literacy learners position their learners vis-à-vis their teaching practices, and how their learners position themselves in response. The study draws on the concepts of investment (Norton, 2000; Norton Peirce, 1995) and imagined communities (Anderson, 1983; Norton, 2001) to explain how learners react to teachers’ positioning of them. The research findings indicate that teachers conceptualise their roles in markedly different ways, ranging from linguistic facilitators to social links between learners and the broader Australian community. This perception has a distinct effect on the ways in which they position their learners in the classroom. Drawing on in-depth interview and classroom observation data, the study discusses the extent to which learners appear to be invested in the language practices of the classroom, and the extent to which teachers’ practices tap into learners’ imagined communities. The findings suggest that both of these factors play an important role in determining the learners’ levels of engagement and participation in classroom learning activities.