Search

This study is situated in the context of a design-driven master's-level course at a Finnish university where pre-service teachers (PSTs) planned and carried out an online English learning project for 11- to 12-year-old pupils in two schools. During the working process, the PSTs needed to rethink their perceptions of technology-mediated language education and look for new ways to organise pedagogical activities for the children. The study explores how the PSTs' professional vision and agency emerged in a hybrid space when orchestrating pupils' participation online. Diverse materials from orchestration sessions were examined through nexus analysis. The findings highlight the PSTs' professional vision and agency arising from interactions with the following activities while orchestrating language learning: 1) coordinating action and establishing continuity in design; 2) monitoring action and attending to emerging needs; and 3) attending to pupils' engagement with the designed activities and revising the design during action if necessary. The setting allowed collaborative problem solving and sense making which advanced a balanced interaction order. This made space for new experiences and discourses contributing to the development of the PSTs' professional vision as language teachers. The study has implications for language teacher education and language teaching in hybrid spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to explore how university language students evaluate different sustainability themes and examine the overall relevance of ecological, social, cultural and economic sustainability dimensions in language education. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was designed to study Finnish university language students' (n = 55) order of priority for sustainability dimensions and their sub-themes and the justifications for the priority orders using a mixed methods design. Qualitative content analysis was conducted using NVivo software, and weighted rankings were used to analyse the quantitative data. Findings: The findings of the study showed that language students evaluated the social and cultural dimensions as the most relevant in language teaching. In all dimensions, students approached sustainability mainly by prioritising larger issues and advancing towards smaller ones. Most non-directional responses appeared in the economic dimension. In addition, individual prioritising and justification approaches varied between different sustainability dimensions. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, no previous studies have examined language students' evaluations of and justifications for all four sustainability dimensions. The results highlight the need to use multiple, holistic approaches and systems thinking to incorporate education for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual exchange (VE) projects in pre-service language teacher education are increasingly being recognized as an innovative practice due to their affordances for providing teacher learning opportunities in technology-rich environments. This study aims to report these opportunities based on results from a VE project consisting of diverse teacher education activities, including lectures, webinars, asynchronous tasks, and synchronous video-mediated interactions. This project provides a medium for pre-service teachers to collaboratively design a lesson to be implemented in hybrid language learning environments. We specifically deal with the video-mediated interactions of the transnational groups of pre-service language teachers using multimodal conversation analysis (CA) as the research methodology and investigate VE phases to explore how their interactions become consequential for the final pedagogical design. The findings show that the pre-service teachers retrospectively orient to shared practices in the earlier phases of the VE project, and the deployment of retrospective orientation as an interactional resource creates interactional space for collaborative decision-making related to their pedagogical designs. We argue that tracking the video-mediated pedagogical interactions of the pre-service teachers using CA is a methodological innovation that allows researchers to collect interactional evidence for the emergent teacher learning opportunities. The findings bring new insights to the role of the technology-mediated settings (e.g. VEs and telecollaboration) in language learning, teaching, and teacher education and in bridging different cultures, curricula, and physical spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While various aspects of language teachers' emotional experiences have been gaining attention, including emotion labor and emotional capital, less attention has been placed on the emotional experiences of teacher educators supporting language teachers in emotionally challenging situations. Following calls to examine language teachers' emotional experiences ecologically and as socially and institutionally shaped, we engaged in collaborative autoethnography to explore how language teacher and teacher educator emotion labor reflects answerability to multiple commitments in the face of external feeling rules. Our findings highlight how language teacher–teacher educator collaboration can mitigate as well as reproduce emotion labor. This study contributes to research on language teacher emotion labor by focusing on the role of the teacher educator in supporting language teacher emotional capital and highlighting the complexity underlying emotion labor and emotional capital as multi-directional. Furthermore, the study illustrates how collaborative autoethnography can generate reflexivity and emotional capital for language teacher educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been many studies on teachers' emotional labor and on how the ethics of caring affect teachers' emotional labor. Yet, little research has examined teacher emotional labor under current neoliberal discourses in the education systems in Brazil. Using interviews and diaries, this study investigated the emotional labor of a Brazilian school teacher of English when teaching according to critical literacy studies. The findings indicated that her emotional labor was related to the political situation in Brazil, neoliberalism discourses and emotional rules, as well as clashes between teacher roles and her desire to teach critically. She felt torn between acting according to what she believed was good for her students and her critical literacy practice versus obeying the emotional rules for teachers' and students' roles at her school. As she did that, she experienced both domination and resistance. The study concludes with implications about neoliberalism as related to teacher emotional labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideally, teachers' classroom assessment literacy can be developed through in-service teacher education or assessment training from institutions. Yet in reality, teachers may not gain sufficient assessment training on the job or from institutionalised training programmes. This contextual disadvantage cannot explain teacher inertia in advancing their professional knowledge and their skills in classroom-based assessment. Instead, teachers are encouraged to proactively rely on themselves to enhance their CAL amid their tried-and-tested assessment practices. The current qualitative case study explores how a university English teacher directed herself to develop CAL in her assessment practices over time. Data were collected through narrative frames, interviews with the teacher and her students, classroom observations, and documents. This study shows that self-directed CAL development may be buttressed by the teacher's prior assessment experiences. The teacher's self-agency and reflections further empowered her to acquire the assessment knowledge, skills, and experience in improving assessment effectiveness. The implications for enhancing self-directed professional development in assessment are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This autoethnographic narrative inquiry explores the lived experiences and identities of a transnational English language teacher (educator). The aim of this research was to gain insight into my own transnationality, in order both to better inform my beliefs and practices as an educator, and to highlight the value of exploring transnationality as an important dimension in language teacher identity (LTI) construction. Drawing on autobiographical writing and art work as data sources, constant comparison and line-by-line analysis were employed to identify themes in the data, which were synthesized with relevant literature to further make sense of and theorize (my) transnational LTIs. Featuring theme-focused experiences from my life, findings are organized in a past-present-future structure, looking back at how my past identities can inform my present identities, and how these past and present identities are informing my future imagined identities. Major insights gained from this research into transnational LTI include: (a) social categorization, whether conferring high or low status, is a form of objectification, closely linked to the concept of (un)desire; (b) viewing emotions as signals of sites of growth can help to free us from emotional overwhelm; and (c) identifying and acknowledging our strengths can emancipate us from unjust power dynamics and empower others to do the same. Implications for language teacher education are discussed.

This study aims to determine the influence of the Think Talk Write learning model on the ability to write announcement texts among eighth grade students at SMPN 18 Tasikmalaya in the 2023/2024 academic year. This research employed a quasi-experimental method with a quantitative approach. The research sample consisted of 40 eighth-grade students, with 20 students from class VIII-D serving as the experimental group and 20 students from class VIII-A serving as the control group. Data collection was carried out using pretests and posttests. The pretest was administered to both groups before the treatment. After the treatment, a posttest was conducted for both groups. To analyze the data, the researcher used an independent sample t-test with SPSS. The average pretest score in the experimental class using the Think Talk Write learning model was 56.35, and the average posttest score was 80.70. The average pretest score in the control class using the conventional learning model was 51.65, and the posttest score was 71.40. Thus, the learning outcomes in the experimental class were more successful than those in the control class. Based on statistical testing (t-test), the difference in the average posttest scores between the experimental and control classes showed that the Sig. (2-tailed) value was less than 0.05, specifically 0.013 < 0.05. This indicates that the Think Talk Write model has a significant effect on the ability to write announcement texts among eighth-grade students at SMPN 18 Tasikmalaya in the 2023/2024 academic year.

This study investigates the content and characteristics of the cognitions of 30 Turkish English-as-a-foreign-language preservice teachers as manifested in their teaching philosophy statements. The study showed that the preservice teachers’ cognition was focused on both the pedagogical (teaching-learning and language teaching methods) and the personal and interpersonal (learners’ and teachers’ roles and the relationship between them) aspects of teaching and was characterized by high idealism and naïveté, but they also demonstrated a certain level of awareness of the future contexts in which they would be teaching. Although their past experiences significantly shaped their cognition, they found that their current teacher education program helped them develop a critical view of these experiences.

This systematic review aimed to provide a comprehensive view of critical pedagogy-informed collaborative professional development practices in English language teaching. Using four databases and relevant keywords, we found 67 studies conducted in Asia, South/Central/North America, Europe, Australia, and the Gulf countries and systematically analyzed them. Results show that critical collaborative practices enabled teachers to develop a critical stance, implement pedagogically critical actions, and initiate social change regarding social awareness and power distribution. However, these changes, visible in teachers’ pedagogical practices, have not expanded onto a macro-social level. Implications for language teacher development program planners and policymakers are discussed.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, online assessment has become pivotal to allow evaluation of the knowledge and competences of teachers-to-be. In this context, this study explored language teacher educators' conceptions and practices of online assessment and the implications of this type of assessment for language teacher education. Forty-six language teacher educators working in Chilean English language teaching programmes completed an online adapted version of the Abridged Conception of Assessment inventory. From this group, 16 volunteered to take part in a follow-up semi-structured virtual interview. The results indicate that teacher educators' conceptions of assessment remained unaltered despite the online context. Their conceptions relied mainly on the purpose of online assessment for improving teaching and learning and checking off student teachers' language proficiency against standardised criteria. Their assessment practices, however, had to be adapted and modified to fit the online environment, which triggered participants' concerns about the reliability and authenticity of the assessment methods to evaluate prospective language teachers. These findings suggest that there is a need to enhance teacher education programmes that are remotely delivered in order to shed light on reliable, valid and authentic tools to assess future English language teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored teacher cognition concerning intercultural communicative competence (ICC) among pre-service English and German teachers in China, a context influenced by a rising demand for English as a lingua franca and the increasing significance of the German language due to the 'Belt and Road' initiative. Data were gathered from undergraduate pre-service teachers of English (EnS) (n = 54) and German (GeS) (n = 89) using a questionnaire at a Chinese university. The findings revealed that: (1) EnS emphasised ICC-oriented knowledge, attitudes, and critical cultural awareness in their provided definitions of ICC, whereas GeS focused on German proficiency and target -culture-oriented knowledge; (2) EnS' length of studying English, abroad experience, and prior teaching experience exhibited varying correlations with their ICC beliefs, whereas only grade level and abroad experience were significantly related to GeS' cognition about ICC. This study contributes to the broader discourse on teachers teaching different languages and their perceptions of ICC amidst the global landscape shaped by the coexistence of multiple languages and cultures. It concludes by calling for further research examining teacher cognition and influential factors across diverse languages and educational contexts in the realm of ICC. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: This study investigates how pre-service teachers of English and German in China understand intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Guided by Byram's (1997, 2020) ICC model, which includes five dimensions – knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, attitudes, and critical cultural awareness – we explored the ICC relevant perceptions of pre-service language teachers. Specifically, we surveyed university students training to be teachers of English and German to see how they define ICC, how their views differ, and how their experiences (such as the length of time studying the language, spending time abroad, and prior teaching experience) influence their understanding of ICC. Our findings revealed that English-major students (EnS) emphasised the importance of ICC-oriented knowledge, attitudes, and critical cultural awareness. In contrast, German-major students (GeS) focused more on German language proficiency and specific cultural knowledge. For EnS, factors like the duration of studying English, experiences abroad, and prior teaching experience influenced their views on ICC. For GeS, only their grade level and experiences abroad had a significant impact on their ICC perceptions. This study highlights the importance of incorporating ICC elements into different foreign language teacher training programmes. Understanding these differences can help improve foreign language education and promote better intercultural understanding against the backdrop of multilingualism. The study also identifies areas for further research, such as exploring these issues with other foreign languages and in different educational settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasingly digital and multicultural 21st-century society requires future teachers to be prepared for the changes and challenges they may encounter. Not only language and digital competences, but critical-thinking and problemsolving skills are needed. Moreover, well developed socio-affective abilities, empathy among them, are also key when dealing with others. This is even more relevant when teachers are to work with a non-mainstream population, such as adult migrants with low literacy levels, and to design student-centered curricula or activities. Empathy is a multifaceted process involving, among others, perception, intellection, affect and other sensory aspects of the lived experience. It has been argued that the first-person perspective-taking involved in empathic engagement must necessarily involve rational computation and cognitively mediated processing. Training future teachers in the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies is a means to integrate multimodal digital instruction and aggregate cognitive as well as socio-emotional features to the education of future language teachers. Method: A mixed-method pre-post study was conducted with 48 trainee teachers who participated in stand-alone digital multiliteracy interventions, in which they were encouraged to envisage themselves as future teachers of low-literate migrants. Policy documents such as the reference guide on Literacy and Second Language Learning for the Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants, journal articles, audiovisual resources as well as examples of existing educational materials aimed at the target audience, were made available to them on an online platform. In two separate studies, trainees were encouraged to collaboratively produce two different multimodal outputs. The Revised Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy was administered before and after the intervention, subjecting the data obtained to quantitative analysis. Qualitative data was also collected to gain a better understanding of the affective and cognitive processes experienced by the participants. Results: Simple statistical analysis coupled with the comparison of means was used to respond to the research questions. Statistical hypothesis testing, including correlations and non-parametric statistics were used to analyze the relationship between each of the factors within the RSEE and the participants, considering the different interventions applied. Non-parametric tests (U-Mann Whitney) were used to compare the differences between the levels of ethnocultural empathy of the participants in the two studies. Significant differences were found in Factor 3 (Empathy) and Factor 5 (Anxiety) between the groups and their postintervention results, with a p value of 0.053 and 0.038, respectively. The effect size r was calculated, obtaining a size effect of 0.625 for Factor 3 (Empathy) and 0.674 for Factor 5 (Anxiety). These results indicate that the significant differences and the size effect between both groups are large. U-Mann Whitney non-parametric analysis also revealed gender differences in Factor 3 (Empathy), showing females higher levels than males. Effect size r analysis showed a large size effect of 0.708 for Factor 3 (Empathy). The findings pertaining to gender-related differences in empathy levels confirm the conclusions drawn by previous studies. When contrasting study 1 and 2, statistical differences were also shown after the intervention for the 'Anxiety and Lack of Multicultural Selfefficacy' factor. The qualitative data analysis was carried out with Atlas.ti v.8, in order to isolate and categorize the broader themes and the most significant explanatory quotes extracted from the participants' records and interviews. The results reveal the learning strategies that each group of learners applied to successfully complete the task at hand, as well as the participants' deployment of their critical thinking skills and the awakening of a sense of awareness of their own professional competence development process. Conclusion: This study set out to compare how effective two digital multiliteracy interventions were in developing future language teachers' ethnocultural empathy and cognitive abilities when appraising the educational needs of lowliteracy migrants. Despite the small sample size, the study certainly adds to our understanding of the impact of multimodal tasks involving critical thinking skills on trainees' cognitive and affective abilities. Besides, it expands the growing body of research that points to the desirability of embedding digitally-based content creation tasks in training curricula for future language teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the abundance of research exploring the formats, functions, and processes of teacher reflections, many pre-service teachers still perceive it as an abstract and daunting task, owing to the insufficient provision of authentic and practical training and support. This article examines the immediate and long-term effects of explicitly teaching reflective practice (RP) on three student teachers’ professional learning in a language pedagogy course within a pre-service teacher education programme. Drawing on data from multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews, field observation, and reflective essays, the findings suggest that student teachers’ RP, in terms of its breadth (i.e. content focus) and depth (i.e. discursive use of language), showed immediate improvement after the practical workshops with an explicit focus on RP. In the second round of interviews conducted two years later, the importance of RP was reiterated by the participants, who highlighted the evidence-based nature of RP while outlining practical challenges that hindered their RP in actual school contexts. The findings further highlight the issue of authenticity in RP and provide practical suggestions for pre-service teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad is the property of Frontiers Journal, Inc and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development is the property of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Facultad de Ciencias Humanas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study aimed to explore Iranian EFL teachers' perceptions of Critical Pedagogy (CP) and their classroom practices. For this purpose, a total of 22 EFL teachers were selected through convenience sampling and participated in an online semi - structured written interview. A sub -group of them also took part in a phone interview. Textual data were analyzed using grounded theory coding types, including open, axial, and selective coding, with MAXQDA software (Version 2020). The findings revealed two broad themes: raising students' critical consciousness and learner -centered pedagogy for CP definition, and communicative tasks and learner -centered activities for CP classroom practices. Additionally, the dominant barriers to the implementation of CP in the Iranian EFL context were identified as the top -down educational system, teachers' variables, and practical barriers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teachers who know what, how and why to teach are essential for successful student learning. However, many preservice teachers (PSTs) lack teaching experience and the ability to integrate theory and practice. To help bridge this gap, this study employed a learning‐by‐design project approach in which 22 Korean PSTs developed lesson plans for middle school English classes, constructed virtual classrooms in the metaverse based on their English lesson plans, and conducted microteaching in the virtual classrooms. The study used a qualitative research method and focused on an emic perspective with multiple data sets, including the PSTs' reflection papers and post‐interviews as primary data, and their lesson plans, virtual classrooms and recordings of microteaching as secondary data. The results showed that the project supported learning by design, and that it also helped PSTs understand learners and learning, redefine the teacher's role as a designer and facilitator, connect theories to practice and improve their teaching skills. The findings can be used as a reference for future teacher training. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Teachers' content, pedagogical and technological knowledge and skills are essential attributes for effective performance. Preservice teachers (PSTs) have difficulty transferring their knowledge to real classrooms because their knowledge often focuses on the ‘know‐what’ of teaching, but not on the ‘know‐how’. Microteaching in virtual environments helps PSTs connect knowledge and practice and prepare for real classroom situations. What this paper adds The study applied a learning‐by‐design approach to preservice teachers' microteaching to help them connect their pedagogical knowledge to classroom practice. The study focused on describing how the PSTs' virtual classroom design influenced the way they planned and implemented their microteaching. Implications for practice and/or policy Teacher educators can incorporate the design‐based approach into their teacher training modules to help teachers understand learner needs when planning and implementing English lessons. Teachers can develop technological literacy and positive attitudes about using technology in their classrooms. What is already known about this topic Teachers' content, pedagogical and technological knowledge and skills are essential attributes for effective performance. Preservice teachers (PSTs) have difficulty transferring their knowledge to real classrooms because their knowledge often focuses on the ‘know‐what’ of teaching, but not on the ‘know‐how’. Microteaching in virtual environments helps PSTs connect knowledge and practice and prepare for real classroom situations. What this paper adds The study applied a learning‐by‐design approach to preservice teachers' microteaching to help them connect their pedagogical knowledge to classroom practice. The study focused on describing how the PSTs' virtual classroom design influenced the way they planned and implemented their microteaching. Implications for practice and/or policy Teacher educators can incorporate the design‐based approach into their teacher training modules to help teachers understand learner needs when planning and implementing English lessons. Teachers can develop technological literacy and positive attitudes about using technology in their classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a longitudinal study of foreign language teacher professional identity development. We traced a single teacher's sociohistorical identity development at three temporally different moments during the first eight years of his teaching profession. The data, collected mainly through classroom observations and semi-structured interviews, were analysed through the cumulative lens of the communities of practice theory, the possible selves theory, and positioning theory, which provided an integrated conceptual framework at the levels of theoretical principles, methodology, data analysis, and interpretation. The findings revealed that, as a result of the teacher's evolving community of practice, each of the three moments over the eight-year period exemplified a change in the constellation of his possible selves and in how he positioned himself and others in his professional environment. The results of this study substantiate a multi-perspectival approach to understanding teacher professional identity development and highlight the significance of attending to teachers' realignment of possible selves and repositionings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blended classroom assessment (CA) has become commonplace in the post-pandemic era, offering advantages but also presenting challenges for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. These challenges can impact teachers' emotional experiences, distinct from face-to-face or purely online environments. However, scant research exists on how EFL teachers employ emotion regulation (ER) strategies in blended CA within EFL contexts. This qualitative study examines how eight EFL teachers at a university in southwestern China employed ER strategies in blended CA. Drawing on Gross's ER theory, the study identifies ten intrinsic and extrinsic ER strategies, either antecedent-focused or response-focused, utilized by EFL teachers. These strategies helped teachers maintain resilience amidst challenges posed by blended CA, including low completion rates of online learning tasks prior to face-to-face instruction, interaction in blended CA, blended assessment design, managing the workload of blending online and face-to-face assessment, and addressing issues of plagiarism and cheating. The study enriches our understanding of EFL teachers' emotions in blended CA and underscores the significance of ER competence in assessment literacy. Implications for equipping teachers with strategies to enhance their emotional well-being and resilience in blended CA are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rebecca L. Oxford's contributions to academia extend well beyond language learning strategy research, for which she is well known, to embrace peace education in language classrooms. Inspired by her peace education philosophy, this study first describes the influence of Oxford's scholarly research in peace approach. Then, it presents a case study of five preservice teachers, all native Turkish speakers, who were guided to adopt the peace approach philosophy to develop creative teaching materials to be implemented in the Practicum course. Throughout six hours of weekly lessons at a state middle school, the preservice teachers integrated peacebuilding activities into their English instruction. The analysis of the qualitative data from lesson plans, classroom observations, and reflective writings, revealed compelling findings. Preservice teachers who implemented peacebuilding activities showcased increased competence and awareness of peace education philosophy, and they reported feeling more confident and fulfilled in their teaching. Children exposed to peacebuilding activities experienced a shift in their emotional state. It was also found that peacebuilding activities fostered inner harmony, boosted self-confidence, and enhanced children's English learning engagement. The study highlights the crucial role of integrating peace education into teacher education programs, particularly for language teachers. Equipping educators with the tools and philosophies of peacebuilding can empower them to become agents of positive change, cultivating global citizens who embrace harmony and understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines transformative language teaching for sustainability (TLS) and shows how contemporary, learner-oriented language teaching can foster important competencies and skills needed to reach the goals of education for sustainable development (ESD). The main aim of our approach is to integrate transformation-oriented ESD into language teaching in a way that considers and utilises the special features of language teaching and learning. We discuss the substantial possibilities that language education offers to ESD and propose a transformation-oriented ESD framework as the foundation for TLS, covering the linguistic and cultural features of sustainability that are central to language teaching and learning. Finally, we outline the pedagogical implications for TLS related to subject matter content and methods, that is, how language teachers can use learner-oriented language teaching methods to integrate ESD in their lessons. We propose a theory-based interdisciplinary model for the implementation of TLS in language education and language teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 ignited an intense debate about the effects generative AI (GAI) tools will have on language teaching. The advanced capability of GAI tools and their rapid uptake by students has brought both challenges and opportunities to language teachers. This qualitative study, using in-depth individual and group interviews with ten beginning teachers and seventeen first-year English language teachers, explored their readiness for using GAI tools in their professional work and their perceptions of GAI in language teaching. The study found that first-year teachers were generally ready for the use of GAI tools and could recognize its potential to support their professional work. This was largely due to their experiences using ChatGPT. However, beginning teachers were not ready to use GAI tools in their professional work and had little knowledge about them. The study provides insights into the participants’ GAI readiness; awareness of GAI tools and their capabilities and functions; utilization of GAI tools for language teaching; views towards students' use of GAI tools; and thoughts on how to prepare language learners to use GAI tools productively and critically. The study has implications for the preparation and professional development of early career teachers in the GAI-age.

The increasingly digital and multicultural 21st-century society requires future teachers to be prepared for the changes and challenges they may encounter. Not only language and digital competences, but critical-thinking and problem-solving skills are needed. Moreover, well developed socio-affective abilities, empathy among them, are also key when dealing with others. This is even more relevant when teachers are to work with a non-mainstream population, such as adult migrants with low literacy levels, and to design student-centered curricula or activities. Empathy is a multifaceted process involving, among others, perception, intellection, affect and other sensory aspects of the lived experience. It has been argued that the first-person perspective-taking involved in empathic engagement must necessarily involve rational computation and cognitively mediated processing. Training future teachers in the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies is a means to integrate multimodal digital instruction and aggregate cognitive as well as socio-emotional features to the education of future language teachers.MethodA mixed-method pre-post study was conducted with 48 trainee teachers who participated in stand-alone digital multiliteracy interventions, in which they were encouraged to envisage themselves as future teachers of low-literate migrants. Policy documents such as the reference guide on Literacy and Second Language Learning for the Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants, journal articles, audiovisual resources as well as examples of existing educational materials aimed at the target audience, were made available to them on an online platform. In two separate studies, trainees were encouraged to collaboratively produce two different multimodal outputs. The Revised Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy was administered before and after the intervention, subjecting the data obtained to quantitative analysis. Qualitative data was also collected to gain a better understanding of the affective and cognitive processes experienced by the participants.ResultsSimple statistical analysis coupled with the comparison of means was used to respond to the research questions. Statistical hypothesis testing, including correlations and non-parametric statistics were used to analyze the relationship between each of the factors within the RSEE and the participants, considering the different interventions applied. Non-parametric tests (U-Mann Whitney) were used to compare the differences between the levels of ethnocultural empathy of the participants in the two studies. Significant differences were found in Factor 3 (Empathy) and Factor 5 (Anxiety) between the groups and their post-intervention results, with a p value of 0.053 and 0.038, respectively. The effect size r was calculated, obtaining a size effect of 0.625 for Factor 3 (Empathy) and 0.674 for Factor 5 (Anxiety). These results indicate that the significant differences and the size effect between both groups are large. U-Mann Whitney non-parametric analysis also revealed gender differences in Factor 3 (Empathy), showing females higher levels than males. Effect size r analysis showed a large size effect of 0.708 for Factor 3 (Empathy). The findings pertaining to gender-related differences in empathy levels confirm the conclusions drawn by previous studies. When contrasting study 1 and 2, statistical differences were also shown after the intervention for the ‘Anxiety and Lack of Multicultural Self-efficacy’ factor. The qualitative data analysis was carried out with Atlas.ti v.8, in order to isolate and categorize the broader themes and the most significant explanatory quotes extracted from the participants’ records and interviews. The results reveal the learning strategies that each group of learners applied to successfully complete the task at hand, as well as the participants’ deployment of their critical thinking skills and the awakening of a sense of awareness of their own professional competence development process.ConclusionThis study set out to compare how effective two digital multiliteracy interventions were in developing future language teachers’ ethnocultural empathy and cognitive abilities when appraising the educational needs of low-literacy migrants. Despite the small sample size, the study certainly adds to our understanding of the impact of multimodal tasks involving critical thinking skills on trainees’ cognitive and affective abilities. Besides, it expands the growing body of research that points to the desirability of embedding digitally-based content creation tasks in training curricula for future language teachers.

Abstract Positive psychology (PP) is the study of the role of positive emotions in optimizing performance. In response to a dearth of research on harnessing the potential of PP in enriching language teacher education, the present study aimed at integrating PP into an English as a foreign language teacher education program to assess its effects on the development of positivity among teachers and possible improvement in their instructional practice. To that end, first the PERMA-Profiler was administered to 25 teachers, who were about to attend a teacher training course. The results of this phase revealed the need for an intervention to raise three focal participants’ awareness of the tenets of PP since they scored below the mean on the scale. During the second phase, the three focal participants were trained in the principles of PP for six weeks. They were also asked to write reflections about the instruction they received on a weekly basis. Thematic analysis of their reflections indicated that the teachers formed positive emotions, engagement, relationship, meaning, and accomplishment, which resulted in their enhanced instructional practice. Moreover, the participants believed that the intervention helped them actively engage with the main teacher training course. The findings imply that PP has the potential to enrich teacher education programs.

The current action research explored the effects of social-emotional learning (SEL) in an online second language acquisition (SLA) graduate course. Employing the CASEL (2010) framework as the lens, I examined the following research question: What effects does social-emotional learning have on second language teachers in a second language acquisition course? Findings indicated that embedding SEL into the SLA course resulted in participants becoming increasingly self-aware of their learner-selves (i.e., self-awareness), prompting them to deploy a series of strategies to regulate their behaviors and practices as self-taught language learners and teachers (i.e., self-management). Increased empathy and understanding toward their present and future students (i.e., social awareness) was also noted, which contributed to students’ building positive, supportive relationships beyond the online classroom (i.e., relationship skills). Finally, SEL prompted participants to reflect on their identities, ideologies, and privileges as language teachers, learners, and speakers, which resulted in making caring and constructive choices (i.e., responsible decision-making).

This paper addresses the development of a key teacher competence-activity evaluation, as well as adaptation and design-to cater for mixed-ability classes. In the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education, the question is how early, within what framework, and under what procedures students should be taught this competence. Practicum teaching at university has been found to lack in validity, learner-centeredness, and heterogeneity, be it at the level of an activity, a series of activities, a lesson, or a series of lessons. Action research was conducted to address this issue, basing a part of an introductory English Language Teaching (ELT) methods course on developing students' awareness and putting into practice Ur's seven principles of activity conceptualisation, with a particular focus on validity, volume, and heterogeneity. The students were asked to apply these principles in teaching mock-up lessons to their peers and to analyse to what extent the principles qualified their peers' lessons and the practice of in-service teachers they observed in primary and secondary schools. The content analysis of the students' reports shows the majority both comprehended and consistently applied most of the principles, while a small number demonstrated a proper and thorough understanding of all the criteria, consistently and correctly applying them in their observation reports and in designing and teaching their mock-up lessons. Very few students consistently adopted some of the concepts incorrectly or non-specifically. No comprehensive analysis is offered of how the students' mock-up lessons were guided by the activity evaluation criteria explored. It remains to be seen if and to what extent students apply the principles in the final-year practicum, after criteria-based activity evaluation, adaptation, and design are integrated in their second ELT methods course, which focuses on developing skill teaching.

Ideally, teachers’ classroom assessment literacy can be developed through in-service teacher education or assessment training from institutions. Yet in reality, teachers may not gain sufficient assessment training on the job or from institutionalised training programmes. This contextual disadvantage cannot explain teacher inertia in advancing their professional knowledge and their skills in classroom-based assessment. Instead, teachers are encouraged to proactively rely on themselves to enhance their CAL amid their tried-and-tested assessment practices. The current qualitative case study explores how a university English teacher directed herself to develop CAL in her assessment practices over time. Data were collected through narrative frames, interviews with the teacher and her students, classroom observations, and documents. This study shows that self-directed CAL development may be buttressed by the teacher’s prior assessment experiences. The teacher’s self-agency and reflections further empowered her to acquire the assessment knowledge, skills, and experience in improving assessment effectiveness. The implications for enhancing self-directed professional development in assessment are also discussed.

In this special issue, we seek to problematise how teacher education can be approached from a social justice perspective by showcasing research and practice from Latin America. It is undeniable that this region of the world and the educational research and practices carried out in it are not usually featured in English-medium international journals. The reasons for this lack of visibility exceed the scope of this editorial, but they are usually connected to hegemonic, Anglo-centric ideologies, epistemic perspectives, and discourses entrenched in the ecology of research and dissemination, together with inequity regarding discursive affordances, working conditions and access to (im)material resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive psychology (PP) is the study of the role of positive emotions in optimizing performance. In response to a dearth of research on harnessing the potential of PP in enriching language teacher education, the present study aimed at integrating PP into an English as a foreign language teacher education program to assess its effects on the development of positivity among teachers and possible improvement in their instructional practice. To that end, first the PERMA-Profiler was administered to 25 teachers, who were about to attend a teacher training course. The results of this phase revealed the need for an intervention to raise three focal participants' awareness of the tenets of PP since they scored below the mean on the scale. During the second phase, the three focal participants were trained in the principles of PP for six weeks. They were also asked to write reflections about the instruction they received on a weekly basis. Thematic analysis of their reflections indicated that the teachers formed positive emotions, engagement, relationship, meaning, and accomplishment, which resulted in their enhanced instructional practice. Moreover, the participants believed that the intervention helped them actively engage with the main teacher training course. The findings imply that PP has the potential to enrich teacher education programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we bridge fields of English as a Second Language, Bilingual, and World Language teacher education through curricular innovation in methods coursework for future Chinese language teachers. We apply a language curricularization framework to analyze theoretical, ideological, political, and contextual factors underlying connections and distinctions across disciplinary borders and to guide collaboration within a language equity lens. Our work indicates the affordances of translanguaging approaches, a multilingual turn, and critical curricular analysis in preparing critically conscious language educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista EntreLínguas is the property of Revista EntreLinguas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study presents the account and analysis of an attempt to make the development of higher-level reflection skills an explicit learning outcome on a Trinity College London CertTESOL course. It analyses the effect that this attempt had on the depth of the written reflections of trainee teachers, and attempts to uncover their perceptions of their own development. Previous work has examined the effect of interventions to encourage the development of reflective skills in preservice state-school teacher education and in-service teacher training. However, it has not addressed such an intervention on a TESOL Certificate course. The present study draws on the relevant literature to design a process of reflection, and analyses its effectiveness. Qualitative analysis consists of deductive analysis of participants’ written reflections and inductive analysis of transcripts from semi-structured interviews. Findings show that trainees developed their reflective skills, could use their reflections to adapt their teaching, and were aware of their own development. It concludes that aspects of TESOL Certificate courses are conducive to the development of reflective skills, and suggests a procedure which can maximise the benefits of these aspects and a level of reflection appropriate as a learning aim of such a course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S. schools use home language surveys (HLS) as initial screening tools to determine whether students should be screened for ESL services. These placement decisions have potentially long-lasting implications for multilingual students. In this Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-STEP) project, we explored how teachers talk about HLS across 7 academic years of the first author’s ESL assessment course, and how they made sense of families’ decisions to hide home languages on the HLS. We analyzed teachers’ stories when discussing a news article about families who provided misinformation on HLS, so their children would not be screened for ESL. Our question is: How do teachers use their experiences to understand families’ decisions about providing misinformation on HLS? These stories illuminated how teachers made sense of the HLS experiences of families in the news article, and how teachers identified problems with HLS. Teachers’ stories included sharing about people they knew or about they themselves, as parents, completing HLS; about what happened after families submitted HLS; and about why families would provide misinformation, including past difficult experiences in ESL themselves and fears of stigma or tracking. Based on these stories, we consider implications for those who might change HLS, teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some level of digital technology design skills and competencies is important in any profession but in their education and work life this is often ignored. We explore the potential of Educational Participatory Design (EPD) in transforming work practices within diverse disciplines. This is done through a transdisciplinary case where EPD was used as an approach for transforming language teacher education seen to respond too slowly to technological advancements in society and work life. Based on our findings, we propose EPD as a useful approach for building the design agency of future professionals with various disciplinary and professional backgrounds. In the context of real-life work practice with students as future workers, EPD invites them to act as 'designers' envisioning novel practices and technologies for their own work, engaging their 'users' in the PD processes. EPD as a novel methodological approach integrates design with work practice learning and education and therefore, we suggest, belongs to the core expertise of CSCW research and design interested in the digital transformation of work practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although educators can use digital tools to meet emergent bilingual students' unique needs, language teachers generally feel unprepared to use technology with students, and language teacher education programs face challenges in implementing technology. This study uses ethnographic methods to explore 12 pre-service teachers' (PSTs) experiences learning about digital tools in ways intended to support emergent bilingual students. I interviewed the PSTs and observed their participation across student teaching and a concurrent practicum course, and I analyzed these data through the lens of activity theory. PSTs perceived that their participation in teacher education was characterised by a shared responsibility where all the PSTs, their teacher educator, and mentor teachers contributed new knowledge about digital tools. The co-construction of knowledge afforded the PSTs opportunities to learn in the moment, and many described their learning as 'playing around'. This study has implications for teacher education programs and theory related to teacher learning. Through shared responsibility and playfulness, all educational stakeholders can take on roles as learners and experts where they leverage one another's experiences and contributions to support PSTs' instructional practices, challenging traditional roles between PSTs and their multiple mentors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence‐based reflective practices are promoted in all recent frameworks for language teacher education (LTE). Through dialogic evidence‐based feedback sessions, reflectional sequences make trainees join a virtuous cycle in which they reconsider and readjust their methods of teaching. However, research into how mentor and trainees orient to this evidence in interaction remains scarce. With this need in mind, this study investigates post‐observation conversations (POCs) in a language teaching practicum. The recordings of 17 video‐mediated POCs are sequentially and functionally analyzed using multimodal conversation analysis. The data suggests that the fluctuations in knowledge (a)symmetries serve as a catalyst for the progression of reflection‐ and evaluation‐oriented sequences. The mentors strategically downgrade their epistemic position to index the trainees' experiential knowledge and invite reflection. However, when mentors initiate evaluation‐oriented sequences, they systematically insert their epistemic primacy to limit any potential resistance that would challenge their epistemic authority to evaluate. The video medium also creates unique multimodal opportunities for their mutual orientation to evidence. The findings are conducive to expanding research into reflective practice in LTE and have pedagogical and research implications for our understanding of the sequential and relational organization of epistemics in feedback conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preservice teachers' (PSTs) epistemic agency during their practicum experiences is not yet fully understood. In this study, we collected data in the form of in-depth interviews, reflective journals, and lesson plans from two Chinese language PSTs, and examined their epistemic agency during their practicums in Macau from a cultural-historical activity theory perspective. First, this study offers an analytical model that revealed the dynamics of epistemic agency development during PSTs' practicums. Second, the analysis showed how PSTs' social situations and prior learning experience recursively shaped their epistemic agency. The study raises important implications for teacher education, highlighting the importance of supporting PSTs' epistemic agency by providing epistemic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present scoping review aimed to systematically review the corpus of data sources including 92 published papers, which were identified and retrieved based on the study criteria. The papers were coded using categories which were operational definitions of reflection and reflective practice, unit of analysis, theoretical frameworks, levels of reflection, research methods, data collection instruments, and the complexity of second/foreign language (L2) teacher reflection. The results indicate that (a) current definitions of teacher reflection are general and descriptive, (b) the focus is heavily on in-service teaching contexts, (c) there is a growing interest in qualitative methodological approaches and a need for principled mixed methods research is greatly felt, (d), there is an overriding emphasis on reflection-on-action approaches, (e) and most of the studies portray reflection at descriptive and comparative levels, failing to encourage teachers at the critical level. The findings also suggest a need for applying and extending the benefits of reflection to different real-life contexts where teachers work, and a call for new research orientations to address the complex dynamics of teacher reflection. The implications of the study are discussed in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in language teaching has received attention from educators and researchers alike from the late 1900s until the present. While this pedagogical framework has been employed and reconceptualized in hundreds of published studies, it has been a challenge to concretize PCK for specific subject matters such as language teaching. Drawing explicit PCK principles from language teacher educator (LTE) perspectives and practices is a practicable attempt to capture a contextualized PCK in language teacher preparation. Thus, this study explored PCK through developing lesson exemplars that are informed by LTEs perceived effective instructional practices in the teaching methodology courses. The practitioner-driven inquiry is situated in a Philippine teacher education institution particularly in the preservice English teacher education program. Open-ended questionnaires, classroom observations, and focus group discussions were used to survey and examine LTEs instructional practices in teaching methods courses. Coding of discussion annotations, observation notes, and questionnaire responses identified the following perceived effective practices: (1) providing support through modeling, preparatory tasks, and input on critical issues in teaching methodology; (2) promoting collaboration through activities and assessment tasks; (3) employing experiential learning through demonstration teaching; and (4) fostering creativity through innovative strategies in lesson planning. The identified practices informed a ten-component lesson exemplar for teaching PCK. These lesson components included: setting up the context, identifying objectives, highlighting the PCK focus, modeling the concept, conducting the workshop, evaluating the teaching methodology, reflecting on implications to language teaching practice, synthesizing learning, and reflecting on current issues and practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contextualized within our Projects in Humanization in language teacher education and part of our on‐going collaborative self‐study of our language teacher educator practices, we used multiple case study to examine multimodal representations of cultural and linguistic identities curated by three language teachers—Daniel, Yuseva, and Sarah—and humanizing dialog to engage them in reflection on those identities. The central task, the Language Use Profile—part of the foundations course in our language teacher education programs—guided language teachers in developing their understandings of their bi‐/multilingual language use, language ideologies, and systemic functional linguistics (SFL). In all three cases, examination of language use served as a window for the language teachers to observe their intersectionality or, in some cases, to become aware of it. Each language teacher took up the assignment in different ways, with the task as the context for reflection on language use and identities journeys such as translanguaging to survive, negotiating my identity and being a white woman who learned Spanish. SFL metalanguage served as a tool for the language teachers to make sense of their multidimensional language use. Our findings point to the potential of the Language Use Profile as a means for guiding language teachers in the identity work that is central in humanizing language teacher education. The Challenge: Centering language learners' diverse identities in the language classroom calls on language teachers to likewise know themselves deeply. This article—part of our efforts toward humanizing language teacher education—describes the results of a project in which language teachers engaged in reflective dialog around multimodal representations of their intersectional identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]