published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

This case study investigated how an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher's cognition has both changed and stayed constant over a period of eight years and the factors to which the teacher attributes changes or lack of changes. The study followed the teacher over the course of a 10-week period and compared videos of the participant's teaching from eight years ago to her current teaching. Interviews, observations, and stimulated recall were used to investigate development over the eight year span. It was found that the teacher did indicate several areas in which she demonstrated change: Teaching with fluidity, automaticity, and intuition; confidence; concerns; management of teaching enthusiasm and relationships with students; support and validation from colleagues; and managing the classroom for learning. She also confirmed several aspects of her teaching that have stayed relatively constant: beliefs and teaching philosophy; reflection; learning from past experiences; knowledge of lesson planning and curricular goals; and students' needs within the learning context. The teacher's development was analyzed through the lens of teacher expertise to determine to what degree the teacher's changes and lack of changes helped her develop into an expert. This study concludes that further research is needed to fully understand how teacher expertise is developed during the course of teachers' careers.

Despite the burgeoning interest in foreign language learning and teaching practices, the research on English teachers' job satisfaction has remained rather scarce, particularly in the Czech context. The current diploma thesis, hence, has aimed to provide insights into the determinants of job satisfaction, with respect to English teachers working at primary and secondary schools. The thesis is categorized into two parts, a theoretical part and a practical part. The theoretical part of the study covers the term job satisfaction. It identifies and analyzes existing research to present definitions and major theories and to provide guidance and basis for the research. Then, it expounds both international and Czech literature on job satisfaction among teachers, highlighting the need for conducting the research. The practical part displays the methodology, covering data collection tools and the sample selection. Next, the findings are presented and discussed to shed light on the issue and to recommend adjustments in the subject matter to improve and prosper English language education in the Czech Republic. KEYWORDS Job satisfaction, English teachers, Czech Republic, primary schools, secondary schools, English teachers' salary

This study investigated the oral proficiency of ESL teacher trainees in different discourse domains. The sample for the study consisted of twenty ESL teacher trainees in their final year at a College of Education. Different methods were used to measure the teacher trainees' oral proficiency in the English Communication Skills class while engaging in less formal conversations and in more formal teaching of content subjects during Practice Teaching. Three categories of constructs for oral proficiency were measured: Accuracy and fluency, classroom language and non-verbal communication. The findings supported the hypothesis: The oral proficiency of ESL teacher trainees is more satisfactory in some discourse domains,e.g. casual conversation, than in others, e.g. formal teaching. Although these findings cannot be regarded as conclusive they raise awareness of the problem. Recommendations were made on how to address the problem of poor oral performance of ESL teachers and teacher trainees teaching content subjects. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Specialisation in Applied Linguistics)

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Science in Information Technology in Education

Recent sociolinguistics research in the study of English has shifted from focusing only on Inner Circle English varieties in Kachru’s (1985) sense to include Outer and Expanding Circle varieties, the phenomenon of which is captured by the term ‘world Englishes’ (WE). This paradigm shift to include WE as acceptable norms has immediate impacts on English language teaching (ELT) as it is suggested that what students learn should approximate the reality of English use worldwide. Research in applied linguistics and language education has discussed the position of WE in ELT (e.g. Jenkins, 2009a), investigated teachers and learners’ perceptions about WE (e.g. Andrews, 2002; He & Li, 2009), and developed curricula that incorporate WE features (e.g. Jenkins, 2002). However, not many studies have looked into how contextual factors have impacted on English teachers’ perceptions about WE and their pedagogical practices. This thesis presents an in-depth, qualitative study that seeks answers to research questions regarding: (i) the relationship between the cognitions and pedagogical practices of WE of a group of Hong Kong English teachers; and (ii) contextual factors that may influence their reported cognitions and observed practices. Borg’s (2006) schematic conceptualisation of language teacher cognition is adopted as the theoretical and analytical framework, which postulates that language teacher cognition and practices are shaped by their schooling experience, professional coursework, contextual factors as well as their ongoing pedagogical practices. Guided by an embedded-case study approach, data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations of lessons and activities, stimulated recall interviews and documentation analysis. This research takes a Hong Kong secondary school as a single case with five English teachers as embedded cases who participated as the main informants over a period of one school year. To obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the context, additional data were collected from other sources including school administrators, students, and education officials. An analysis of the data using Borg’s (2006) framework revealed that the informants’ cognitions of WE had been shaped by their experiences as learners, teachers and users of English. The informants’ perceptions were ‘ambivalent’: expressing an embracing view towards WE, but at the same time attaching only to British English in teaching due to local examination and curriculum requirements. The informants’ observed classroom practices also manifested such ambivalence: they were willing to teach a text containing WE features but continuously reminded students to avoid using WE in examinations. This ambivalence seemed to have rooted from their pedagogical focus only on meeting examination requirements and formal English use. Furthermore, this exclusive focus was shared not only among the English teachers, but also by their students, school administration of the case School and education officials, together forming the overarching context shaping the English teachers’ cognitions. The implications of this study are twofold. First, the informants’ exclusive preference for British English over WE for ELT seems to diverge from WE research suggestions to introduce non-Inner Circle varieties as acceptable norms. Second, their ambivalent view towards WE manifested a tension between maintaining English standards and exposing students to the sociolinguistic reality of English. The findings reveal the teacher informants’ predominant focus on teaching uses of English for examinations, which tend to focus on standard Englishes and formal genres. It is suggested that English teachers should go beyond an uncritical adherence to nation-based English varieties to develop a broader understanding of language variation that takes into account the users, uses and modes of communication (Mahboob, 2014). This study calls for (i) the inclusion of a wider range of language variation in the English curriculum; (ii) more attention to teacher education programmes in strengthening English teachers’ awareness of language variation; and (iii) raising awareness of education and assessment officials towards a broader conceptualisation of language variation. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Education

The problem of this study was the extent of the relationship between the classroom verbal behavior of the cooperating teacher and that of the student teacher. The purpose of this study was to determine if the student teacher tends to imitate the verbal classroom behavior of the cooperating teacher.

We are living are living in the age of the trigger warning— educational cultures that threaten English teachers’ ability to present psychologically upsetting literature to students who may lack the necessary resilience to tolerate highly charged literary encounters with complex issues, such as rape, violence, racism, or political strife. And yet literature is filled with conflict— artistic representations of the precise traumas that certain members of our student populations may not be able to tolerate. In order to safeguard trauma survivors from potential reactivation of traumatic stress, a handful of educational institutions promote the use of trigger warnings. But are trigger warnings effective, and, if they are, what do they teach English teachers about what happens to individuals who have endured trauma and are therefore susceptible to being triggered? The purpose of this research, which consisted of interviews and an intensive focus group with seven veteran English teachers teaching at seven distinct schools throughout the world, was to offer insights and pedagogical awareness to English teachers, so that they can better anticipate, conceptualize, and decided for themselves how to respond to students who get triggered by emotionally complex literature. In addition to the qualitative research methods used with the seven English teacher participants, this study utilizes the work and thinking of trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk in an attempt to illustrate the neurological impacts of trauma through a comprehensive overview of PET scans of trauma survivors studied in van der Kolk’s lab in Brookline, Massachusetts. Each PET scan presents key features of what can happen to the brains of survivors, and may provide significant clues into what happens among our students when they get psychologically triggered in the classroom. The dissertation concludes with a one-on-one interview with Harvard psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, and offers his insights, wisdom, and conceptualizations for this highly complex and nuanced problem.

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