With reference to language teaching, this research examines current trends in the combination of pictures and print. Assuming that when combined in texts, these utilize differential disclosures of visual and verbal feature, the research establishes some important provisos. Foremost among these is the stipulation that words and pictures do not communicate with each other in the same way. Thus although, on paper, they may be comprehensibly united, in their disclosure of features they remain mutually exterior and coded apart. Generalising from this, the study surveys other sources of exteriority in ELT. To investigate these, it is necessary to mediate across features which, though brought into contact, remain heterogeneously regulated and coded apart. Similarly, the researching of visual and verbal texts becomes a form of crosscultural arbitration. It therefore needs to account for (and bring into agreement) features extraordinarily combined. Since, by definition, these do not ordinarily communicate with each other in the same way, it is argued that they ought to be central to any field driven by considerations of foreignness. Because, for reasons of exteriority, the operandi of both linguistics and art history appear problematic, the research instead opts for an intervening modus vivendi. Thus Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) research metaphor of the 'nomad' is taken as germane. Since this provides some inkling of a conceptual middle ground, it serves as a general guide to observation and is pursued to a point where visual and verbal texts can be more equitably described. The description makes it possible to observe effective but hitherto unnoticed uses of space. Turning on points of framing, spatial positioning, multilinear connection and - beyond whatever is visible - lines of correspondence with language, these reveal that visual and verbal texts do indeed follow multiple but orderly lines of combination. Having described the principles behind these multilinear visual and verbal combinations, it becomes possible to re-appraise their role in language teaching. Again, therefore, the research concludes that since they seek to interrelate multiple but ordinarily noncommunicating parts, 'nomadic' orientations in general - and visual and verbal texts in particular - ought to be at the very heart of language teaching.

This thesis investigates the professional development of TESOL teachers during a postgraduate peer-taught course in English Philology at the Pedagogical University in Krakow, Poland. The analysis, conducted on the basis of a Grounded Theory approach, examines how an ICT CPD course influenced the professional development of forty newly-qualified Polish teachers of English as a Foreign Language, who engaged in peer teaching as a central component of the course. The research uncovers and examines teacher beliefs and knowledge in a setting characterised by a high degree of autonomy. The study proposes that the participants, in order to present themselves as competent and self-assured ELT professionals, acted upon the notion of the ‘good teacher’ through both the tacit and the explicit CMC-based negotiation of a collaboratively structured teaching model consistent with their beliefs. In the process of designing ICT-rich English lessons, the participants, guided by their beliefs, ascribed value to subject-specific pedagogical knowledge and skills, foregrounding pedagogy and normalising the technology. The role of autonomy is confirmed as a prerequisite for the kind of practice which supports and enables the pedagogical development of teachers in such an ICT CPD. The thesis offers an original contribution in its presentation of a new construct for understanding teacher belief in the context of technology-related settings. The Technological Pedagogical and Content Beliefs construct (TPACB) attempts to capture the relationship between different types of teacher beliefs, and complements a parallel knowledge construction model - Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge – by offering a proposition which illuminates the nature of the interplay of the beliefs relevant to the field of TESOL and other areas of education. In addition, the study proposes a model for an ELT CPD practicum which encourages development in pedagogical knowledge and beliefs while promoting the integration of ICT into practice.

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the teacher's voluntary involvement in a current example of an educational innovation implemented in Cyprus. The broad argument of the thesis is that the teacher is the most important contributor to the successful implementation of the innovation. Chapter One introduces the problem and identifies the main research questions: • What are the views of the teachers, at both the organisational and the personal level, when confronted with an educational innovation, e.g. the ICCPC programme, concerning their own role in the setting? • Is it possible to profile the range of responses that might be anticipated among teachers when confronted with an innovation? • What are the specific implications for successful involvement of the teacher in the innovation? Then Chapter Two draws on the issues of curriculum development, innovation and change in education, in an attempt to present the main concepts that this thesis examines. Chapter Three presents the main literature review on the teacher's role in an educational innovation and change. Chapter Four presents a selected review of the literature on issues concerning the Introduction of the Computers in Education, as an example of educational innovation. Chapter Five provides the reader with certain information about the Cyprus Educational System and the structure of the case under investigation, the Introduction of the Computers in the Cyprus Primary Classroom (ICCPC). Chapter Six presents the methodological decisions of the empirical research undertaken. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were undertaken in order to enable an overall conclusion on the topic. In Chapter Seven the quantitative results as emerging from a questionnaire survey among all the teachers participating in the project are presented. Chapter Eight presents the results of the in-depth interviews that were conducted to a sample of nine teachers involved in the ICCPC. Further on, Chapter Nine presents the discussion of the results of this thesis and provides the overall view of the teacher's involvement in the innovation. It answers to the first research questions, presenting the teacher's role in the ICCPC and the teacher's profile while involved in the innovative setting. Finally, this thesis concludes with Chapter Ten, providing specific implications for successful implementation of the educational innovation and mainly successful involvement of the teacher in this setting, in a collaborative and decentralised approach.

The manner in which teachers teach is generally acknowledged to be controlled by various schemata which encapsulate all of what they "know" about teaching. The purpose of this study was to explore the nature and extent of the schemata of pre-service teachers in an effort to gain insights into the reasons why they behave as they do in the classroom; and from this to gain further insights into ways to improve teacher training. The study was based on in-depth case studies of four pre-service English language teachers in Singapore. Data collected included all of the lesson plans which they prepared during the 10-week practicum; transcriptions of four lessons observed by the supervisor-cum-researcher; and extensive textual information arising out of journals, pre- and post-conferencing of lessons, and interviews. Findings indicated that pre-service teacher behaviour during the practicum is largely a function of five major schemata related to their view of pupils, subject, methodology, school environment, and teaching in general, all of which influence individual teaching style. Classroom dilemmas may be seen as arising out of value conflicts which may exist between these various schemata. The research also revealed that lessons are structured as a goal-driven hierarchy comprising five levels of increasing pedagogical abstraction. The topmost level or (1) lesson agenda, representing the basic overall objective of the lesson, subsumes lower levels corresponding to (2) lesson phases which comprise basic instructional functions such as focusing, clarifying, reviewing, etc. (3) phase segments which represent the sequential steps involved in effecting a lesson phase; (4) segment chunks which comprise teaching cycles or other topic-related groups of speech acts; and finally (5) speech acts as the most primitive elements of classroom discourse. In addition to the planned elements of a lesson, various unplanned lesson interrupts occur during presentation of the lesson due to the need to maintain class control, make repairs to faulty instructions or explanations, give advice, or engage in informal interactions with the pupils. The manner in which preservice teachers handle these impromptu elements of a lesson is a major reflection of their "teaching style". At a more detailed level of analysis, classroom discourse parameters may be assigned to each speech act to characterise it in terms of teacher/class interaction, type of speech act, focus or aspect, degree of continuity with other parts of the lesson, and the teaching aids and materials being utilised at the time. Statistical analysis of these discourse parameters provides useful insights into other aspects of "teaching style". The above findings have various implications for teacher training methodology. Recognition of the role of schemata can help to promote self-awareness on the part of student teachers as to the nature of the factors which influence their teaching style. Explicit recognition and definition of the five pedagogical levels of the lesson hierarchy, development of a typology of lesson phases and interrupts, and a means of carrying out in-depth analysis of classroom discourse at the speech act level provide the teacher trainer with useful tools for the observation, evaluation, and discussion of pre-service teaching behaviour.