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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:646152 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Dydowicz, Jaroslaw |
| Publisher | University College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10021752/ |
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