Volume 40, Issue 4

The professional development of College English (CE) teachers in China has received considerable attention due to their responsibility in preparing university graduates for adequate English proficiency. Many continuous professional development (CPD) activities have been conducted (e.g., national teaching contest) to improve CE teachers’ teaching effectiveness, an essential component of teacher learning. However, it has remained unknown concerning how teacher learning takes place in these well-intended CPD activities, and what mediating factors play an important role in teacher learning. To address this gap, this case study reports on a CE teacher’s (Janna, pseudonym) experience in preparing for and participating in an English teaching contest. Drawing upon multiple sets of data such as teacher reflective journals, interviews, observations of group discussions, and video-recorded teaching demonstration and lesson plan presentation, the findings reveal that teacher learning takes place at a superficial level through legitimate peripheral participation, yet at a deeper level through identity crisis. Vulnerable teacher learning is also identified in the CPD activity, with differentiated learning possibilities created by the tensions between resources and power relations within the community and the teacher’s conceptions of teaching and learning. The study concludes with implications for research of teacher learning and practice for teacher professional development.

Based on the narratives of four Chinese university EFL teachers’ research experiences, this study reports on the dynamic construction of their researcher identities and the crucial socio-institutional and individual factors that have afforded and constrained researcher identity construction. The results presented different trajectories of researcher identity construction through the EFL teachers’ three stages of research experiences (beginning, stagnation/development, and struggle stages) in their professional lives. Academic learning contexts such as Master’s and PhD programs were shown to be replete with factors that contributed to the development of researcher identity, while the institutional context and the broad social context in China were exposed to be greatly constraining. Motivation, publications, academic qualifications, and networking with researchers were four important individual factors that impacted the EFL teachers’ researcher identity construction. The findings suggest that Chinese EFL teachers raise awareness of their researcher identities, make continuous critical reflections, and exercise agency to seek opportunities for development while governments and institutions should reform the current educational and promotion systems to support EFL teachers’ research engagement.

Developing learner autonomy (LA) requires a shift of control from teachers to students. This development also relates to teacher autonomy (TA), which requires school managers to relinquish some degree of their own autonomy (MA) to teachers. Thus, a problem arises: how can the three levels of control-shifts co-exist and survive in harmony, and ideally, thrive each in its own way? Based on a recent case study, this paper aims to explore the complexity of the dynamic interaction between these three types of autonomy within an educational hierarchy. The study was conducted in a Chinese secondary school which was promoting whole-person development through a comprehensive innovation project. The participants comprised nine English teachers, the executive director, and the principal. Data collection methods included interviews, observations, and post-lesson discussions. Three issues are addressed in this paper: the principal ’s perceptions of LA, a classroom instruction model to cultivate LA, and a teacher training scheme to facilitate TA. The findings display a complex picture of these issues, and imply the importance of a genuine, shared understanding of the nature of autonomy and the need to carefully ensure the optimal balance among the three types of autonomy in the design and implementation of curriculum innovations.

Based upon sociocultural theory, this study investigates the dynamics of the teacher’s roles and learner autonomy in the process of scaffolding in teacher-student negotiation of meaning in an EFL classroom. The participants were 25 undergraduate students and a Chinese teacher of English at a university in China. The teacher-student dialogue was the central mechanism mediating the construction of negotiation of meaning and form in language learning. The analysis of classroom discourse and the teacher’s retrospection from an interview illustrated the teacher’s different roles in interaction, where scaffolding acted as a structured pedagogical tool. The study revealed that the learners were afforded assistance to progress from other-regulation to self-regulation, and consequently, the teacher exploited opportunities to enhance learner autonomy in negotiation of spaces for autonomy in classroom teaching. The study has probed into the significance of the teacher’s capacity of controlling scaffolding effectively and generated implications for teacher development and learner training.

Recent calls for promoting students’ critical thinking (CT) abilities leave second language (L2) teachers wondering how to integrate CT into their existing agenda. Framed by Paul and Elder’s (2001) CT model, the study explores how CT could be effectively taught in L2 writing as a way to improve students’ CT skills and L2 writing performance. In this study, an infusion approach was developed and implemented in actual classroom teaching. Mixed methods were employed to investigate: (1) the effectiveness of the infusion approach on improving students’ CT and L2 writing scores; (2) the relationship between students’ CT and L2 writing scores; and (3) the effects of the infusion approach on students’ learning of CT and L2 writing. The results of the statistical analyses indicate that the infusion approach has effectively improved students’ CT and L2 writing scores and that there was a significant positive relationship ( r =0.893, p <0.01) between students’ CT and L2 writing scores. The results of the post-study interview illustrate that the infusion approach has beneficial effects on students’ learning of CT and L2 writing by bridging the abstract CT theories and interactive writing activities and by integrating the instruction and practice of CT into those of L2 writing.