International Perspectives on Teachers Living with Curriculum Change

by Martin Wedell (Editor), Laura Grassick (Editor)

Overview

“This book gives a voice to English language teachers faced with the challenges posed by English language curriculum change. As a core component of national state system curricula in virtually every country in the world, there has nevertheless been little research exploring how the millions of English teachers worldwide navigate the challenges posed by such curriculum changes. This volume includes eleven stories from teachers based across every continent, providing a global glimpse of how national English curriculum change projects have been experienced by classroom teachers who are commonly (if erroneously) viewed as mostly responsible for its implementation success or failure. The final chapter synthesises these experiences and suggests wider implications for the development of curriculum change planning processes, and how they might better support teachers’ attempts to achieve curriculum goals. Edited and authored by leading experts in the field, this ground-breaking collection willbe of interest to students and scholars of English language teaching, teacher education, curriculum change and education policy.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137543080
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	11/10/2017
Series:	International Perspectives on English Language Teaching
Edition description:	1st ed. 2018
Pages:	279
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Martin Wedell has recently retired as Head of International Education at the School of Education at the University of Leeds, UK. With more than 30 years’ experience as a teacher and teacher educator, he has worked and lived around the world. His research focuses on better understanding the processes involved in planning and supporting English language curriculum changes.

Laura Grassick is Teaching Fellow in TESOL at the University of Leeds, UK. Having taught in such diverse countries as South Korea, Bangladesh, Poland and the UK, her research interests lie primarily in English language curriculum change.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Living with curriculum change: an overview; Martin Wedell and Laura Grassick.- Chapter 2. Involving teachers in the change process: one English teacher’s account of implementing curricular change in Philippine basic education; Maria Luz C. Vilches.- Chapter 3. Making the best of continuous change initiatives: a story of a successful Korean English teacher; Hyoshin Lee.- Chapter 4. Balancing change and tradition: a Chinese teacher’s experience of curriculum reform; Chunmei Yan.- Chapter 5. Meeting the demands of ELT innovation in Vietnam: teachers’ linguistic and pedagogic challenge; Tran Thi Quynh Le.- Chapter 6. Coping with curricular change with limited support: an Indian teacher’s perspective; Amol Padwad and Krishna Dixit.- Chapter 7. An English teacher’s perspective on curriculum change in West Bengal; Kuheli Mukherjee.- Chapter 8. Receiving conflicting messages: English language curriculum change in Kenyan secondary schools; Charles Ochiengo’ Ong’ondo.- Chapter 9.Giving English teachers autonomy and choice: Coping with curriculum change in Poland; Malgorzata Tetiurka.- Chapter 10. Struggling to implement Communicative Language Teaching: a case study from Senegal; Dame Diop.- Chapter 11. Imaginary realities: curriculum change that ignores classroom contexts; Maria Alejandra Soto.- Chapter 12. From initial rigidity to greater flexibility: the changing face of English curriculum change implementation in Cuba; Islaura Tejeda Arencibia.- Chapter 13. Temporal dissonance, contextual confusion and risk: learning from the experiences of teachers living with curriculum change; Laura Grassick and Martin Wedell.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“One of the worst kept secrets in TESOL, and perhaps in education generally, is that the intended impacts of national curriculum change projects are rarely achieved in practice. The reasons for this gap between the planned and enacted curriculum have been documented for many years, yet, frustratingly, these insights have not made much difference to the way educational authorities around the world approach curriculum innovation. This very timely and insightful collection provides further evidence of the challenges that curriculum change often raises for individual teachers in several TESOL contexts around the world and portrays in a vivid manner the consequences for these teachers of the hurried, top-down, unclear, and non-consultative manner in which new curricula are often thrust upon practitioners. The narrative insights into teachers’ thinking and actions that the volume provides make it a valuable addition to the literature on TESOL curriculum change.” (Simon Borg, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway)

“This volume is essential reading for (language) curriculum policy makers and planners who all too often underestimate the effort required for curricula change to be successfully enacted in schools and classrooms.[...] Context is everything as we know, but hearing the challenges from the teachers’ perspectives is very powerful. It’s an invaluable reminder of the importance of a multiple stakeholder approach which allows for a close consideration of local realities. Each chapter provides really useful lessons for curriculum planners summarised helpfully by the editors into three critical areas of temporal dissonance, contextual confusion and risk. I will definitely be encouraging my colleagues to read it!” (Alison Barrett MBE, Global Head of English for Education Systems, British Council)

“This is a valuable addition to research and practice in ELT curriculum change, with a refreshing approach to identifying problems and solutions. It has a broad international focus but concentrates on the individual lives of eleven teachers in ten different countries faced with implementation of secondary school curriculum change. The reality of the teachers’ stories is filtered through interviews conducted by the writers of each chapter, teacher educators themselves. The writers provide a background to the teachers’ contexts and are able to combine the teachers’ accounts with their own knowledge of curriculum change. The result is a remarkable and effective combination of personal stories and their application to theories of curriculum change, avoiding both the dangers of personal anecdote and the sterility of theory divorced from practice. This is an excellent collection and will prove an indispensable resource to all those involved in curriculum innovation.” (Chris Kennedy, University of Birmingham, UK)