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International Perspectives on Teachers Living with Curriculum Change

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Editors:
  1. Martin Wedell

    1. School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

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  2. Laura Grassick

    1. School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Represents voices of practitioners which are rarely considered in existing literature
  • Provides a stage to English language teachers to inform readers how they thought and what they did about curriculum change
  • Covers a wide geographical area and diverse points of view
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (13 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
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  2. Living with Curriculum Change: An Overview

    • Martin Wedell, Laura Grassick
    Pages 1-13

  3. Involving Teachers in the Change Process: One English Language Teacher’s Account of Implementing Curricular Change in Philippine Basic Education

    • Maria Luz C. Vilches
    Pages 15-37

  4. Making the Best of Continuous Change Initiatives: A Story of a Successful Korean English Teacher

    • Hyoshin Lee
    Pages 39-59

  5. Balancing Change and Tradition: A Chinese English Teacher’s Experiences of Curriculum Reform

    • Chunmei Yan
    Pages 61-82

  6. Meeting the Demands of ELT Innovation in Vietnam: Teachers’ Linguistic and Pedagogic Challenge

    • Le Thi Quynh Tran
    Pages 83-102

  7. Coping with Curricular Change with Limited Support: An Indian English Teacher’s Perspective

    • Amol Padwad, Krishna Dixit
    Pages 103-124

  8. An English Teacher’s Perspective on Curriculum Change in West Bengal

    • Kuheli Mukherjee
    Pages 125-145

  9. Reconciling Conflicting Messages: English Language Curriculum Change in Kenyan Secondary Schools

    • Charles Ochieng’ Ong’ondo
    Pages 147-166

  10. Giving English Teachers Autonomy and Choice: Coping with Curriculum Change in Poland

    • Małgorzata Tetiurka
    Pages 167-186

  11. Struggling to Implement Communicative Language Teaching: A Case Study from Senegal

    • Dame Diop
    Pages 187-203

  12. Imaginary Realities: Curriculum Change that Ignores Classroom Contexts

    • María Alejandra Soto
    Pages 205-227

  13. From Initial Rigidity to Greater Flexibility: The Changing Face of English Curriculum Change Implementation in Cuba

    • Islaura Tejeda Arencibia
    Pages 229-246

  14. Temporal Dissonance, Contextual Confusion and Risk: Learning from the Experiences of Teachers Living with Curriculum Change

    • Laura Grassick, Martin Wedell
    Pages 247-270

  15. Back Matter

    Pages 271-279
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Keywords

About this book

“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.”



Reviews

“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)

Editors and Affiliations

  • School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Martin Wedell, Laura Grassick

About the editors

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.



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