Teacher Agency

Recent worldwide education policy has reinvented teachers as agents of change and professional developers of the school curriculum. Academic literature has analyzed changes in how teacher professionalism is conceived in policy and in practice but Teacher Agency provides a fresh perspective on this issue, drawing upon an ecological theory of agency. Using this model for understanding agency, Mark Priestley, Gert Biesta and Sarah Robinson explore empirical findings from the 'Teacher Agency and Curriculum Change' project, funded by the UK-based Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Drawing together this research with the authors' international experiences and perspectives, Teacher Agency addresses theoretical and practical issues of international significance. The authors illustrate how teacher agency should be understood not only in terms of individual capacity of teachers, but also in respect of the cultures and structures of schooling.

This book provides educators with a conceptual framework to explore and develop authenticity and agency for equity. In response to growing cynicism within the field of education, Raquel Ríos argues that in order to become authentic agents of change, teachers must take a stance of mindful inquiry and examine the role of a teacher within the broader socio-political context. By utilizing the six principles of Conscientious Engagement, teachers can expand their awareness of the power of language and thought, the complex nature our professional relationships, and how we channel energy in ways that can impede or strengthen our work for equity. Full of real-world stories and input from practitioners in the field, this book helps teachers of all levels develop the skills and confidence to grapple with tough philosophical and ethical questions related to social justice and equity, such as: What is poverty consciousness and what responsibility do we owe students who come from poorer communities? How does racist ideology impact our thinking and practice in education? How can we tap into an evolutionary consciousness and collective purpose in order to transform how we advocate for equity? How can we expand our professional network for the integration of new ideas? How can teachers really make a difference that matters, a difference that extends beyond the four walls of the classroom?

Highlighting the role of teachers in school change, Teacher Agency, Professional Development and School Improvement explores the important related issues of professional identity, teacher self-efficacy, leadership and autonomy in the context of contested improvement agendas. Providing analytical frameworks and practical models, this book: Offers examples of projects, programmes and narratives to illustrate the role of teachers in school change Invites readers to reconceptualise professional development and re-imagine school improvement Focuses on enabling teacher agency as the foundation for improvement Emphasises the importance of human agency to influence environments, lives and learning Provides strategies for improvement with integrity amidst powerful accountability requirements and external forces for change. At the heart of this book is a fresh perspective on schooling, in which teacher agency is considered a fundamental dimension of professional development and key to school improvement. This raises necessary and challenging questions about purposes and processes in education. With practical ideas and strategies that can be used to inform and evaluate practice and policy, Teacher Agency, Professional Development and School Improvement is essential reading for headteachers and teachers wishing to lead changes to improve their school and for teacher educators who support them.

While student agency is considered an important aspect of classroom learning, opportunities to support and promote agency can be easily missed. This book addresses the inner dimensions of student agency to show what it is, why it is needed, and how it can be translated into instructional practices. In Part I, Locating Student Agency, Vaughn offers a model of agency that can become a core remedy for educators looking for new and better ways to support the learning of historically marginalized students. Part II, Growing Student Agency, illuminates opportunities during instruction where teachers can build upon student contributions. The book includes the voices of teachers who have transformed their classrooms, as well as compelling case stories rich with ideas that teachers can adopt in their own instruction. Student Agency in the Classroom will provide educators at every level, and across all disciplines, with the underlying research and theoretical rationale for this key educational force, along with the practical means to incorporate it into instruction and curriculum. Book Features: A comprehensive framework that outlines three core dimensions needed to cultivate student agency: dispositional, motivational, and positional.Detailed strategies and ideas for creating a culture of agency in the classroom and schoolwide.A collaborative way of thinking about how teachers, teacher educators, and school leaders can promote and cultivate agency.The author’s experience as a classroom teacher, professional developer, and researcher.Classroom vignettes, teacher interviews, and conversations with students. Extension sections and discussion questions at the end of chapters.

The role of English in the global arena has prompted official language-in-education policy makers to adopt language education policies to enable its citizens to be proficient in English and to access knowledge. Local educational contexts in different countries have implemented English education in their own ways with different pedagogical goals, motivations, features and pedagogies. While much of the research cited in English language planning policy has focused on macro level language policy and planning, there is an increasing interest in micro planning, in particular teacher agency in policy response. Individual teacher agency is a multifaceted amalgam, not only of teachers’ individual histories, professional training, personal values and instructional beliefs, but also of how these interact with local interpretations and appropriations of policy. Teacher Agency and Policy Response in English Language Teaching examines the agency of the teacher in negotiating educational reforms and policy changes at the local and national levels. Chapters in the book include: English language teaching in China: teacher agency in response to curricular innovations Incorporating academic skills into EFL curriculum: teacher agency in response to global mobility challenge Teacher agency, the native/nonnative dichotomy, and "English Classes in English" in Japanese high Schools Teacher-designed high stakes English language testing: washback and impact This book will appeal to researcher across all sectors of education, in particular key stakeholders in curriculum and language planning. Those interested in the latest development of English language teaching will also find this book a valuable resource.

This volume demonstrates how various methodologies and tools have been used to analyze the multidimensional, dynamic, and complex nature of identities and professional development of language teachers in digital contexts that have not been adequately examined before. It therefore offers new understandings and conceptualizations of language teacher development and learning in varied digital environments. The collection of pieces illustrates a field that is recognizing that digital environments are the contexts of teacher learning, not simply the object of it, and that issues of identity and agency are central to that learning. As an excellent resource on digital technologies, CALL, gaming, or language teacher identity and agency, the book can be used as a textbook in various applied linguistics courses and graduate seminars.

This is a simple, effective idea that should have been thought of sooner. Kung Fu Phonics teaches phonics, i.e. the rules of "sounding out" words, through phonetics. Q: How do you say "phone?" A: /fon/ Phonics books out today (chockablock with happy hippos and grinning giraffes) are aimed at kindergartners. 4th-grade kids consider them "baby books." Phonetics texts are all daunting tomes for grad students of comparative linguistics and philology, and buying one will put you out fifty dollars No book has used the one to teach the other, until KUNG FU PHONICS. Phonetics has only ever been used to describe how words sound. Kung Fu Phonics is the first to employ phonetics PREDICTIVELY, asking students to describe how unfamiliar words SHOULD sound. Kung Fu Phonics is great for teaching K and pre-K kids to read, and with them you can skip the phonetic notations and just have them read and say the words. It's also a fine tool for teaching English to non-native speakers of any age. If your child is reading below grade level, spend twenty minutes a day with him studying phonetics with this book. Phonetics is just a tool, an uncomplicated but exacting series of squiggles. It's a nice bit of misdirection He'll complain about phonetics and how useless it is while you're doing something awfully concrete to bolster his reading skills: teaching PHONICS. (And since he's learning something his classmates aren't, it doesn't have the embarrassing feel of remediation.) It's an 88-page workbook. Twenty-five lessons, five model words and fifty exercise words per lesson. Concise instructions keep almost every lesson to two pages. And the instructions are so clear that anyone who reads English on a high-school level can use Kung Fu Phonics to teach reading. (Alas, you can't just toss it to a kindergartner and tell her to get busy; it requires cooperative effort.) It requires no DVD or audio CD to use; it's ready to teach as is. This is the American English edition of KUNG FU PHONICS. It uses American (Merriam-Webster) phonetics and describes American pronunciations.

This volume examines the agency of second/foreign language teachers in diverse geographical contexts and in both K-12 and adult education. It offers new understandings and conceptualizations of second/foreign language teacher agency through a variety of types of empirical data. It also demonstrates the use of different methodologies or analytic tools to study the multidimensional, dynamic and complex nature of second/foreign language teacher agency. The chapters draw on a range of theories and approaches to language teacher agency (including ecological theory, positioning theory, complexity theory and actor-network theory) that expand our understanding of the concept, while at the same time presenting various analytic approaches such as discourse studies and narrative inquiry. The chapters also analyze the connection of agency to other relevant topics, such as teacher identity, emotions, positioning and autonomy.