Two-Teacher Classrooms, Personalized Learning and the Inclusion Paradigm in the United Kingdom: What’s in it for Learners of EAL?

• Published in: Negotiating Language Policies in Schools pp. 46 - 65
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2010
• Subjects: Transmission Pedagogies; Geography Teacher; Subject Teacher; Yes; English Language Learners; Curriculum Subject Teacher; Teacher Collaboration; Follow; PL Agenda; Inclusion Paradigm; EAL Student; Specialist EAL Teacher; EAL Learner; Local Social Practices; Support Mode; Proper Teacher; Teacher Responsiveness; Curriculum Transmission; Education System; Partnership Mode; Language Awareness; EAL Teacher; Geography Classroom; Language Policy; WH Question
• ISBN: 9780415802079; 0415802083; 0415802075; 9780415802086
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203855874-9

In looking at the ways in which power is constructed through language and in interaction, actors can begin to see themselves as agents who have the power to transform practices and not merely as recipients of already decided upon norms. (Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000, p. 100)This quote offers those of us working in educational contexts a positive and proactive view of the way in which we shape our classrooms. It emphasizes the ability of practitioners to change and transform settings. It asks us to think locally and consider how our own practices as teachers and researchers will figure in the lives of the students we work with. The need to research the local social practices of classroom participants in bringing about change is also made by Denos, Toohey, Neilson, and Waterston (2009). They describe how a group of teacher researchers transform their own practices, understandings and workplaces in a ‘quest for equity’. In the process of belonging to a Teacher Action Research Group (TARG) they describe finding a new vocabulary to articulate different possibilities for students who are particularly likely to suffer under current education structures. These include students such as those who are English language learners as well as those with special and additional needs. In common with Hornberger and Skilton-Sylvester’s quote above, Denos et al.’s research shows how teachers can work against imposed ‘slots and categories’ which damage the ‘vibrant and multifaceted’ young people with whom they work (Denos et al., 2009, p. 47). Teachers as agents of change are also dealt with in Skilton-Sylvester’s (2002) work on linguistically diverse classrooms. She focuses on the relationship between prevailing ideologies and the agency of teachers. In a carefully crafted and detailed micro-analysis, she reveals the subtler workings of teachers accepting and challenging the legal policies that are handed down to them. Despite a prevailing language-as-a problem (Ruiz, 1984) orientation in schools, Skilton-Sylvester (2002) showed how teachers can work towards more equitable educational policies and practices for linguistically diverse students. What emerges from her research is theway different teachers create different classroom policies of their own, depending on their underlying ideologies.