The field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) stands at an active crossroads – issues of language, culture, learning, identity, morality, and spirituality mix daily in classrooms around the world. What roles might teachers’ personal religious beliefs play in their professional activities and contexts? Until recently, such questions had been largely excluded from academic conversations in TESOL. Yet the qualitative research at the core of this book, framed and presented within a teacher knowledge paradigm, demonstrates that personal faith and professional identities and practices can, and do, interact and interrelate in ways that are both meaningful and problematic. This study’s Christian TESOL teacher participants, working overseas in Southeast Asia, perceived, explained, and interpreted a variety of such connections within their lived experience. As a result, the beliefs-practices nexus deserves to be further theorized, researched, and discussed. Religious beliefs and human spirituality, as foundational and enduring aspects of human thought and culture, and thus of teaching and learning, deserve a place at the TESOL table.

Debates about the place of mission work in English Language Teaching continue to rage, and yet full-length studies of what really happens at the intersection of ELT and evangelical Christianity are rare. In this book, Johnston conducts a detailed ethnography of an evangelical language school in Poland, looking at its Bible-based curriculum, and analyzing interaction in classes for adults. He also explores the idea of ‘relationship’ in the context of the school and its mission activity, and more broadly the cultural encounter between North American evangelicalism and Polish Catholicism. The book comprises an in-depth examination of a key issue facing TEFL in the 21st century, and will be of interest to all practitioners and scholars in the field, whatever their position on this topic.

This collection of 16 reflective accounts and data-driven studies explores the interrelationship of religious identity and English Language Teaching (ELT). The chapters broaden a topic which has traditionally focused on Christianity by including Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and non-religious perspectives. They address the ways in which faith and ELT intersect in the realms of teacher identity, pedagogy and the context and content of ELT, and explore a diverse range of geographical contexts, making use of a number of different research methodologies. The book will be of particular interest to researchers in TESOL and EFL, as well as teachers and teacher trainers.

Christians can often overlook the need to bring their daily vocations in accord with the reality created, sustained, and purposed through Christ. This is no less true for language teachers, who find themselves at a difficult interdisciplinary crossroads where the paths of linguistics, culture and education merge. This challenge should not discourage these educators, but instead aid them in their journey to form a pedagogy rooted in theological truths from Scripture, one that provides a nuanced approach that glorifies God in a manner specific to the language classroom. The contributors of this book outline why and how theology must inform teaching methods so that Christian language educators might better serve their students with both faith and excellence, thereby pointing them to the communicative God whose image they bear.

A practical guide for teaching English as a second language.

Discusses the challenges and influences novice language teachers face when teaching in their first years. The volume outlines several detailed case studies of the experiences second/foreign language teachers during their first year of teaching in such contexts as the USA, Canada, Singapore, Cambodia, the UK, Italy, Europe, Hong Kong & Japan.

Has teaching left you stressed, frustrated, or even discouraged? In Teach Uplifted you'll discover how to... Renew your passion for teaching by finding joy and peace in Christ Teach with joy even in difficult circumstances Banish anxiety and learn to trust God instead But be warned: This is not a collection of light, fluffy, feel-good stories. These powerful devotions will completely transform the way you view your life, your classroom, and your relationship with God.