This book addresses the complex issues that arise in school-university collaborative action research projects. Employing sociocultural perspectives on examining professional practices of in-service teachers, it examines the complexities of negotiating beliefs, identities and interpersonal relations when educators from two different institutional cultures collaborate. Specifically, the book explores issues such as the discourses that are operative in school-university collaboration for English language teacher education; the way in which beliefs, interpersonal relations and identities are negotiated in school-university partnership; what tensions and complexities operate in collaborative action research discourse in an educational context; and how school-university collaboration can be achieved. The book adopts a critical perspective and provides arguments from a non-Western sociocultural perspective.

This book addresses the complex issues that arise in school-university collaborative action research projects. Employing sociocultural perspectives on examining professional practices of in-service teachers, it examines the complexities of negotiating beliefs, identities and interpersonal relations when educators from two different institutional cultures collaborate. Specifically, the book explores issues such as the discourses that are operative in school-university collaboration for English language teacher education; the way in which beliefs, interpersonal relations and identities are negotiated in school-university partnership; what tensions and complexities operate in collaborative action research discourse in an educational context; and how school-university collaboration can be achieved. The book adopts a critical perspective and provides arguments from a non-Western sociocultural perspective.

This book examines a range of complex issues concerning the professional experience (i.e., practicum) in English language teacher education with regard to curriculum design and implementation, as well as professional learning. Drawing on a sociocultural perspective, it explores the context of the professional experience, preservice teachers as learners of English language teaching, and the activity of learning to teach English language in connection with interrelated contextual and personal issues: contextual issues such as policies, curricula, university-school partnerships, and mentoring relations are investigated in relation to personal issues such as the beliefs, expectations, prior educational experiences, previous teaching experiences, and cultural-linguistic backgrounds of preservice teachers. In turn, the book addresses professional learning issues, including professional identity development, emotional experiences, and pedagogical learning, in depth. The book delves into the qualitative “fine-grained” aspects of the professional experience while also making valuable conceptual contributions through a sociocultural analysis of the professional learning experience, which can also be applied to research in other teacher education contexts. The findings presented here hold practical implications for English language teacher education in terms of developing a knowledge base for English language teaching and an effective model of professional experience to prepare English language teachers for working in today’s expanded, diverse and dynamic neoliberal contexts.

Over the last two decades, Chile has been driven by an economic imperative to build the capability of citizens to be competent in the English language, resulting in a high demand for teachers of English. As a consequence, teacher education programs have modified their curricula to meet the challenges of educating teachers of English as a global language. This book explores EFL teacher education in order to further understand the nature of teacher learning in second language education environments, examining the varying motives, actions and mediating tools that shaped how a cohort of pre-service teachers learnt to teach EFL in Chile. Framed by a cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective, chapters use key qualitative research to determine how specific factors can help and hinder the effective preparation of teachers, illuminating contradictory dynamics between local and national policies, teacher education programs, and pre-service views and classroom realities. The book makes an important contribution to the growing debate surrounding the design of EFL teacher education policy, curriculum and learning strategies, emphasising the importance of engaging pre-service teachers in learning to teach EFL, and the interrelated factors that shape this learning. English Language Teacher Education in Chile will be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of teacher education, curriculum studies, and English language teaching (ESL/EFL), as well as policy makers, TESOL organisations, and those interested in applying a CHAT perspective to language teaching and learning.

School-University Partnerships offers an introductory guide for education faculty members and in-service school professionals seeking clinically rich teaching experiences. It provides distinctive learning opportunities and professional development for all stakeholders through collaborative planning and by leveraging resources. Keli Garas-York presents Professional Development Schools (PDS) structures that can be tailored to the specific needs of an institution and its partners. Drawing on the 2021 NAPDS (National Association of Professional Development Schools) framework, which outlines the Nine Essentials, Garas-York defines what it means to be a PDS. Examples of the various aspects of school-university partnerships are provided, as well as document templates to help formalize and organize a consortium and tackle real-world scenarios. This text will be useful to educators interested in developing local school-university partnerships.

Now more than ever, the collaboration of researchers and practitioners from both PreK-12 and higher education in partnership and in research is imperative for solving problems in teaching and learning and for instituting fundamental change in education. There is growing empirical work on educational change and improvement in school-university partnership settings that should be explored. This applied research and research design impacts the initiation and institution of change in partnership settings. Thus, the role of research is an essential lever for reform. Practical perspectives are necessary to share for shaping a future in partnerships and to promote collaborative action and inquiry in school-university and professional development partnership settings. This includes changes in the partnerships’ classroom teaching, in school and college policies, student outcomes, course content, and in partnerships’ teacher education programs. Change and Improvement in School-University Partnership Settings: Emerging Research and Opportunities spotlights the types of research, research designs, and exemplar studies that were successful in producing changes and improvements in the longitudinal partnerships the author founded and directed. The chapters reveal what worked and why it worked along with brief descriptions of the exemplar studies that served as catalysts for change. In addition, a brief history of the partnership movement in America is given along with an overview of the current landscape of the different types of education partnerships prevalent today and their key research features. This book is ideal for researchers, scholars, teacher-researchers, change agents, professors, teacher educators, students, and graduate fellows interested in conducting practical and effective applied research for change and improvement in school-university partnership settings.

Offering a unique, data-led, evidence-based approach to reflective practice in English language teaching, this book brings together theory, research and practice in an accessible way to demonstrate what reflective practice looks like and how it is undertaken in a range of contexts. Readers learn how to do and to research reflective practice in their own settings. Through the use of data, dialogue and appropriate tools, the authors show how reflective practice can be used as an ongoing teaching tool that supports professional self-development.