Tensions in learning to teach English

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report findings from a study of preservice teacher (PST) beliefs about teaching English language arts (ELA). Design/methodology/approach A survey was administered to 56 preservice secondary ELA teachers at three universities to measure their beliefs about curriculum, authority and competition in schools. This study explores the beliefs of 17 of these PSTs who participated in an additional interview following up on six of the survey responses. Findings Although the survey forced a choice between various levels of agreeing and disagreeing, interview responses revealed that PSTs wrestled with tensions in what they believed about instructional and curricular choices. When describing situations that influenced their beliefs, they referenced situations from field placements, coursework and their own experiences as students. These tensions reflected the PSTs’ internally conflicting beliefs across their perceived binaries of teaching English. Originality/value This study suggests that these beliefs are formed in part by experiences in teacher preparation programs, particularly in field placements. However, even though PSTs recognized their internally conflicting beliefs, they understood them and their subsequent actions as dichotomous, rather than on a continuum. This study has implications for teacher educators; by understanding PSTs’ tendencies to understand their beliefs in binaries, teacher educators can provide reflective opportunities for PSTs to problematize these dichotomies and look for teaching identities and practices that are more nuanced. </jats:sec

Oral Narrative Genres as Dialogic Resources for Classroom Literature Study: A Contextualized Case Study of Conversational Narrative Discussion

Five questions guided a case study exploring the relationship between oral narrative and discussion in middle school literature study: (a) Relative to similar classrooms in a large-scale study, how can overall literature instruction be characterized? (b) Relative to similar classrooms in a large-scale study, how well do students achieve in the focal classroom? (c) What, if any, are the links between oral narrative and discussion? (d) If discussion and narrative co-occur, what sorts of oral narratives do narrators tell in discussions? and (e) If discussion and narrative co-occur, how can we characterize the overlap in terms of interaction? In the frequent conversational narrative discussions, where oral narrative and discussion discourse overlapped, teacher and students used various kinds of oral narrative genres to prime, sustain, ratify, and amplify discussion