Drawing on Sen's notion of social justice in the Capability Approach, this paper examines the experiences of a group of novice teachers from English teacher education programmes working in marginalised schools in Chile. Through open-ended surveys and interviews, I investigated how new teachers navigate their first teaching years in contexts of…

This essay uses storytelling as a mode of inquiry to explore how students with languages other than English and with diasporic experiences and identities negotiate a pathway for themselves in a relentlessly Anglophone environment. I share a story that provides a small window into the everyday work of an English teacher in a large, linguistically…

Although research illustrates the benefits of biliteracy, most bilingual students will not have access to a bilingual education program in which they receive official instruction in all their languages. However, the English language arts can become a space where any teacher can support students' biliteracy through purposeful curricular,…

This study examined English teaching and learning (Grade 8 level) in Qawmi Madrasa schools, which are not recognized by the Bangladeshi government's Education Department. The study investigated the improvements needed in Qawmi Madrasas English teaching programs to enable students to secure public university admission and Bangladeshi civil service…

This article, based on a research project with learners in a township school in South Africa, seeks to discuss whether WhatsApp was able to transform the space of the poetry classroom in positive and productive ways. The project was designed in response to research in EFAL (English First Additional Language) classrooms that revealed the…

Despite ongoing and prolific critical scholarship arguing for the widening of the secondary language arts curriculum, many practicing teachers are required or encouraged to teach a curriculum dominated by canonical texts. This is often the case at schools with highly diverse students whose varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds have…

In this article Deidre Faughey shares an experimental classroom project that she developed with a diverse group of students in three ninth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) classes. Podcasts provide a unique opportunity for students to embrace experimentation and to take risks with their own voices, explore the school building and community, and…

This article looks at three examples of using language autobiographies in English Education. The first example comes from using this approach when teaching in inner London to unlock the cultural and linguistic knowledge of secondary school children. The second example looks at how this approach was adapted in the training of secondary English…

I come to this article as an experienced primary and middle years teacher and midcareer university-based academic with a vested interest in researching the message systems of the disciplinary field of subject English. My sociocultural perspective challenges those who view English teaching predominantly as a cognitive act of learning to read or…

This essay addresses the persistence of monolingual tendencies in composition pedagogy and the critical efforts needed to dissolve them. Approaching language difference from a distinctly pedagogical perspective, this essay draws on the authors' teaching experiences and reflective writing in an effort to theorize the reflective practices key to…

Our district reading data at the secondary level has remained stagnant over the last decade with respect to grade-level reading ability. We knew we wanted to find a way to engage students in reading and strengthen their literacy skills. In response to this, we sought to examine if we were hindering literacy development through our instructional…

Creating specific lessons for different language skills is challenging and time consuming for English teachers, but it is definitely worth the effort. In the author's experience, teaching language skills through mechanical exercises and traditional fill-in-the-blank, true/false, and multiple-choice assessments does not interest students as much as…

Focusing on subject English, this article considers the role that "creative output" in the form of narrative fiction and poetry might play in the field of educational research. Drawing on philosophical insights from Biesta, and combining these with Nussbaum's articulation of the importance of literature to education, a case is made for…

The Foreign Language Learning (FLL) programme aimed to improve the English language attainment of Year 3 and 4 pupils through a detailed curriculum of weekly French classes with linked activity in English lessons. The programme, created by the Education Development Trust (formerly CfBT), lasted for three half-terms. French classes were 45 minutes…

This paper reports on the findings of a research study carried out in the Bachelor of Arts in English program of study at a Colombian university. It aims at identifying the communication strategies used by four pre-service English teachers with A2 and B2 levels of language proficiency and, also, at examining how these communication strategies…