In this essay, Pei Pei Liu identifies the act of unveiling a completed portrait to solicit participant response as central to the conceptualization of portraiture. While this explicit extension of research relationships into the study "aftermath" distinguishes portraiture from many other qualitative methods, little practical guidance…

Qualitative practitioner research undertaken by teachers in schools is a vital means of developing pedagogy and practice, one that is under-valued in today's educational climate. This essay explores representations of students in qualitative studies, which, I argue, necessarily transform student participants into 'characters' within the…

In Nepal, unlike elsewhere, local studies have almost continually suggested that there has not been adequate reflection of the teacher training output in the real classroom situation. English teachers commonly blame on the unfavourable environment as the main obstacle to the successful classroom application of their knowledge and skills needed for…

This case examines the practical and philosophical dilemmas related to a qualitative, multi-state analysis of how secondary English Language Arts teachers reconciled their commitment to teaching for social justice with curricular standards and mandates. Topics addressed include the identification and narrowing of a research question; developing…

Two of the most significant changes in higher education over the last decade have been the reconceptualization of faculty scholarship and the increase in the hiring of adjunct faculty, yet these topics rarely merge together in the literature. The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry was to understand how adjunct English faculty conceive…

This article considers the power of approaching young adult literature from a critical literacy perspective in teacher education and how that affects emerging teachers' ability to consider its role in their future teaching. Specifically, the authors explore how critical literacy--the exposure to a variety of texts, ways of approaching texts, and…

This dissertation explored how a teacher learned to teach with and about unfamiliar (to her) media texts in her high school English classroom. This study also examined my role as the researcher/mentor in the teacher's learning and development process. Through situated learning theories (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and discourse through identities…

Simply defined, effective English Language Arts (ELA) instruction is cohesive, integrated, and requires students to think deeply. Creating such instruction is difficult, however, because of insufficient training in instructional planning and the numerous types of curricula teachers must navigate that may not align well. Therefore, new secondary…

Background/Context: Figured worlds have been conceptualized as spaces, or "realms" (Holland, Skinner, Lachicotte, & Cain, 1998), where individuals assign meaning and significance to actors and characters or understand what they take as "typical or normal" (Gee, 2014). This study applies a lens of figured worlds to…

This article develops Phillips and Ochs's (2003) framework for policy borrowing, particularly their theorisations about indigenisation of international programmes. It uses the example of communicative language teaching (CLT) in Bahrain, exploring teacher perspectives regarding the effects of CLT on the preexisting arrangements in the national…

This article reports the results of a qualitative study investigating the experiences of five former English language teachers in Hong Kong during their initial years of full-time teaching and the reasons for their permanent departure from the profession. Guided by a theory of teacher identity construction, the study employed a discourse analytic…

One of the biggest concerns educational institutions face is helping teachers fit into and adjust to the dynamics of the ever-changing teaching environment. What often remains a mystery is how the identity trajectories of mid-career teachers have contributed to their longevity in the field. Also important today is why teachers might choose to…

This study examined the extent to which middle and high school English teachers integrate reading and writing instruction as complementary processes. Using qualitative research methods, researchers investigated the following: (a) Do middle and high school English teachers conceive of and enact the teaching of reading and writing as integrated…

This study aims to find out and compare the perspectives of pre-service and in-service English teachers about the role of an English teachers. The study adopted a qualitative research design and a written interview protocol (WIP) was used to gather data. 292 pre-service teachers receiving education in English Language Teaching (ELT) Department at…

As the definition of literacy in the 21st century expands beyond print texts to include digital texts, media objects, images, sounds and social practices, what it means to be an English teacher in secondary schools also is shifting and growing in complexity. While there are many resources for integrating technology in the classroom, there remain…