Our next event is coming up soon on Wednesday the 8th of March at 18:30. We will be joined by Queen Mary University’s Luis Carabantes and UCL’s Amos Paran for a session on the role of coursebooks for language education. Please find full details of the session below.
Time: 18:30-20:00, Wednesday, 8 March 2023
Location: W3.05, UCL IOE, 20 Bedford Way (Click here for Google Maps)
Speakers:
Dr. Luis Carabantes, Queen Mary University of London
Prof. Amos Paran, UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics
Prof. Amos Paran, UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics
Language teaching materials and teacher education: the role of coursebooks in learning to design EFL materials in Chile
In this talk we focus on the way in which a group of preservice teachers of English in Chile learnt to design language teaching materials and draw implications for the practice of ELT as well as English language teacher education. Using activity theory, an offshoot of sociocultural theory, the study examined data from preservice teachers, teacher educators, and mentoring teachers, showing how the conceptual tool of “teaching English as teaching the textbook” was appropriated by a group of eight preservice teachers and how the development of their teacher agency was undermined by how the textbooks were used by schoolteachers in their school placements. The study also shows how the development of this line of thinking was reinforced by some teacher educators who vested coursebooks with language teaching authority. In our presentation, we will raise issues about how textbooks are used in language education, particularly in contexts where preservice teachers themselves are English Language Learners and who often learn English using coursebooks, as well as issues about the ways in which teachers learn to design materials.