Fulbright FLTA CALL knowledge development and enactment : the role of context
CALL teacher education (TE) is an important and growing area of CALL research. Teachers are viewed as ‘pivotal’ (Hubbard, 2008) for CALL technology adoption. What teachers know, believe and think, or cognition, has informed most of CALL TE research. Typically, such literature has focused on pre-service training or professional development workshops, and has focused on training effectiveness, teacher attitudes, and identifying necessary competences or knowledge. Less researched is teacher development over time (Arnold & Ducate, 2015) and how participation in an international teaching exchange impacts CALL knowledge and practice. In addition, there is not much work examining whether and how knowledge gained transfers into other teaching contexts (Chao, 2015). As Kubanyiova and Feryok (2015) identify, cognition researchers must engage with what knowledge would be most beneficial to whom. In order to do so, examining what knowledge teachers gain and what factors play a role in development and the use of knowledge for CALL can provide further direction for improving CALL TE. Finally, work examining the impact of the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) program on its participants is limited. This case study focuses on the experiences of five FLTAs and the program’s impact on FLTA knowledge of technology for language teaching and learning, as analyzed using the Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) and an extended framework which further delineates and defines the role of contextual factors. I employed interviews, reflective writing, observations, and field work with the FLTAs to gather data which were analyzed using a narrative analysis approach (Benson, 2011), with a subsequent analysis of the narratives (Polkinghorne, 1995) using the TPACK and Extended TPACK frameworks. Results indicated that each of the FLTAs recognized development of their knowledge for using technology across multiple areas within the TPACK framework. However, each of the FLTAs experienced different outcomes based at least in part on the role that various contextual factors across macro, meso, and micro-levels played in both opportunities for knowledge development and enactment of knowledge for CALL. This study contributes to TE research by extending understanding of the impact that various contextual factors have on teacher development both during and after changing teaching contexts. Based on the findings, I argue for adopting more reflective practices such as narrative writing, and encouraging the creation of support groups, mentoring and communities of practice.
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- In Collections
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Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Copyright Status
- Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
- Material Type
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Theses
- Authors
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Maloney, Jeffrey
- Thesis Advisors
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Goertler, Senta
Loewen, Shawn
- Committee Members
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De Costa, Peter
Winke, Paula
- Date Published
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2018
- Subjects
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Language teachers--Training of
Language and languages--Computer-assisted instruction
Graduate teaching assistants, Foreign
Educational technology
Michigan--East Lansing
- Program of Study
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Second Language Studies - Doctor of Philosophy
- Degree Level
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Doctoral
- Language
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English
- Pages
- xii, 212 pages
- ISBN
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9780355891652
0355891654
- Permalink
- https://doi.org/doi:10.25335/s34f-bm65