• Examine and clarify personal beliefs about language teaching.Task: Narrative enquiry is a research method which involves analysing the narratives that people recount of their own experiences in situations of interest to find out what they reveal of their understandings of and construction of knowledge about that situation. Anecdotes are, of course, part of our everyday talk, and to turn the process of narrative from the kind of conversational exchange we might expect in a staffroom to research requires a careful analysis. Clandinin and Connelly (2000) in Barkhuizen (2008) suggest we should analyse such narratives on three levels:
1 the participants in the story—their own experiences and their interactions with others;
2 the time during which the story takes place, including its temporal connections to history and the future; and
3 the physical settings or places in which the story is located. (p. 232)
In this assignment we would like you to use a process of narrative enquiry to investigate your own beliefs about language teaching. Choose a critical incident you have had as a teacher that in some way revealed new insights to you or confirmed in some significant way understandings or beliefs that you already had. Recount that incident and analyse it on the three levels:
• What did it mean to you at the time and since, and how were the interactions affected by what the various participants, and their relationships with each other, brought to the encounter?
• How was the time of the incident significant (and here the connections to “history and the future” might be in terms of your own life story -- were you a new and inexperienced teacher, for example? -- or to wider considerations such as how societal and cultural elements might have affected your students -- were they reluctant participants in a learning context made compulsory by cultural decree, for example?)?
• How was the incident influenced by the immediate context (e.g. the structure, roles, physical environment and teaching media in the institution you were teaching at)?
Make connections between this experience and at least two sources from the second language teaching and learning literature which discuss a related theme, noting how your experience and the beliefs it contributes to align (or don’t align) with the findings and conclusions of those sources. For example, if the incident underlined for you the importance of the teacher’s contribution to student motivation, look for books or articles which discuss motivation. I am not, however, asking you to do an exhaustive search of the topic.
One of the sources can be from the course material or textbooks provided by us for this paper, or any other in the Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Linguistics, but at least one of them should be an electronic academic article you have located by using the Article Database on the Library Catalogue. If you are not confident how to do this, let me know. I am very happy to help you make sense of this very important process, or, even better, to organise a library consultation for you.
Your assignment, then, should include:
• The account of the incident.
• An analysis of its significance at the three levels specified.
• Connections drawn with at least two other sources.
Reference:
Barkhuizen, G. (2008). A narrative approach to exploring context in language teaching. ELT Journal, 62(3), 231-239.
Marking Outline Assignment One
Description of incident
A clear account of the incident chosen is provided.
Its significance is analysed from the perspective of each of the three guiding questions:
1 What did it mean to you at the time and since, and how were the interactions affected by what the various participants, and their relationships with each other, brought to the encounter?
2 How was the time of the incident significant (and here the connections to “history and the future” might be in terms of your own life story, or to wider considerations such as how societal and cultural elements might have affected your students)?
3 How was the incident influenced by the immediate context (e.g. the structure, roles and physical environment in the school you were teaching at)?
Link to literature
At least two relevant academic sources have been located and cited in the text, noting how your experience and the beliefs it contributes to align (or don’t align) with the findings and conclusions of those sources.
Argument
Common themes among the different elements in the assignment are drawn into a cohesive argument, so, for example, the ideas raised in the readings are integrated well into the argument your account is making of your own experience.
Presentation
The general expectations of academic writing have been met in a manner appropriate to your own language status (e.g. whether you are yourself a first or second language writer of English). This will include appropriate referencing of source material.
Sample Solution