Seeing the ‘new’ in light of the ‘old’: evolving interpretations of a new national English curriculum

Abstract

This 2‐year longitudinal study explores the process by which three populations of practitioners (mentors, co‐ordinators, and teachers) interpreted a national curriculum involving a change in policies for teaching English as a foreign language. The analysis revealed that the process of managing the changes brought about by the new curriculum yielded ‘dialogues of practice’ between ‘old’ and ‘new’. These dialogues engaged mentors, co‐ordinators, and teachers alike in mediating between new understandings and old ones. It addresses the ways in which they made sense of the terminology of the new curriculum in light of the old curriculum, negotiated between new pedagogical content knowledge and ingrained conceptions of subject‐matter teaching, adapted old understandings of testing to new conceptions of performance‐assessment processes, and mediated between their need to preserve a sense of professional competence while feeling destabilized as ‘novices’ as they confronted innovative curricular practices. Participants' strategic need to ‘survive’ the changes resulted in the development of networks to support professional exchange and assist teachers in managing their way through the uncertainty of curricular change.

Notes

Judy Kemp is English inspector at the Ministry of Education and Culture for elementary and high schools in the northern district of Israel.

Lily Orland‐Barak, lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa, Israel 31905; e‐mail: [email protected], is interested in mentoring and teacher learning, action research, and curriculum development in English as a foreign language.

Lily Orland‐Barak, lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa, Israel 31905; e‐mail: [email protected], is interested in mentoring and teacher learning, action research, and curriculum development in English as a foreign language.

Terry Ben‐Or is a teacher and regional mentor of English teachers in high schools in Israel.

Ziona Levi is a teacher and regional mentor of English teachers in elementary schools in Israel.

The in‐service teacher‐training course was conducted for two consecutive years (1998–2000) in the northern region of Israel. The objectives were to familiarize mentors, co‐ordinators, and teachers with the new curriculum. The first year was attended by co‐ordinators and mentors. During the second year, an additional cycle was created for teachers to work with their co‐ordinators who had taken part in the course the year before. The course was organized around bi‐monthly meetings, where the first meeting was a general lecture followed by lecture/workshops given by experts about a subject pertaining to the new curriculum. The second meeting of the month focused on the implementation of the materials via hands‐on tasks learned in the plenary sessions. These meetings were divided according to regions in order to ease the travelling for teachers of the extensive northern district of the country, and to create pedagogically preferable smaller groups functioning within an action‐research framework.

As a course requirement, participants were asked to construct group portfolios that represented their process of learning about the new curriculum. The portfolios were submitted to the course‐leaders at the termination of the course. The portfolio was structured around the following components: a cover letter, lesson plans, and performance‐assessment tasks according to the new curriculum, records of the mentors' and coordinators' meetings with teachers around the new curriculum, and reflections on the process of learning for each entry.

The end‐of‐year interviews were semi‐structured. The open‐ended questions for the interview were based on the themes that emerged from the analysis of the portfolios—to elaborate or clarify specific issues/aspects of the experience surfaced in the portfolios.

Participants' names have been altered for ethical reasons.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

LILY ORLAND‐BARAK

Judy Kemp is English inspector at the Ministry of Education and Culture for elementary and high schools in the northern district of Israel. Lily Orland‐Barak, lecturer in the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Mt. Carmel, Haifa, Israel 31905; e‐mail: [email protected], is interested in mentoring and teacher learning, action research, and curriculum development in English as a foreign language. Terry Ben‐Or is a teacher and regional mentor of English teachers in high schools in Israel. Ziona Levi is a teacher and regional mentor of English teachers in elementary schools in Israel.