Changing teacher learners’ language ideologies and pedagogical practices: an action research intervention in World Englishes

ABSTRACT

The growing recognition of the varieties of Englishes constituting the world Englishes (WE) and related paradigms calls for replacing teachers’ existing language ideologies with WE-oriented beliefs and preparing them to teach with WE awareness. Since WE has yet to be part of mainstream education and teacher education, formal and informal interventions are used by educators and researchers for teacher learning and professional development. How effective are such interventions in changing student-teachers’ language beliefs and practices? The action research reported in this article was conducted in a postgraduate Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) course at an Australian university involving in-service and pre-service teachers mainly from Asia. We report some changes in the participants’ beliefs of English and their views of pedagogical practices. However, the major contribution of the research is noted in its reporting of pedagogical and methodological challenges for such interventions and drawing lessons for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• World Englishes
• action research
• teacher education
• error correction
• TESOL

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data available on request from the authors.