Promotieonderzoek van Liz Dale

Korte beschrijving van het onderzoek

The aim of this study is to draw up a validated profile of English teacher roles, language teaching methodologies and challenges faced by practicing English teachers in bilingual schools in the Netherlands. In the past 25 years, since the emergence of Content and Language integrated learning (CLIL) , English teachers in bilingual schools have received little attention compared to their subject teacher counterparts in research, teaching resource handbooks and teacher education programmes. In their schools, English teachers may be asked to fulfil a range of professional roles, yet this range of roles and the challenges teachers face in fulfilling these roles have not yet been systematically investigated. Similarly, the range of language teaching methodologies which they draw upon in their practice and the challenges they face in implementing them have not been explored.

This exploratory research proposal gives a central role to the English teacher in bilingual schools, consulting policy makers and stakeholders in bilingual schools, including subject teacher colleagues and learners. The main research question is which professional roles should a teacher education programme for English teachers in bilingual schools prepare students for and which language teaching methodologies should the programme help students to develop? A qualitative study consisting of a literature review, document analysis, focus groups, surveys, observations and semi-structured interviews will be carried out. The literature review and document analysis will describe the professional roles and language teaching methodologies for English teachers in bilingual schools found in literature and policy documents. The findings will be used to design questions for use in focus groups. Focus groups will be used to establish the roles and teaching methodologies suggested by policy makers and stakeholders. The combined findings will be used to design a survey for English teachers in bilingual schools on the roles they fulfil in practice in schools and to design an Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, School of Education Knowledge Centre for Teaching & Education 3 observation protocol for English classrooms in bilingual schools. Surveys and semi-structured interviews will be used to identify the English teachers’ professional roles in practice along with the challenges they face. Classroom observations will be used to examine the extent to which suggested language teaching methodologies are carried out by English teachers in practice and what challenges teachers face when implementing them.