Session Information
23 SES 05 A, Teacher’s Education and Professionalism
Paper Session
Contribution
The aim of my proposed research is to provide a better understanding of the development of policy and practice in Second Chance Schools [SCSs] in Greece. In particular, I intend to focus on the impact of policy on current practice and professional development amongst teachers of English in SCSs. In the framework of adult education in Greece, Second Chance Schools were implemented in order to facilitate the fight against adult illiteracy and social exclusion (European Commission (2003). The target group for the SCSs consisted of economically and socially underprivileged groups (Kassimati,1998; Spinthouraki et al,2008). The role of the teachers in these schools was seen as key to the success of the policy (IDEKE, 2003). In the specific context of the SCSs, learning English was seen as a vital component of the program for the development of the European citizen (EC, 2007:4).
At one level, this research aims to show how education and training can be critical factors in the achievement of policy goals. Lifelong education is a vast field in a worldwide strategy of economic, social and cultural policy focused at individual employability, social integration and inclusion, a function of welfare reform (Griffin, 2002) or in terms of human and social capital (Schuller and Field, 2002) it carries more humanistic traditions of liberal adult education (Jarvis and Parker, 2005).
There are no existing research studies into the development of Second Chance Schooling in Greece, despite the fact that the policy was first developed 10 years ago and its aims and intentions are of considerable educational significance. The following research questions constitute the main framework of my study:
1) What were the aims of the policy to develop Second Chance Schools in Greece?
2) How did the policy and the schools develop in the decade 2000-2010?
3) What is the experience of teachers of English in SCSs in 2010?
4) What professional support is currently provided for teachers of English at the Second Chance schools?
5) What kind of theories of literacy and pedagogy do the English teachers use in their classrooms?
In official documents SCSs were presented as if they were European institutes, striving towards changing the route of traditional education with new flexible curricula, new teaching methods, new specifications, and enthusiasm for initiating a new field of education. All this excitement of teachers in a new challenging setting was trapped in the pitfalls of the innovation of SCSs institution. The reality was quite demanding: having to cope with new issues that arose from the student population, old habits in the traditional education system, inflexibility, and resistance to change. There is also evidence of unwillingness to understand the nature of the Adult learning, which has not always gained the recognition it deserves in terms of visibility, policy prioritisation and resources, notwithstanding the political emphasis placed on lifelong learning in recent years. This dichotomy between political discourse and reality is even more striking when set against the background of the major challenges confronting the Union. (EC, 2006:3)
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
European Commission (EC) (2007) Languages for Europe, Luxembourg: Office of Official Publications of the European Communities. European Commission (EC) (2006) Adult Learning: It is never too late to learn, COM (2006) 614 final, Brussels: European Commission. European Commission. (2003) Implementing Lifelong Learning Strategies in Europe: Progress report on the follow-up to the 2002 Council resolution, December 2003. Brussels: European Commission, Educational Lifelong Learning Policy Development Freeman, D. (1994). Knowing into doing: Teacher education and the problem of transfer. In D. Li, D. Mahoney, & J. C. Richards (EDs.) Exploring second language teacher development (pp. 1-20). Hong Kong: City Polytechnic of Hong Kong. Freeman, D. (1991). “To make the tacit explicit”: Teacher education, emerging discourse, and conceptions of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 7 (5/6), 439-454. IDEKE (2003). School Guidelines for Second Chance Schools. Athens: IDEKE (in Greek). Johnson, K.E. (1992). Learning to teach: Instructional actions and decisions of preservice ESL teachers. TESOL Quarterly, 26 (3), 507-535. Kassimati,K.,(ed) (1998) Social Exclusion: the Greek Experience. Athens: Gutenberg (in Greek) Pennycook, A. (1989). The concept of method, interested knowledge and the politics of language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (4), 589-618. Prabhu, N.S. (1992). The dynamics of the language lesson. TESOL quarterly, 26 (2), 225-242. Prabhu, N.S. (1990). There is no best method-why? TESOL quarterly, 24 (2), 161-176. Richards, J.C. (1987). The dilemma of teacher education in TESOL. TESOL quarterly 21 (2), 209-226. Richards, J.C., & Nunan, D. (Eds.). (1989).Second language teacher education. New York: Cambridge University Press. Spinthouraki, J.A., Karatzia-Stavlioti, E.,Lempesi, G.E., Papadimitriou, I.,(November, 2008), Educational Policies that Adress Social Inequality, Country Report, Department of Elementary Education, University of Patras, Greece
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