In recent years, considerable concern has arisen over issues of intercultural competence (IC) in relation to English education in the fields of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) or English as a Second Language (ESL), due largely to globalisation. However, relatively little qualitative research has been conducted on EFL teachers' beliefs and…

Metaphors are significant in teacher education, because they can provide insights into complex concepts of teaching and learning and thus provide a window into the comprehension of teachers' personal experiences. This study employed metaphorical analysis to investigate how pre-service teachers view English as a Foreign Language (EFL) courses at…

This article examines the potential of practitioner research to contribute to understandings of critical and transformative literacy theories. Drawing upon the work of intellectual historian Dominick LaCapra (2004), we investigate how practitioner research can reconcile theories proliferated from universities with those generated by practitioners,…

Experimental methods have played a significant role in the growth of English teaching and learning studies. The paper presented here outlines basic features of experimental design, including the manipulation of independent variables, the role and practicality of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in educational research, and alternative methods…

As researchers seek to make sense of young people's online literacy practices and participation, questions of methodology are important to consider. In our work to understand the culture of physical, virtual and blended spheres that adolescents inhabit, we find it necessary to expand Gee's (2004) notion of affinity spaces. In this article, we draw…

The following narrative reflects on the dilemmas and problems faced by inexperienced researchers working within the field of education. Focusing on a research project completed in fulfilment of an MA in Teaching and Learning, the article recounts the decisions made by one emergent researcher and evaluates how far the chosen methods may have helped…

A significant body of literacy and language research over the last two decades has been informed by a sociocultural perspective and an associated qualitative design, which are often seen as valuable and appropriate for researching literacy. As an emergent researcher, whose understanding of language education was mostly informed by individualistic…

This narrative chronicles my journey as a doctoral student in English Education as I navigated the decision as to which research methodologies I should align myself with during my doctoral studies. Gee's theory of discourses (2012) provides a framework in which to situate the identity work at play in deciding the kind of research methods one…

In this article, the authors describe how an examination of teacher candidate inquiry projects led to an examination of their own experiences as teacher education practitioner-researchers and competing narratives about education research. They describe how in the process of doing research, they came to recognise how their experiences and…

Undergraduate students have a complex and often problematic history of representation in research on writing pedagogy. They have been described as novices and outsiders, while having minimal input into how they are studied and represented. In this piece, I share my efforts to rethink the roles and relationships among researchers and student…

This paper presents a reflective narrative of the process of designing a PhD project. Using the analogy of the play "One Man, Two Guvnors," this paper discusses the tensions a beginning researcher faces in reconciling her own vision for a project with the academic demands of doctoral-level study. Focusing on an ethnographic study of a reading…

What is the journey of acquiring language? What is the journey of sharing it? These are the questions that compelled the hermeneutic phenomenological investigation (Gadamer, 1960/2004; van Manen, 1997) that led to this paper. Guided by the voice of Heidegger (1954/2008), I discovered the necessity of "un-learning to learn" in order to hear the…

Standards-based reform of education is a dominant political discourse in many nations. In this paper we argue that the type of standards-based reform that is enacted has important implications for teacher agency and teacher professional development. Teacher professional development and identity is explored through theories of the teacher's role in…

We offer this piece as an essay, a dialogic, many-voiced attempt to represent the tensions and contradictions in our work and the work that goes on in London schools. Locating our work within a polyphonic, narrative-based tradition of inquiry into practice (Burgess & Hardcastle, 1991; Doecke & McClenaghan, 2011; Parr, 2010; van de Ven & Doecke,…

The argument that we need content standards in public education often ignores a fundamental question: Even if teachers have a list of standards, will they use them? In the case of California's self-proclaimed "world-class" content standards in Literary Response and Analysis, the answer to this question is an emphatic "No". As part of a university…