Beyond Good Teaching Practices: Language Teacher Leadership From the Learners’ Perspective

Abstract

Teacher leadership has been given increased recognition in general education as a means to empower teachers as professionals and improve educational outcomes. However, it has not received as much attention in the field of English language teaching (ELT), and research that has been conducted in this area has tended to focus predominantly on program management. This study focused on examining learners’ perspectives of language teacher leadership with the aim of contributing to a more complete conceptualization of teacher leadership in ELT. Twenty South Korean university students were interviewed to explore their opinions of what language teacher leadership entails in terms of teacher practices and characteristics. The findings reveal an ensemble of qualities—under the categories of passion, rapport, purpose, and balance and flexibility—that learners believe to be essential to language teacher leadership. The findings also indicate that learners’ ideas about leadership in the language classroom go beyond classroom practices, are distinct from traditional views of leadership, and differ from the way in which many language teachers see leadership in their classrooms.

A Leadership Model for Supporting the Mastery of Core Competencies for College English Learners in Application-Oriented Universities in Shanghai, China

“…The second was from related research on leadership in ELT. The educational elements may include: significant changes to the ELT (Wyse & Moon, 2014), long-term instructional vision, and extra considerations to the contexts (Chan, 2021) in the support systems of standards and assessments; clear goal setting and leaders' role models (McGee et al, 2015), empowerment in ELT (McGee et al, 2015;Whitehead & Greenier, 2019), language teacher leadership (Shah, 2017), and the alignment of the instructional content, methods, and the assessments (Ni, 2017) in curriculum and instruction; ELT professional development (Slapac, 2021), instructional leaders' development, a broader professional thinking, and research team's engagement (Lesley et al, 2021) in professional development; resource supports, long-lasting external partnerships and collaborations (Slapac, 2021), dealing with crisis, and having authorities to make decisions on curriculum (Lesley et al, 2021) in environments.…”

The role of teacher leaders in language classrooms: a case study in National Academy of Education Management, Vietnam

“…Research has shown that English language teachers (EFL) must have passion, rapport, purpose, balance, and adaptability to succeed in the Korean school system [26] .…”

“…Although teacher leadership is valued in general education, it is uncommon in the field of teaching English as a second language (ELT). [5] and [26] conducted empirical investigations into this concept in ELT, indicating a paucity of research in this area. According to [23], For teacher leadership in ELT, a conceptual shift is required from hierarchical and conventional leadership models to more vertical and shared leadership models.…”

English as a Second or Other Language-Focused Leadership to Support English Language Learners: A Case Study

“…Likewise, Theorharis and Scanlan (2015) note that "school leaders include those with positional authority, such as administrators and department chairs, as well as those with relational authority, such as master teachers who have earned the respect of colleagues" (p. ix). Furthermore, Whitehead and Greenier (2019) define teacher leadership "as a dynamic set of qualities, characteristics, and behaviors exhibited inside and outside the classroom that positively influence learners not only in their learning, but also in their lives (p. 963).…”

“…In a third empirical study, Whitehead and Greenier (2019) build from the Christison and Lindahl (2009) and Baecher (2012) studies which explore teacher leadership in the field of English language teaching (ELT). They look at teacher leadership from the learners’ perspective and offer examples of how learners see their language teachers as leaders, as well as articulate the features and characteristics that contribute to effective language teacher leadership.…”