Career Development and Professional Attrition of Novice ESL Teachers of Adults

Valeo, Antonella; Faez, Farahnaz

doi:10.18806/tesl.v31i1.1164

Cited by 28 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…They found that on a scale of 1 to 10, the mean response was 7, without significant variation across programs. Survey data with teachers of ESL to adults, however, have shown enormous variation in working contexts and conditions, including full-time unionized positions and part-time contract positions (see Haque and Cray 2007, Valeo 2013, Valeo and Faez 2013). Thus, not only the number of years of teaching experience, but also teaching context and training are significant factors in levels of teacher confidence and comfort with the CLB.…”

Section: A Framework For Instructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language is the Key: The Canadian Language Benchmarks Model

Jezak¹

2017

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(CCLB) in the fall of 2015 that really brought home to me the scope, value, and quality of the Benchmarks project. The great efforts involved in the development of the Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) and the Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens (NCLC) gave birth to the highly efficient system of official language training that we know today. Indeed, as I was perusing documents related to the French and English standards, and various research papers, I came to realize that this success depended on many factors, namely: twenty years of outstanding, yet understated work by leading Canadian scholars (often not even directly acknowledged in the published documents); a steady commitment by government and non government stakeholders at the federal, provincial, and local levels; and, last but not least, unconditional commitment and caring on the part of an invested community of practice.Modern Canada has a humanist view of immigrant integration and prides itself on being a welcoming land. As recently as March 6, 2016, during an interview with Lara Logan on the American television program 60 minutes, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that "accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees does right by the values that define us as a nation," and that "welcoming those immigrants is not 2 LANGUAGE IS THE KEY just about welcoming 25,000 Syrian refugees, it's welcoming 25,000 new Canadians." These statements fall in line with the last fifty years of Canadian non-discriminatory immigration policy and implicitly underline the importance of immigrant access to official languages: a necessary, even though not sufficient, means to successful integration, as underscored in the CCLB motto: Language is the key.It is towards this humanist goal that generations of Canadian researchers and practitioners have offered their knowledge, expertise, hard work, creativity, and problem-solving ingenuity. This book is a testimony to the journey that led to the present state of Benchmarksrelated language training, and a tribute to all those who contributed to the excellence of this Canadian product. Intended ReadershipThis book is intended for broad readership. Given the dearth of comprehensive appraisals of the Canadian Benchmark system, it is meant as a basic academic reference for discussion, in the Canadian context, of language policy, linguistic integration of adult migrants, second language teacher education, and taskbased language learning. It is relevant to Canadian researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, policy-makers, and various second language training stakeholders (administrators, instructors, assessors, curriculum and teaching material designers, and others). Finally, the book is of relevance internationally as well, in an ongoing reflection in the community of researchers and political decision-makers concerned with similar products abroad, such as the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and the ACTFL guidelines. Book StructureThe book guides the reader through a reflection on the past, present, and future of th...

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Section: A Framework For Instructionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language is the Key: The Canadian Language Benchmarks Model

Jezak¹

2017

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“…A follow‐up study by Valeo and Faez () includes interview data that give voice to experiences of job insecurity and attrition. As one respondent noted, “It's very difficult to stay, to first get the position, and then to stay in that position for a long time because of all this uncertain budget and funding” (Valeo & Faez, , p. 13). Other respondents spoke of the need to have “two or more part‐time jobs on a daily basis to survive” and the “stress of working in short three‐week assignments at various places” (p. 13).…”

Section: Policy and Certification Transitions At Tesl Ontariomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, for TESL Ontario, or any other TESOL organization, there is something profoundly ideological and deeply troubling when advocacy is conflated with professional development. In terms of LTI, advocacy takes on neoliberal overtones, as subjects are required to become increasingly entrepreneurial and inward‐looking, driven to identify and compensate for “gaps” in their own skill set, ever mindful of the terrors of performativity (Ball, ; Clarke, ) they must negotiate in times of intensified job precarity (Valeo & Faez, ). Considering the emotional and material investments required, it is an irrational, anxiety‐ridden notion of advocacy on offer, one potentially characterized as cruel optimism (Berlant, ), “the fantasy of meritocracy, a fantasy of being deserving … about so many bad jobs contingently available to so many contingent workers and never enough money, never enough love, and barely any rest, yet with ruthless fantasy abounding” (p. 167).…”

Section: Policy and Certification Transitions At Tesl Ontariomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Language Teacher Identity and the Domestication of Dissent: An Exploratory Account

Morgan

2016

TESOL Quarterly

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In this article, the notion of dissent refers to a more critical, ideological orientation to advocacy for and by TESOL professionals. The notion of domestication refers to identity‐forming practices in the knowledge base of language teacher education (LTE) and in professional certification processes that potentially displace this critical orientation. After a discussion of field‐internal examples (e.g., epistemic dependencies, Kumaravadivelu, 2012; linguistics applied, Widdowson, 1980; language objectification, Reagan, 2004), the article takes up a specific context of domestication: TESL Ontario's accreditation processes and requirements for the certification of adult instructors of ESL (English as a second language). Examining organizational documents and membership survey data, the article suggests that the framing of advocacy is inadequate for the conditions of underemployment and overqualification in this jurisdiction. The article then suggests an alternative for fostering critical advocacy skills in preservice programming: an Issues Analysis Project, in which teachers identify a “gap” in the field (i.e., pedagogical, ideological) and design a blueprint for action (e.g., advocacy letter, policy statement, workshop, curricular innovation) that potentially offers a resolution. The conclusions take up the broader implications of the study for language teacher identity negotiation as well as the TESOL organization's efforts in promoting advocacy amongst its membership.

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“…Permeability of the profession, lack of a defined teacher career path, and poor working conditions have been documented in private, government-sponsored, and postsecondary English teaching contexts (Breshears, 2004(Breshears, , 2008MacPherson, Kouritzin, & Kim, 2005;Shaw, 2014;Smithwick, 2014;Valeo & Faez, 2014). Although seen by some as offering comparatively better working conditions, the university environment is not without its own unique challenges to English teachers' professionalism.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%