Local Contextual Influences on Teaching

Book excerpt: This volume is a collection of personal narratives and research findings by English language (ESL/EFL) teachers who found themselves, in one way or another, teaching in various contexts all over the world. The central theme throughout these narratives is how contextual factors played a role in their approach to language teaching in different ways. The contributors reflect on their practices and provide an engaging discussion about how they deal with curriculum and classroom organization issues within the local context. Readers can expect to learn and understand how ESL/EFL teachers in this volume exercise their agency in teaching in a language classroom. These teachers, through their own unique stories and research findings, reflect on how they responded to local contextual factors such as the learning culture, national and school policies, personal beliefs and attitudes towards pedagogy, the sociolinguistic context of teaching, the school culture, and the wider sociopolitical context in which learning and teaching takes place. Since the narrative approach has been placed center stage in teacher education as a method and an objective of inquiry, the contributors adopt the narrative form to reflect and discuss their instructional practice.