Download Full PDF

Grace Yue Qi

Massey University, New Zealand

 

Chujie Dai

Guangdong Ocean University, China

 

Abstract

Language teachers’ pedagogic and digital literacy skills are key competences that enable effective, critical and reflective teaching practice. This study focuses on a virtual peer mentoring (VPM) programme tailored for language teacher professional development, involving two teachers, a mentee and a mentor, in a New Zealand university. The VPM programme aims to support the mentee teacher new to tertiary teaching and a distance mode of delivery on Zoom, the platform also used for teaching practice. Informed by the CARR framework and collaborative action research, the VPM programme undertook a cyclic process – collaborative planning, actioning with peer support, reflecting and reimplementing/readapting – to explore the mentee teacher’s pedagogic and digital literacy development over a year, amidst the global pandemic. We, as teachers-as-researchers, gathered the multimodal data, including online teaching recordings, in-class online chat between the two teachers and learners, a stimulated recall interview, and self-directed written journals. Undertaking a robust thematic analysis, the findings revealed the mentee teacher’s transformative pedagogical practices and enhanced digital literacy skills reflected in her online teaching sessions. Peer mentoring eased the pressure of the mentee teacher who, otherwise, needed to solely explore the affordances of Zoom and to address learners’ needs in various contingent moments. Her teaching innovation, by integrating pedagogy and technology and practising reflexivity, has hence shone through. The study underscores collaborative efforts and actions in the iterative peer mentoring process that warrant language teacher capacity building for continued professional development in a digital age.

 

Keywords

Collaborative action research, virtual peer mentoring, language teacher, digital literacy, professional development

 

线上同伴协助指导增进语言教师教学法与数位素养发展：协同行动研究

祁越 

梅西大学，新西兰

 

戴楚洁

广东海洋大学， 中国

 

摘要

语言教师的教学法与数位素养是实现有效、具有批判性及反思性教学实践的关键能力。本研究着重描述了如何通过一个专为教师专业发展量身定制的在线同伴协助指导（ VPM）项目协助一位初次接触新西兰高等教育环境的语言教师发展和提升这两方面的能力。通过线上平台Zoom，该项目有新西兰一所大学的两位语言教师参与，其中一位为同伴中的 “徒”，另一位则为“师”。在 CARR 教师发展框架以及协同行动研究（ collaborative action research）的启发下， VPM 项目强调一个同伴协同发展的循环过程，即：协作教学规划、在同伴支持下的教学过程、教学反思、教学设计及形式的重新实施 / 调整。本研究中“徒”在 2020-2021 年期间通过这一循环得到了教学法与数位素养能力的提高。视教师为研究者身份，我们采集了多模态数据，包括线上教学录像、教师之间以及与学生在教学中线上聊天室的互动文本、教师之间的一次刺激性回忆访谈、和教师自主性反思教学日记。通过严谨的主题性分析，调查结果展现了“徒”在线上教学中教学实践的变革和数位素养能力的提升。同伴协助指导减轻了“徒”的压力，特别是在“师”的陪伴下，“徒”无需独自探索 Zoom 功能或同时处理教学中的突发事件，而可以更关注学习者的需求。因此，“徒”有更多精力探寻将教学与技术相结合的教学法，实现反思性教学的创新和突破。本研究强调同伴协助指导中，教师协同合作确保了语言教师的能力培养，以及实现数字时代下可持续性语言教师专业发展的可能性。

 

关键词

协同行动研究；同伴协同指导；语言教师；数位素养；专业发展