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Start date: 2022Subject: search.filters.subject.Web-based instruction

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    Secondary school English language teacher agency in the aftermath of COVID-19 crises : a study from a West Sumatran Region, Indonesia : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2025-11-26) Yuliandri, Yuliandri
    The COVID-19 pandemic saw the prompt shift to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT), which was challenging for both learners and educators worldwide. This study explores the experiences of secondary school English language teachers working within a resource-limited setting of Lima Puluh Kota Region, West Sumatra, Indonesia. It focuses not only on the ERT period but also on the re-transition to face-to-face teaching post-pandemic. It seeks to answer two research questions: 1) What adjustments did English language teachers make to their practice during and after the pandemic lockdown period, and how did they perceive and articulate these experiences? 2) How did the teachers exercise their agency, negotiate their professional identities, and manage their emotions in response to these experiences? This study adopts a qualitative dominant mixed-methods design. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis are employed to analyse data which was collected from teachers from July to November 2022 through a survey (n=63), two rounds of interviews (n=10), and classroom observations (n=10). The findings indicated that while the teachers were emotionally affected by the abrupt shift to ERT, which was intensified by Digital Divide issues, they tried to negotiate the availability of resources and use their agency to find ways to continue teaching. Some were able to discover benefits beyond the difficulties as ERT exposed them to digital technologies, a wide range of learning modes, and opportunities to pursue professional development (PD). Throughout and after the pandemic, teachers actively negotiated their professional identities, which contributed to their professional growth and increased reflexivity on their current and future practices. This shifted their perspectives about teaching and learning and the role of technology, which proved useful when they encountered challenges re-transitioning to face-to-face classrooms. This study contributes to the literature by 1) adding evidence of how English language teachers exercised their agency during and after the pandemic and illustrating the temporal and contextual aspects involved in the process, 2) revealing different pathways of professional identity negotiation, and 3) breaking down the interplay between agency, identity, and emotions, and outlining the significant role of emotions in both enactment of agency and professional identity negotiation. In addition to these theoretical contributions, practical implications, which focus on the need for school technology infrastructure in the region, and tailored teacher professional development at both school and MoE levels to foster student teachers’ and experienced teachers’ awareness of the intersection of agency, identity and emotion in the teacher education curriculum and training programmes, are discussed.
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    Teacher agency in synchronous one-to-one Chinese online language teaching : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Linguistics at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Dai, Chujie
    This study explores the teacher agency of four Chinese language teachers who teach in one-to-one videoconferencing settings. Since these teachers only had limited teaching experience in such a context, four preparatory workshops were designed for the teacher participants before they began teaching. The study seeks to answer three questions: 1) What kinds of competencies did teachers identify as required in their teaching via one-to-one videoconferencing? 2) What kinds of affordances and constraints did teachers perceive in teaching, and how was their agency influenced by these factors? 3) What was the main value of the preparatory workshops from the teachers’ perspective? The study is informed by ecological perspectives and employs a qualitative longitudinal case study approach. The data collected through teaching recordings, stimulated recall interviews, semi-structured interviews and group discussions formed the main data set. The data collected through a teacher questionnaire, written reflection sheets, opinion frames, and text chat on a social media platform formed the supporting data set. The main part of the study, spanning about eight months, comprised three stages. At the first stage, there were four teacher preparatory workshops, each including a lecture and a group discussion. At the second stage, each teacher conducted a series of Chinese learning sessions with a single learner, which were recorded and analysed. At the third stage, semi-structured interviews with individual teachers were conducted. The findings suggest that the teachers identified four important competencies required for online teaching: pedagogical competency, multimedia competency, social-affective competency and the competency of being reflective and reflexive. Different beliefs about teacher roles, perceived social hierarchy, and their relationships with peer teachers and the learners were the factors that enabled or constrained teachers’ actions. The perceived value of the teacher preparatory workshops was in providing opportunities for the teachers to bridge the gap between theories and teaching practice and to explore the pedagogical possibilities. They collectively formed an idealised notion of online teaching as a result of their discussions and this notion influenced their identity and teaching practice. The study concludes with implications for research methodology and a theoretical frame, shedding light on how the factors from the outer world, and teachers’ experience and aspirations could impact the enactment of agency. It is hoped that this study will be valuable for future online language teacher training and research.