Papers by Roumiana ilieva
Diffusing innovation to support faculty engagement in the integration of language and content across the disciplines in an internationalized Canadian university
Higher education research and development, Mar 28, 2022
This article investigates the curriculum discourses circulating in a TESOL Masters Program for in... more This article investigates the curriculum discourses circulating in a TESOL Masters Program for international students at a Canadian university. It focuses on issues around academic and professional identity constructions and language viewed through dialogical (Bakhtinian) and ecological perspectives. The article examines possibilities for agency for the students who accommodate, negotiate and resist identities, practices and program discourses inflected by broader neo-colonial and global/local tensions. The authors, two teacher educators in the program, interrogate their own practices in an attempt to denaturalize and historicize discourses available in the program and in current conditions of internationalization of higher education. The study illuminates the symbiotic relationship that develops between the discourses circulating in an educational setting and the internally persuasive discourses/identities that are available for uptake in this setting. The authors conclude that cer...
As we scan the surface of the global “eduscape”, we recognise diverse educational markers, signpo... more As we scan the surface of the global “eduscape”, we recognise diverse educational markers, signposts, prevailing movements and eruptions, and our attention is caught by the formation and development of phenomena called International Education. In this paper, we are attempting to locate ourselves in this educational landscape, while simultaneously understanding and assessing the practices and praxis of International Education. We are four educators working in the post-secondary system: we have been colleagues and friends through graduate study, and beyond. Even as our friendships have been forged through compatible interests and worldviews, more recently we have come together as a team (coordinator, instructors, mentors and sounding boards) for a Master of Education program that falls under the umbrella of International Education in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University (SFU). This paper presents our reflections as we navigate the complex practices of this program and, ...
TESL Canada Journal, 2013
Culture is widely acknowledged to play an important part in second-language education. This artic... more Culture is widely acknowledged to play an important part in second-language education. This article advances a view of culture as a site of identification and introduces the notion of cultural tool normalization (CTN) to conceptualize cul- tural reproduction as one aspect of the multifaceted processes of identification with culture. It draws on an account of some of the author’s experiences as an adult immigrant to Canada and on data from a larger study on adult ESL stu- dents’ engagements with unfamiliar cultural discourses to illustrate these con- cepts. The article maintains that viewing culture as a site of identification and examining CTN help us to gain a more nuanced understanding of students’ complicated engagements with the cultural discourses that they encounter. Such nuanced understandings should guide us in our pedagogical practices in adult ESL classrooms.Le rôle important que joue la culture dans l’éducation en langue seconde est large- ment reconnu. Cet article prop...
Higher Education, 2014
This article engages with the question: what does the internationalisation of higher education in... more This article engages with the question: what does the internationalisation of higher education in times of globalisation sustain and what should it sustain? We first consider, through literature on globalisation and Stier's (Glob Soc Educ 2(1):1-28, 2004) work, limitations of currently prevalent perspectives on internationalisation in economic terms. We then offer a brief review of how sustainability is understood in higher education and articulate our own notion of educational sustainability. We flesh it out in reference to data reflecting ideas and activities constitutive of daily practices of internationalisation in one faculty of education. We contend that our sustainability frame of reference can expand opportunities to think critically about internationalisation and, more importantly, offers opportunities to see internationalisation in its complexity, and to re-think and reorder practices that are not in alignment with educational goals and values.
Journal of Educational Change, 2007
This study investigated the relationship between education policy changes and the working conditi... more This study investigated the relationship between education policy changes and the working conditions of teachers and school leaders in Vancouver, Canada. We found that policy does shape educators' discourse about their work conditions. This shaping manifested itself in the emotions teachers experience as they attempt to construct their identity as professional educators. Apparent contradictions emerged in educators' discussions of their work conditions, particularly their contrasting reports of feeling satisfied with their working environment, yet concerned about issues related to workload and recognition. Two different discourses, the political and the professional, emerged at a deep level of practice. These discourses express conflicting emotions about teaching and teachers' identity struggles in a context of rapid policy changes. The political discourse is framed around a partisan response to policy changes. The professional discourse focuses on engagement in satisfying educational activities. This study proffers a different conclusion to other studies implying a lack of understanding of practice by policy reformers. It suggests that, while teachers are very aware of policy changes, frequently engaging in a partisan critique thereof, they nevertheless temper that critique with a professional discourse shaped by pedagogical concerns in the local context. This concern with the classroom context enables them to focus their energies on constructing their sense of professional identity that frequently leads them to reinterpret policy initiatives from a local educator's perspective. While the political discourse has trappings of despair, the professional-pedagogical contains glimpses of hope. Keywords Policy change Á Professional lives Á Work conditions/concerns Á Educators' emotions Á Educators' discourses We wish to express our appreciation of the work of Barbara Waldern in the analysis that supports the findings about the professional lives of educators.
Language Teacher Education for a Global Society: A Modular Model for Knowing, Analyzing, Recognizing, Doing, and Seeing (review)
The Canadian Modern Language Review / La revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 2012
ABSTRACT Kumaravadivelu’s book, Language Teacher Education for a Global Society, is a call for ra... more ABSTRACT Kumaravadivelu’s book, Language Teacher Education for a Global Society, is a call for radical restructuring of language teacher education to incorporate process-based multidirectional cyclical modules aimed at preparing teachers to be ‘strategic thinkers, exploratory researchers and transformative intellectuals’ (p. x). These are the qualities that the author argues language teachers need to develop and continually hone to shoulder the responsibilities that ever-evolving globalized societies place upon them. The book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1, ‘(Re)visioning language teacher education,’ discusses five inter-connected theoretical perspectives that Kumaravadivelu argues should guide teacher preparation in a world characterized by global economic trends and cultural flows, ever-increasing people mobility, and shifting identities. Postnational, postmodern, and postcolonial perspectives theorize the broad political, historical, sociocultural, and socio-economic contexts within which languages are taught, learned, and used. These contexts demand that language education and teacher preparation embrace post-transmission and post-method perspectives in instructional activities. All these perspectives could be operationalized through the principles of particularity, practicality, and possibility that are needed to underpin language-teacher education. The purpose of viable teacher education programs is to help teachers develop a holistic understanding of classrooms, learners, and teaching, which could be accomplished through the integration of modules functioning as a whole. The modules Kumaravadivelu proposes are: ‘Knowing,’ ‘Analyzing,’ ‘Recognizing,’ ‘Doing,’ and ‘Seeing.’ Chapter 2 explains Kumaravadivelu’s module, ‘Knowing,’ by emphasizing the need to focus on knowing as a process, rather than focusing on a body of knowledge. According to the author, teachers need to develop professional knowledge (i.e., knowledge about language, teaching, and learning) as well as procedural knowledge (i.e., effectively managing language learning in classrooms) and personal knowledge, which refers to developing an understanding of what is possible and plausible in a particular local educational context. The following chapter addresses the second module, ‘Analyzing,’ which calls for teachers to develop knowledge and skills to make sense of learners’ needs, motivations, and autonomy in times of globalization. Kumaravadivelu argues for the promotion of ‘liberatory autonomy’ (p. 49), which would entail assisting learners in developing strategies of empowerment in investigating and thinking critically about the role of language in society, its representations, the ‘Internatization of communication’ (p. 49), and the learners’ place in the world they live in. In chapter 4, the module ‘Recognizing’ focuses on the need for teachers, who are moral agents, to recognize the identities, beliefs, and value systems that they bring into the classroom as these form their ‘teaching Self’ (p. 55). The next module, ‘Doing,’ outlines the importance of doing if one is to be an effective language teacher and transformative intellectual. Doing entails teaching (conceptualized as maximizing learning opportunities and mentoring personal transformation), theorizing (i.e., deriving a personal theory of practice through classroombased inquiry), and dialogizing (‘having conversations with Self, with texts, and with others on matters related to learning, teaching and theorizing’ p. 94). All aspects of doing are interrelated and comprise a cycle of ever-evolving formation and transformation. The final module in the model, ‘Seeing,’ discussed in chapter 6, requires that classroom activities be viewed through the various perspectives that learners, teachers, and observers bring to and develop from their classroom experience. The author distinguishes between ‘seeing-in’ (superficial looking), ‘seeing-as’ (identifying similarities and differences between past and new experiences and actions), and ‘seeing-that’ (critical application of knowledge) and argues for the need to engage in ‘seeing-that’ forms of observation (p. 100). The last chapter in the book offers a summary of the modular model. The significance of the model is its aim to encompass a dynamic network of modules that interact with each other in complex ways, allow for multiple entry and exit points, and have the potential to address language teacher education in its multidimensionality within a globalizing world. The model draws on a perspective in approaching organizations called ‘design thinking’ (p. 126), which assumes that all individuals can be change agents and incorporates tangible problem solving and abstract thinking. The author’s writing style is clear and easy to follow. Kumaravadivelu traces major developments in many of the topics...
Conceptualizing English-dominant language contexts within the internationalization of higher education in dialogue with Dafouz and Smit
Pedagogies in the Act: Movements of Teacher-Becomings in Second Language Education
The Canadian Modern Language Review
L’article est axé sur les étudiants étrangers dans les universités canadiennes qui cherchent de l... more L’article est axé sur les étudiants étrangers dans les universités canadiennes qui cherchent de la formation en études supérieures pour l’enseignement de l’anglais et sur les pédagogies qu’ils produisent dans les contextes relationnels qu’ils naviguent. L’article est animé par des intensités et des assemblages humains, non-humains et matériels-discursifs qui explorent de nouvelles compréhensions des devenirs d’une cohorte d’étudiants diplômés dans une université canadienne, enseignants potentiels de l’anglais, d’une perspective de nouveau matérialisme. Les vignettes de données avec deux étudiants dans le programme d’études supérieures articulent l’enchevêtrement de leurs pratiques pédagogiques et leurs relations comme action sont exploitées comme des pédagogies dans les faits. Ce concept fait l’objet d’une discussion comme extension du processus de Manning et Massumi de réflexion dans les faits et comme expressions de pédagogie et d’action émergeant de mouvements de corps dans l’esp...
CLIL Collaborations in Higher Education: A Critical Perspective
English Teaching & Learning
“Doing” Internationalization
SFU Educational Review
In the context of an increasing commodification of education in a neoliberal academy, this paper ... more In the context of an increasing commodification of education in a neoliberal academy, this paper explores the usefulness of frameworks for principled internationalization of higher education. We review recent theoretical analyses of ideologies and orientations of higher education internationalization as well as suggested approaches for principled and ethical internationalization as important signposts in that regard. We discuss data on the everyday experiences of internationalization of faculty, students and staff in one Faculty in Canada in light of these perspectives and propose guidelines that could influence internationalization practices in a more ethical and principled direction.
Institutional Roles and Identity Construction of Applied Linguistics Faculty Involved in Interdisciplinary Collaborations for Multilingual Student Success
TESL Canada Journal
This article analyzes the academic identity constructions of applied linguists in the context of ... more This article analyzes the academic identity constructions of applied linguists in the context of interdisciplinary collaborations as they seek to integrate language and content at the curricular core of an increasingly multilingual and multicultural university in Western Canada. The study draws on transcripts of audiotaped monthly meetings, framed as a professional learning community, where participants shared and discussed existing literature on interdisciplinary collaborations in support of multilingual student success, as well as their experiences with collaboration in the institution. In this qualitative study, data were analyzed thematically, and the themes that emerged suggest complex connections between institutional roles and professional identities with the changing roles of the participants in the institution interacting with the construction of their academic identities. Overall, we conceptualize these applied linguists as cross-boundary academics who perform translationa...
Agency in the making: Experiences of international graduates of a TESOL program
System
Becoming the “Good Teacher”
Diversifying the Teaching Force in Transnational Contexts, 2016
Betwixt and between
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 2015
The success of Canada’s immigration policy is intrinsically tied to employment of an immigrant wo... more The success of Canada’s immigration policy is intrinsically tied to employment of an immigrant workforce. Teaching is the fourth largest profession among Canadian immigrants, yet immigrants whose occupations are in education are three times less likely to be employed in their matching profession. Failure to incorporate an immigrant workforce not only affects economic success, but has repercussions for immigrant professional identity. This paper reflects on the development of professional identity for twelve internationally educated immigrant teachers (IETs) seeking to reposition themselves as teachers in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. Through qualitative interviews and Life Positioning Analysis (Martin, 2013), this research explored the role of significant others in facilitating or impeding IETs’ inclusion into the teaching force and subsequent effects on professional identity development. Language and linguistic abilities emerged as a pervasive theme. Parti...
A story of texts, culture(s), cultural tool normalization, and adult ESL learning and teaching
Conceptualizations of culture, culture teaching, and culture exploration in second language education
Critiques de livres
Journal of International Migration and Integration Revue De L Integration Et De La Migration Internationale, 2006
EAL in Public Schools in British Columbia
International Journal of Bias, Identity and Diversities in Education, 2016
This article analyzes through the lens of Nancy Fraser's (2008) multidimensional social justi... more This article analyzes through the lens of Nancy Fraser's (2008) multidimensional social justice model policies and practices currently guiding English as an additional language (EAL) education in public schools in British Columbia, Canada on the basis of research published in the last decade or so. It highlights directions which Fraser's model guides us to explore in further depth in order to attend more adequately to the diverse linguistic, cultural, and integration needs of EAL students in the Metro Vancouver area. A continuous search for theoretical lenses allowing for more fine-grained analyses of challenges in educating diverse students would equip policy makers and practitioners alike with refined tools to engage more meaningfully with the complexities of diversities in the local contexts within which they work.
Exploring Culture in Texts Designed for Use in Adult ESL Classrooms
TESL Canada Journal, 2000
This article examines the presentation of culture in texts designed for adult learners of English... more This article examines the presentation of culture in texts designed for adult learners of English as a second language in Canada. Guiding the analysis is a view of culture as a process of making sense of the world and a site of struggles of people with multiple and shifting identities over meaning and representation. The article discusses the role of texts as culture bearers in second language classrooms. It also addresses aspects of the method of critical discourse analysis, which is employed to tackle the following questions: What is considered cultural knowledge in the selected texts? Whose views of culture are presented in the texts? Do these texts allow students to explore and negotiate their own cultural experiences in the new Canadian environment? The article concludes that in the selected texts culture is constructed as a national attribute consisting of sets of stable values and behavior patterns, a construction that ignores the conflicts and fluidity of cultural forms that...
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Papers by Roumiana ilieva