Maryland TESOL Fall Conference 2016
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Saturday, November 12, 2016, 8:00-3:30 PM
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Paula Golombek
ESOL Teacher Emotions as Catalysts for Professional Growth
Teaching has been characterized as an “emotional practice” (Hargeaves, 2000, p. 2012), a characterization that most language teachers can recognize in their own interactions with students. Research, largely in general education, has focused on teachers’ interactional work as managers of students’ emotions, as well as their own. Recent research has elaborated how emotion can act as a catalyst in teacher learning (Golombek & Johnson, 2004; Johnson & Golombek, 2013; Golombek & Doran, 2014; Johnson & Worden, 2014). By identifying emotional dissonance in their teaching and what those emotions may be pointing to, ESOL teachers can productively manage tensions in their teaching, develop their agency, and enhance their own professional development.
This presentation empirically documents, grounded in a Vygotskian sociocultural theoretical stance, the pervasive emotional content in the self-inquiry discourse of both beginner and expert English language teachers. During the presentation, various dialogic tools (written and spoken) will be described that teachers can use to talk about their teaching in both planned and spontaneous ways, thereby expressing any emotions they are feeling about their teaching. I will then show how teachers can identify contradictions between what they are feeling and thinking about their teaching, as well as what they are doing in their classrooms. By exploring these growth points through critical reflection and dialogue with self or others, teachers can develop strategies and instructional practices to help manage their emotions and the associated instructional concern. In the process, teachers may, at a minimum, feel better about their teaching; to a greater extent, they may take agency in their own learning, transforming themselves and their practices in their classrooms.
Keynote Speaker Profile
Dr. Paula Golombek is Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Florida, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses, including pedagogical grammar, American English phonetics and discourse, and genre based approaches in English language teaching. She helped to develop and supervises the Undergraduate Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language at UF. One of her primary responsibilities in the program is to mentor novice teachers in their teaching internship—the context in which she tries to apply Vygotskian sociocultural theory to L2 teacher development, as well as research teacher cognition through this theory.
Dr. Golombek’s most recent book, co-authored with Dr. Karen E. Johnson and entitled Mindful L2 Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Cultivating Teachers’ Professional Development, came out in March of 2016. She has co-edited two books with Dr. Johnson as well: Teachers’ Narrative Inquiry as Professional Development and Research on Second Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Professional Development. Dr. Golombek has published numerous articles on L2 teacher development in TESOL Quarterly, Modern Language Journal, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, and Teaching and Teacher Education. She has a long-standing commitment to language teacher development in Colombia and Mexico, and to making teachers’ voices public by serving on the scientific committee of the Colombian journal Profile. Her most recent work continues to explore Vygotskian sociocultural theory, by focusing on responsive mediation in language teacher education, the functional role of novice teachers’ emotions, as well as teacher educator’s emotions, in professional development, and the development of L2 teacher identity in/through their teaching activity.