Journal Articles by Bradley Baurain
RELC Journal, 2020
For most of its history, the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) has... more For most of its history, the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) has focussed much of its attention on teaching methods and curricula to the exclusion of the person who must deliver them. In this article we propose that TESOL recognize the inner lives of teachers through understanding their spirituality from the perspective of the teacher's personal and professional being and becoming. We encourage teachers to reflect on the spiritual dimensions of practice and propose how these might interface with standard disciplinary knowledge to produce more integrated language teachers.
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TESL-EJ, 2013
The purpose of this narrative inquiry is to explore stories of teacher development experienced by... more The purpose of this narrative inquiry is to explore stories of teacher development experienced by English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in a graduate seminar in Vietnam. The author was the instructor for the course, entitled Literature and Language Teaching. Three types of data were collected: course documents, a professional diary kept by the author, and student portfolios, including diary entries, writing assignments, lesson plans, and group projects. Within a narrative framework, this study reveals the authoring processes underlying professional development in lived experience. Specifically, three narratives are (re)constructed around the theme of expectations— a collective seminar participants’ story about overturned expectations, an individual participant’s story about revived expectations, and a curricular story about fused personal and professional expectations. Teacher development is thus perceived not as a linear process of skill-building, but rather as a multidimensional process of narrative construction that problematizes boundaries between the personal and the professional and emerges as a story of coming to understand experience in ways that promote teacher praxis.
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Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 11, pp. 312-332, 2012
In the field of teacher knowledge, “beliefs” is a large term narrowly constructed. The beliefs th... more In the field of teacher knowledge, “beliefs” is a large term narrowly constructed. The beliefs theorized, researched, and discussed are beliefs about technique, methodology, curriculum, classroom management, professional development, and similarly. Spiritual and religious beliefs are for the most part omitted. This study argues that they should be included, especially because they already fit the area of inquiry the field has defined for itself. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative questionnaire study is to explore how Christian ESOL teachers perceive and describe putting their personal religious beliefs into practice in their professional lives. This study found that as a result of their religious beliefs, respondents believed they should (a) act in a loving or charitable manner toward their students; (b) respect all students as intrinsically valuable human beings; (c) teach in student-centered ways; and (d) witness to their Christian faith. Participants’ responses illuminate the interrelationships and interactions among personal and professional beliefs in the formation of teacher knowledge.
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Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 27.3, pp. 89-101, 2011
Authentic listening understands the importance of contexts, relationships, and silence. The purpo... more Authentic listening understands the importance of contexts, relationships, and silence. The purpose of this essay is to explore speaking silences and silent silences and to frame these understandings in terms of classroom pedagogy. Speaking silences are meaningful and generative. They create space for listening to others and should themselves be listened to, as testified to within various traditions of spirituality. Silent silences, however, suggest withdrawing or withholding. These might be chosen or unchosen expressions of dominance or resistance, depending on the situation. Acknowledging both risks and rewards, teachers are called to cultivate silence in their personal and professional lives and spaces.
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Education and Culture, 27.2, pp. 74-91, 2011
In A Common Faith, Dewey rejects organized religion and belief in the supernatural, instead argui... more In A Common Faith, Dewey rejects organized religion and belief in the supernatural, instead arguing for an authentically “religious” attitude which this interpretive essay analyzes in terms of four propositions: (1) Knowledge is unified. (2) Knowledge is democratic. (3) The pursuit of moral ideals requires moral faith. (4) The authority for moral ideals is experience as explored via inquiry. The author responds from the perspective of his own religious faith and outlines conceptual relationships with modern spirituality in education writers. The common ground is that the “religious” must be seen as a significant way of being and becoming in education.
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International Journal of Listening, 25, pp. 161-177, 2011
Listening pedagogy in language education treats listening proficiency almost exclusively as a fun... more Listening pedagogy in language education treats listening proficiency almost exclusively as a function or skill, the purpose of which is to generate products or outcomes desired by language users. Though listening is rhetorically acknowledged to be an active and complex process of making meanings within contexts and relationships, in practice teacher education and pedagogical discourse treat listening simply as a linguistic transaction and listening pedagogy as a technical and instrumental process of skill building, with the goal of enabling learners fluently to perform such transactions. Such a means-to-ends orientation, however, is inadequate or insufficient to encompass holistic moral and relational dimensions inherent in listening.These dimensions might be added to language listening pedagogy by, for example, broadening the idea of “dialogue” to include more open-ended perspectives from other disciplines, contextualizing the relationality of typical coursebook listening passages, and working with metaphors such as hospitality that encourage a high attentiveness to communication accompanied by a high moral respect for persons.
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TESOL Journal, 1, pp. 159-175, 2010
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Journal of Aesthetic Education, 44.2, pp. 50-62, 2010
Soccer fans will not be surprised that understanding "the beautiful game" can contribute to under... more Soccer fans will not be surprised that understanding "the beautiful game" can contribute to understandings of teaching and learning. After all, at least one theorist sees "the nature of all social life" to be reflected in soccer: "The unfolding match between team-mates and opponents [illustrates] ⦠the interdependency of human beings, and the 'flexible lattice-work of tensions' generated through their social bonds. Power flows fluidly between players, jockeying for possession and moving between attack and defence." Another finds striking parallels between cultural history and tactics of play in soccer, including a "modernist" period emphasizing cautious ball control and defense-oriented player formations, and the current "postmodern" style emphasizing creativity and fluidity; he even identifies the history of the free kick as a microcosm of the whole.
The idea I explore in this essay is in a sense simply an extended analogy: A well-played soccer game has much in common with a well-taught lesson or course.
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Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 6, pp. 201-219, 2007
Respect for persons has been widely acknowledged and discussed as a key moral dimension in educat... more Respect for persons has been widely acknowledged and discussed as a key moral dimension in education and teaching English to speakers of other languages. Christians believe in this value, particularly as it is articulated within scripture and tradition. Recent critics, however, seem to perceive a basic incompatibility between a Christian religious imperative to bear witness to one’s faith and a moral imperative to respect other persons. Beginning from an argument that all teaching is teaching for change, this essay makes a case that the two are not only not contradictory, but in fact should be consanguineous. Key issues explored include what it means to believe in absolute truths, why such belief paradoxically requires humility, and the moral/interpersonal conditions for witnessing and conversion.
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ELT Journal, 61, pp. 237-245, 2007
Faced with the challenge of teaching American literature to large, multilevel classes in Vietnam,... more Faced with the challenge of teaching American literature to large, multilevel classes in Vietnam, the writer developed a flexible small group framework called ‘multitasking’. ‘Multitasking’ sets up stable task categories which rotate among small groups from lesson to lesson. This framework enabled students to work cooperatively in a variety of formats and the teacher to generate a wide range of materials and activities efficiently. It also spurred students to develop more independent learning skills and the teacher to experiment more freely with new techniques. In a narrative and reflective format, in terms both of what he expected and what he experienced, the writer presents the structure, goals, problems, and benefits of this approach.
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Book Chapters by Bradley Baurain
Thinking Theologically about Language Teaching, 2017
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Christian Faith and English Language Teaching and Learning: Research on the Interrelationship of Religion and ELT. Ed. Mary Shepard Wong, Carolyn Kristjánsson, & Zoltán Dörnyei., 2013
This qualitative and instrumental case study explores how volunteer Christian ESOL tutors describ... more This qualitative and instrumental case study explores how volunteer Christian ESOL tutors describe putting their religious beliefs into practice in a church-run adult ESOL ministry. Data was gathered by means of teacher interviews and classroom observations. Theory and research from community ESOL, spirituality in education, and Christian scholarship in language education help provide a background against which the study’s data is analyzed and interpreted. Emergent findings include relationality and empathy, Christian love and care, practical service, and learner-centeredness as professional values or priorities which participants connected with their religious beliefs. Additional issues discussed include proselytizing or witnessing and the non-exclusive nature of the findings.
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Voices, Identities, Negotiations, and Conflicts: Writing Academic English Across Cultures. Ed. Phan Le Ha & Bradley Baurain., 2011
The purpose of this essay is to interrogate the concept of plagiarism, particularly from within t... more The purpose of this essay is to interrogate the concept of plagiarism, particularly from within the field of TESOL and from a moral and cross-cultural vantage point. Putting the spotlight on how plagiarism in academic writing is perceived and responded to, especially when the plagiarists are international students, reveals an intricately interwoven and multilayered fabric of moral issues. While much of my onion-peeling is deconstructive in that prevailing currents of thought are challenged, my overarching purpose is to work towards a more constructive, tentative shift in the frame of reference from within which plagiarism is understood and addressed.
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Books by Bradley Baurain
ISBN 1-4438-8262-3
The field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) stands a... more ISBN 1-4438-8262-3
The field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) stands at an active crossroads – issues of language, culture, learning, identity, morality, and spirituality mix daily in classrooms around the world. What roles might teachers’ personal religious beliefs play in their professional activities and contexts?
Until recently, such questions had been largely excluded from academic conversations in TESOL. Yet the qualitative research at the core of this book, framed and presented within a teacher knowledge paradigm, demonstrates that personal faith and professional identities and practices can, and do, interact and interrelate in ways that are both meaningful and problematic. This study’s Christian TESOL teacher participants, working overseas in Southeast Asia, perceived, explained, and interpreted a variety of such connections within their lived experience.
As a result, the beliefs-practices nexus deserves to be further theorized, researched, and discussed. Religious beliefs and human spirituality, as foundational and enduring aspects of human thought and culture, and thus of teaching and learning, deserve a place at the TESOL table.
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Shorter Articles by Bradley Baurain
ChinaSource Quarterly, 2018
This article is part of a special issue on "Teaching in China" (that is, foreign teachers in China).
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CELEA Newsletter 2.2, pages 3-8, 2010
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ESL Magazine 48, pages 12-15, 2005
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Teacher's Edition 3, pages 22-26, 2000
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Journal Articles by Bradley Baurain
The idea I explore in this essay is in a sense simply an extended analogy: A well-played soccer game has much in common with a well-taught lesson or course.
Book Chapters by Bradley Baurain
Books by Bradley Baurain
The field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) stands at an active crossroads – issues of language, culture, learning, identity, morality, and spirituality mix daily in classrooms around the world. What roles might teachers’ personal religious beliefs play in their professional activities and contexts?
Until recently, such questions had been largely excluded from academic conversations in TESOL. Yet the qualitative research at the core of this book, framed and presented within a teacher knowledge paradigm, demonstrates that personal faith and professional identities and practices can, and do, interact and interrelate in ways that are both meaningful and problematic. This study’s Christian TESOL teacher participants, working overseas in Southeast Asia, perceived, explained, and interpreted a variety of such connections within their lived experience.
As a result, the beliefs-practices nexus deserves to be further theorized, researched, and discussed. Religious beliefs and human spirituality, as foundational and enduring aspects of human thought and culture, and thus of teaching and learning, deserve a place at the TESOL table.
Shorter Articles by Bradley Baurain
The idea I explore in this essay is in a sense simply an extended analogy: A well-played soccer game has much in common with a well-taught lesson or course.
The field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) stands at an active crossroads – issues of language, culture, learning, identity, morality, and spirituality mix daily in classrooms around the world. What roles might teachers’ personal religious beliefs play in their professional activities and contexts?
Until recently, such questions had been largely excluded from academic conversations in TESOL. Yet the qualitative research at the core of this book, framed and presented within a teacher knowledge paradigm, demonstrates that personal faith and professional identities and practices can, and do, interact and interrelate in ways that are both meaningful and problematic. This study’s Christian TESOL teacher participants, working overseas in Southeast Asia, perceived, explained, and interpreted a variety of such connections within their lived experience.
As a result, the beliefs-practices nexus deserves to be further theorized, researched, and discussed. Religious beliefs and human spirituality, as foundational and enduring aspects of human thought and culture, and thus of teaching and learning, deserve a place at the TESOL table.