Projects in the Field of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (Prof. Dr. Ivo Steininger)
Project Description
Based on the question of how teachers in the second phase of English teacher training perceive their own professionalization process and how their development can be described, a group of teachers in preparatory service was scientifically accompanied over the entire period of the second training phase.
Project Details
Designed as a longitudinal panel analysis, the study employs qualitative content analysis methods to examine aspects of development and professionalization of eight in-service teacher trainees. The qualitative data (narrative and retrospective interviews, written lesson plans, written reflections on practice) were collected at key points in time (beginning, middle, career entry) and related to reflection processes in the context of planning, implementing and evaluating lessons based on the insights into the perceived development aspects.
By comparing the data sets with and among each other, development aspects and reflection processes can be structured and systematized, providing new insights into the two-phase training structure of English language teachers.
Project Description
The project focuses on explorative research into the reading processes and sense-making of lower-intermediate learners of English. In the quasi-experimental study, learners in grades 5-8 are observed reading an authentic English picture book in groups of three.
Project Details
Employing introspective methods, participants are asked to verbalize what they understand and how they establish this understanding by relating the verbal and visual codes. Following this, they take part in an interview focussing on the relation of verbal and pictorial codes, story constituents as well as the substance of content, and the ambiguity and indeterminacy of symbolic representations respectively.
As a follow-up to the quasi-experimental setting, teachers of learner groups in Year 7 design lessons based on the key aspects identified in the interviews at three different levels of difficulty. As data sets, we collect both the teachers’ reflections for (planning) and on (evaluation) action as well as learner products (multimodal texts). To incorporate the learners’ perspectives, retrospective qualitative interviews are conducted with groups of learners from each participating learner group.