Abstract Summary
This symposium explores the practices & effects of in-service tertiary foreign language(FL) Teacher professional development(PD) programmes. It invites qualitative / quantitative studies that analyze and evaluate either off-line or on-line tertiary FL teacher PD programmes aiming to enhance the teaching or research competence of teachers.
Abstract :
This study investigated the mechanism of sustaining an inter-departmental foreign language teacher community in higher education in the Chinese context. Field observation, research journals, interview, email and WeChat exchange records were adopted with 13 less-commonly-taught language teachers, three core leading members at a Chinese university. Using the constant comparative method for analysis, the study revealed the two kinds of pull-push mechanism (i.e. policy-based and task-based) of sustaining the community, why such mechanism was needed and effective and how such mechanism worked. The study concludes with some implications for developing and sustaining teacher communities in localized context and points out directions for continuing research.
