Multilingual classrooms: opportunities and challenges for English medium instruction in low and middle income contexts

This report is the product of a research collaboration between Education Development Trust, the British Council and The Open University. Its starting point was to consider the complex field of English Medium Instruction (EMI) policies in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Its purpose is to provide insight and support to those responsible for setting policy or enacting it in complex language environments around the world. The work recognises the importance given to English language by governments in the future development of intellectual and economic capital, and to accessing opportunity in an increasingly global world. It also recognises and respects the strong argument calling for education and learning to be conducted in a language spoken by learners and teachers. Navigating these two influences can appear impossible at times as they can be unhelpfully positioned as opposites. This research study set out to do two things: • Look at the global literature and draw on the lessons from existing research. • Focus on illustrating the operational enactment and levels of understanding of EMI polices in schools in two primary school contexts – Ghana and Bihar, India. These very different contexts provide valuable lessons that will help policy makers, educators, teacher trainers and schools to navigate the complexities of multilingual EMI environments

An exploratory study of translanguaging practices in an online beginners' foreign language classroom

Translanguaging, the movement between communicative modes and features of different languages, is becoming an established research tradition in content-focused second language learning contexts. Pedagogic translanguaging practices nevertheless remain under-applied and under-researched in foreign language instructional settings, whether face-to-face or online. Synchronous virtual foreign language classrooms represent particularly rich spaces in which to begin to explore such practices, due to their multimodal affordances on the one hand and their technical constraints on the other. This study examines the pedagogic translanguaging practices that occur in a corpus of beginner-level Spanish online group tutorial data. A macro-level analysis of the interactional patterns that occur within this context reveals that both teacher participants follow closely the pedagogic prescriptions provided by the course designers with regard to the activities they employ. The finding that these activities offer limited opportunities for students to move between communicative modes and languages may be attributed in part to the emphasis on spoken interaction in this particular setting. A complementary micro-level analysis nevertheless reveals a more autonomous and intuitive approach to the teachers' choice of language when mediating such activities. Instances of student code-switching are relatively few, however. The study concludes with a call to course designers and practitioners to experiment with integrating a wide range of pedagogic translanguaging opportunities into online foreign language classroom activities, with a view to enhancing teaching, learning and communication in such environments

Moving towards more participatory practice with Open Educational Resources: TESS-India Academic Review

The purpose of this academic review of TESS-India activity in three states (Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha) was to seek evidence for change brought about by TESS-India in teacher education in each of these states. The findings offer informed guidance on future trajectories for TESS-India activity and support discussions with key stakeholders in each of these states. The overarching goal of TESS-India is to support delivery of quality pedagogic change in teacher education and school classrooms. TESS-India activity is designed to meet identified professional development needs of teachers and teacher educators in each state. Thus it takes a slightly different form in each state, appropriate to local priorities and conditions. The Review focus was similarly differentiated in each state to align to TESS-India activity in that state. The review field work was carried out by academics from the Open University UK and the Head Academic, TESS-India Country Office, between 30 January and 4 February 2017. It adopted an essentially qualitative approach to understand educators’ (trainee teachers, teachers, local teacher educators and DIET faculty) experiences with the TESS-India resources and the influence of this engagement on their pedagogic practice. Data was generated from multiple sources including analysis of key documentation, semi-structured interviews with teachers, teacher educators and policy makers, and classroom observation. Teachers, teacher educators and SRG members were sampled at different locations within each state. The focus of TESS-India activity to date has been to strengthen the existing government (state) educational system at the elementary stage - SCERT, SSA, DIETS, DEO, DPC (SSA), BEO, BRP, BRC, CRCC, HT, Teacher, Child – in alignment with national policies, frameworks and the RTE Act. The project aims at supplementing and complementing GoI and State specific efforts and activities. Although TESS-India has produced original Open Educational Resources (OER) to support educators working in the secondary stage, as yet there is very little evidence of sustained TESS-India activity with this phase of schooling or with the TESS-India School Leader OER. The review findings are therefore focussed on activity at the elementary stage and are reported at different levels of the system in line with the TESS-India theory of change. The report found that use of TESS-India OER is contributing to quality change in classrooms with students and trainee teachers. • SRG members met by the review team were using the TESS-India OER and described how this use was prompting them to experiment with more interactive and participatory practices. • Teachers observed and / or interviewed by the review team were drawing on TESS-India OER to inform their lesson planning and subsequent teaching. Evidence seen by the review team (learning journals and learning plans) indicates that the practices being developed by these teachers are shared by other teachers in the cohort of teachers participating in TESS-India focus district activity. However the innovation in practice and transformation in pedagogy promised by TESS-India OER is still in the early stages and the evidence is highly emergent. But, critically, through engagement with the MOOC and other TESS-India learning resources, policy makers and lead teacher educators (for example SCERT Directors) are changing their thinking about teacher professional development, moving away from cascade models to a focus on continuous professional development and learning of teachers in their classrooms with support from teacher educators/ experts, either virtually or face-to face

TESS-India: An approach to supporting teacher development and improving classroom practice

TESS-India was a multi-award winning initiative that aims to strengthen and transform professional development and classroom practice in India. The programme provides an innovative, practical and scalable approach to pre- and in-service teacher education, with an emphasis on inclusive, participatory child-centred pedagogy. This report is intend to function as a Legacy Document that summarises key aspects of the approach, activities and accomplishments

Digital Badges for TPD at scale in the Global South: a framework for implementation and field study in Assam, India

Over the last three years, the Digital Badges for Teacher Professional Development (TPD) in India project has conducted pilots, field trials and academic research with the aim of understanding more about the role for digital badges in delivering effective and measurable change in classroom teaching practice at scale. The report outlines the context of the present field study, discusses the approach taken by the team, presents early research findings, and proposes a three-stage framework for thinking about how digital badges could be used for TPD at scale. Open digital badges are now becoming globally recognised as a means for structuring, acknowledging, rewarding and monitoring professional learning. However, there remain many important, yet unanswered questions about their role in TPD in India, and more broadly, across the Global South. Furthermore, while in such contexts resources may be more limited, the scale, geography and conceptual challenges associated with supporting and improving TPD can be much more significant. The project developed and delivered a field trial comprising three short Digital Badges in Assam, India with support of the state government. Teachers from over 220 schools, mostly unfamiliar with the concept of Digital Badges, successfully completed the TPD courses and badges. Teachers responded well: survey data shows 92% of teachers supported widespread use of digital badges in their state, 85.6% felt the badged courses would improve their job prospects. The project also hosted public events attended by over 200 teachers, teacher educators and national and state policy-makers and has received invitations to run a pilot in West Bengal and provided evidence to widen our influence to new projects

Teachers’ professional learning during and after Covid: A role for open digital badges

This report examines how open digital badges could support successful Teacher Professional Development (TPD) at scale. We present insight from two one-day events attended by practitioners and senior educational leaders in India and two pilot interventions that integrated digital badges into courses developed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. TPD gives teachers the opportunity to improve, adapt and innovate their classroom practice and never has it been more critical than in helping shape the educational and societal response to recent global disruptions. In many countries, such as India where our study is based, digital badges are little used in TPD, so this study makes an important contribution to understanding the perception and value attached to digital badges and in supporting discussions that frame emerging narratives and practice. A knowledge exchange partnership of academics from The Open University, UK (OU) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India (TISS) supported by GCRF funding has been instrumental in delivering the activities and findings discussed

The teaching and learning of lexical chunks in an online language classroom: a corpus-based study

The aim of this study is to establish what insights the tracking of both input and output might contribute to corpus-based analyses of the acquisition of chunks among instructed adult second language learners. The automated analysis of electronic corpora of natural language has played a major role in revealing the prevalence of conventionalised word sequences in human communication, thereby challenging predominant atomistic conceptualisations of linguistic processing. While the mastery of nativelike phraseology would appear to be central to second language acquisition, reports of instructed adult learners have commonly highlighted their deficiencies in employing multi-word sequences as compared to native speaker norms. A problem with such studies has been their product-orientated focus, the majority tending to conflate the attempts of multiple learners at a range of chunks, variously specified, at a single point in time, the absence of information as to their corresponding instructional input making it impossible to compare their performance against their levels of exposure to the formulas in question. What appears to be missing is an examination of patterns of acquisition among a set of learners in respect of the same chunk, in relation to input, and over time. The aim of this exploratory investigation is to attempt to fill this gap among existing studies of second language chunk acquisition in instructed learning contexts by providing a window on both the processes and products involved. Drawing on an especially-created 170 000 word longitudinal corpus composed of online classroom interaction, the study tracks the oral exposure to and use of a single internally complex word combination of 36 learners on an Open University beginners’ Spanish course. The study uncovers a multifaceted picture of classroom input and output in respect of the same sequence and reveals that, while there is a correlation between frequency of overall exposure and the learners’ propensity to attempt the chunk, this masks considerable variation in the form these attempts take for each individual over time. These findings underline the need to look beyond an amalgamated snapshot of learners’ use of chunks and consider individual differences in recalling and reproducing specific exemplars in relation to exposure to these sequences, while inviting further investigation into the factors that underpin such variation and continued enquiry into those aspects of input that might usefully contribute to this process

Utilising tablets and one-to-one coaching to create classroom videos for teacher development in India

This paper describes an initiative that was employed in preparing for the professional filming of the video element of TESS-India, an Open University-led, OER-based teacher development programme in India. In the absence of teachers who were familiar with the text-based resources that the videos were intended to complement, an intensive one-to-one coaching relationship was established between paired Indian teacher educators and teachers within four government schools over the two-week period before the filming took place. Rather than specifying in advance the content of the lessons to be filmed, the expectation was that this should reflect the natural point reached in the school syllabus, enhanced by the pedagogic principles underpinning the TESS-India programme as a whole. The coaching process included a joint review of the teacher’s evolving classroom practice, as captured by the teacher educator on a tablet during regular lesson observations. These tablet-based reflective sessions, which informed the teacher’s planning of the subsequent day’s lessons, continued until the day of filming. The resulting commentary-enhanced videos, which show English language and other subject teachers genuinely exploring the integration of new practices in their lessons, have proved both useful and inspiring to the many practitioners who have since viewed them

Combining methods to analyse the relationship between language and attainment among Open University students

National policies aimed at widening participation in higher education, together with financial pressures on universities and colleges to recruit internationally, have led to an increasingly diverse student population. However, the students at whom such policies tend to be aimed (often those from ethnic minorities) tend to achieve poorer results in UK universities both generally (Richardson, 2008) and specifically at the Open University (Richardson, 2009). This paper reports on a research project designed to investigate whether variations in students’ writing skills might be responsible for the attainment gap between White and ethnic minority students (Erling, 2009). Through this research, we aim to create a space where language and subject specialists collaborate to identify the type of language that is valued by assessors in a particular discipline and then to identify together to what extent students produce this language. The initial research process combined textual analysis with ethnographic investigation and was carried out by means of the MASUS procedure (Measuring the Academic Skills of University Students) (Bonnano and Jones 1997). The ethnographic dimension of the research involved the researchers familiarising themselves with course materials, attending tutorials, discussing texts with subject specialists and conducting interviews with students. The results of the textual analysis indicate that students’ use of language correlates with attainment. They also indicate that ethnic minority students are more likely to be deemed as needing academic writing support in producing the genres expected in the OU’s assignment criteria. The analysis generated detailed descriptions of the features of highly valued academic style. The ethnographic methods give insight into the complex range of factors that contribute to students’ success and feelings of belonging within the university as well as other (non-academic) interests and goals which students may have