Abstract:
This paper reports an investigation of the tensions between ideologies that inform the production of a localised listening coursebook series, and its enactment in an English as a foreign language classroom. Throughout the world, English is taught as skills for the global economy. English language teaching (ELT) coursebooks play a powerful role in this still-rising global pedagogic phenomenon - and represent an industry worth billions of dollars each year. The politics of the textbook have long been known to impose dominant ideologies (Apple, 1984; Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991), with selective decisions about the knowledge and content textbooks convey privileging certain socioeconomic groups (Luke, 1988). But there remains much to learn about the conflicts and compromises that arise during the production and use of textbooks. From the theory of the British sociologist Basil Bernstein (1990, 2000) it is known that processes of pedagogic recontextualisation create gaps where ideological forces come into play. Textbooks, as tangible artefacts of the curriculum, undergo a series of recontextualisations during production, uptake and use that create tensions amongst different stakeholders, who hold, often, contrasting ideological orientations.
As part of a larger sociological study investigating second language listening curriculum for Taiwanese university classrooms, I discuss social contingencies that impact on questions over what is to be taught, and how it is to be taught. Data were drawn from document analysis, observations, and interviews. Findings indicate the localisation of the coursebook to this particular context resulted in stronger framing of tasks to meet the demands of pedagogic traditions and formal assessment influenced by neoliberal values of measurability and accountability (Block, Gray, & Holborow, 2012). The ideological orientation of the publisher results in diminished opportunities for student interpretations - an orientation informed by the pedagogic practices of influential teachers in this context. Yet, observed classroom use of the coursebook reveals the work a teacher goes through to dismantle these moves, and increase student opportunities to interact and connect English language learning with the real world - a view that echoes the government policy of improving English levels to better communicate with the wider global community. Paradoxically, the classroom teacher's orientation is influenced by institutional feedback systems based on neoliberal values of measurability and accountability. I argue that the coursebook opens an arena of ideological conflict and compromise, as various stakeholders impose their own interpretations of English language teaching and learning, revealing contradictions within the neoliberal paradigm.
As part of a larger sociological study investigating second language listening curriculum for Taiwanese university classrooms, I discuss social contingencies that impact on questions over what is to be taught, and how it is to be taught. Data were drawn from document analysis, observations, and interviews. Findings indicate the localisation of the coursebook to this particular context resulted in stronger framing of tasks to meet the demands of pedagogic traditions and formal assessment influenced by neoliberal values of measurability and accountability (Block, Gray, & Holborow, 2012). The ideological orientation of the publisher results in diminished opportunities for student interpretations - an orientation informed by the pedagogic practices of influential teachers in this context. Yet, observed classroom use of the coursebook reveals the work a teacher goes through to dismantle these moves, and increase student opportunities to interact and connect English language learning with the real world - a view that echoes the government policy of improving English levels to better communicate with the wider global community. Paradoxically, the classroom teacher's orientation is influenced by institutional feedback systems based on neoliberal values of measurability and accountability. I argue that the coursebook opens an arena of ideological conflict and compromise, as various stakeholders impose their own interpretations of English language teaching and learning, revealing contradictions within the neoliberal paradigm.