work.
The teacher education design also needed to consider a prevailing general reluctance of teachers to introduce English into the preschool context which my survey has also demonstrated (→ chapter 3). Through offering the teacher education in situ the preschool teachers would be able to directly experience the potential of learning English with their groups of learners. This would support them to make valid judgements on the benefits of implementing English in their context. If it worked with their group of learners, it would qualify as a credible experience that could directly affect their attitude in a positive way and would contribute to their developing skills and knowledge while taking part in the teaching process.
A further benefit of organising the teacher education project in situ means that teachers are able to work with their group of children: their familiarity with the context supports teachers’ confidence to actively participate in the lessons in cooperation with the teacher educator. It has been repeatedly reported in teacher development studies that when teachers develop their English teaching competences with the groups of children, which they are familiar with they feel competent and safe: “From their experience (they) know what works in the classroom and what does not. Hence, they are much more ready to depart from rules and take responsibility for their own actions” (Tsui, 2003, p. 29) if they encounter new challenges. As the preschool teachers have already developed a rapport with their children and can rely on their authority and classroom management, they “are better able to respond to student needs and classroom events that require decisions and actions because they have well-established routines, which they can call upon to respond to a variety of unanticipated events” (p. 38). Consequently, it is expected that initial inhibitions to experiment with introducing a new language will be reduced and instead a non-threatening environment for them to teach in will be established (Van Avermaet et al., 2006, p. 195). Only recently, in summarizing the insights of her review on empirical research on effective primary English teacher education, Dausend noted that
it has become visible how important it is for learning to take place in meaningful settings, even for teacher students at university level. They need ample opportunities and situations to experience themselves, to communicate, to discuss, to reflect on ideas and practical experience with other teacher students. (Dausend, 2017, p. 122)
5.4.2 Teacher education organised as participatory action research
The questionnaire survey I conducted at the beginning of my research identified a distinct gap between teachers’ general interest to introduce an English programme in preschools and a widespread perception of contextual constraints that might impede its implementation (→ chapter 3). The most effective approach to overcome these constraints would be to bridge this gap by encouraging preschool teachers to become part of a collaborative investigation in the process of teaching English in which they would be directly involved and would play an active part. After more than a decade of experiences with participatory action research, this approach to introduce innovations in educational contexts has come to be seen as “a powerful form of staff development” (Burns, 1999, p. 15). The practice of investigating change processes collaboratively in shared contexts of work was expected to promote “self-reflective enquiry within the social situations” in question (Carr & Kremmis, 1986, p. 162). As all of the teachers of the sample preschool would be participating in the action research project the educational purpose could be aligned with the contextual needs.
It is a unique feature of this research project that my sampling did not consist of a group of student teachers who would focus on their professional development in teaching English, but it entailed instead pedagogically experienced preschool teachers who were initially reluctant and hesitant to introduce English into their context in the first place. As action research “is highly contextualized within the personal daily workplace and provides a way to open up, question, and investigate the realities of the teaching situation” (Burns, 2009, p. 116), it seemed to be a suitable approach to involve preschool teachers to develop their professional competence in the field of teaching English to the children: “It can take your thinking in new directions and can be modified flexibly as you progress, as there are no fixed ‘rules’ about how the research process should proceed or what the outcome should be” (p. 116). Moreover, a motivating factor to take part in action research as a team might result from this approach:
Perhaps the most important aspect … is that, if the 'vibes' are right (i.e., if the group dynamic is positive), working as a member of a team is much more motivating than working on our own. We are much more likely to follow through on the action research tasks we set ourselves if others are there to spur us on. (Wallace, 1998, p. 210)
The teacher education project would need to be perceived as relevant by participating preschool teachers so that they would become involved and remain motivated. To make this happen, they would need to experience that introducing English in their groups was doable and rewarding in the long run. Therefore, participatory action research was designed and carried out as a longitudinal case study that covered a period of two and half years. It was set in an inclusive, multilingual state preschool in Salzburg and involved the participation of the teacher educator and all the preschool teachers at the preschool whose experiences will be described in the case studies (→ chapter 7.2). It proved to be viable to carry out the research over this long period of time because it could take place within the established timetable without causing any disruptions to participating teachers’ routines. Experiences documented from other teacher development contexts which had subscribed to an approach of participatory action research confirmed that this important requirement for teachers to be willing to take part can be achieved (see for example the experiences of secondary English teachers in a longitudinal teacher development study conducted by Müller-Hartmann & Schocker, 2018a). They concluded that action research proved to be “low-scale in terms of size and interference in classroom processes” (p. 107).
The preschool teachers’ participation was not mandatory. The desired sustainability of the research as a longitudinal case study would depend on preschool teachers’ participation “viewed as a choice, not as an imposition” (McIntyre, 2008, p. 15). McIntyre describes this voluntary nature of participation where the participants are put under no pressure as common-sense participation (p. 15). For my research project, this meant that the preschool teachers were free to commit themselves to their own comfort levels within the parameters the teacher education project had established in the beginning. This involved observing the children’s responses during participation lessons which the teacher educator gave, taking part in the teacher education by teaching the children cooperatively with the teacher educator and reflecting on their English teaching competences that they were developing in the process of the project. For me as a teacher educator and researcher I respected at all times that each individual teacher had her own teaching style that she had come to perceive as suitable to create her particular group dynamics. The voluntary nature of the degree of teachers’ involvement was intended to give the preschool teachers ownership over their research, “in the production of knowledge and improvement of practice” (McTaggart, 1997, p. 28). The idea of ownership is fundamental to the approach of participatory action research (p. 6). As will be demonstrated, the preschool teachers cooperated closely throughout this extended period of time and beyond to develop their professional competences they would need to teach English.
In an approach to teacher education that is based on action research the “teacher becomes an ‘investigator’ or ‘explorer’ of his or her personal teaching context, while at the same time being one of the participants in it” (Burns, 2010, p. 2). The investigation and exploration, which are referred to here, are closely associated with the process of reflective practice, of “taking a self-reflective, critical, and systematic approach to exploring your own teaching contexts. … [Critical meaning that teachers take] a questioning and ‘problematising’ stance” towards their teaching (p. 2). The next chapter will look more closely at the concept of reflective practice that action research involves. It is one of the central features of my teacher education model.
5.4.3 Teacher education organised as reflective practice
The idea of teacher education organised