Digital Literacy of Second/Foreign Language Teachers Project Seminar

Time: Friday 06 May 2022 11:00 A.M. BST

Using the CIPP Model to Explore English Language Teacher Training, Digital Literacies and Gender Inequalities

Research on English language teacher training, digital literacies and gender equality in low-and-middle-income countries (LMIC) is a strategic priority according to UN Sustainable Development Goals 4.c and 5 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. This paper reports on the THEMIS project (Evaluating gender equity and equality in the English language teacher curriculum, ICT policies and learning materials) and aims to evaluate the English language curriculum of teacher training courses in four African countries. THEMIS builds on previous research using the CIPP (context, input, process, product) Curriculum Evaluation model in Nigeria, extending it to a comparative study of Botswana, Ghana and South Africa. THEMIS is significant in that it analyses several areas of the teacher training curriculum from a gendered perspective: i) the barriers facing English language teachers; ii) digital literacy policies and their impact on pedagogy; and iii) English language materials, gender representation and teacher adaptation. THEMIS adopts a mixed methods approach in which quantitative data are collected using questionnaires and qualitative data via narrative enquiry, semi-structured interviews, observation, textbook analysis and documentary analysis. THEMIS aims to produce case studies to understand gender (in)equalities relating to digital literacy/pedagogical approaches from each of the four partner countries and should be of value to teacher trainers, trainee teachers, curriculum designers and policymakers.

About the speaker

Dr Michael Thomas is Professor of Education and Social Justice and Chair of the Centre for Educational Research (CERES) at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He holds PhDs from Newcastle University and Lancaster University respectively and has taught and conducted research at universities in Germany, Japan and the UK over a twenty-five year period. He is author or editor of over 30 books and peer-reviewed special editions on computer-assisted language learning, digital natives, project-based pedagogy, online education and pedagogical theory. He is founding editor of four book series, including Digital Education and Learning, Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching and Global Policy and Critical Futures in Education. His most recent books include Language Teaching with Video-Based Technologies: Creativity and CALL Teacher Education (2020; with Christel Schneider), Project-based Language Learning and CALL: From Virtual Exchange to Social Justice (2021; with Kasumi Yamazaki) and Digital Games and Language Learning: Theory, Development and Implementation (2021; with Kasumi Yamazaki and Mark Peterson).