خلاصة:
This investigation set out to look into the issue of teachers’ exercise of agency in the Iranian EFL context. More specifically, as part of a larger study, it reports on the ways two Iranian Ministry of Education teachers make sense of and operate in the country’s educational setting under the demands of a centralist system of education. Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson’s (2013) framework of teacher agency formed the conceptual backbone of the present study as well as guiding the data collection/analysis of the study. Qualitative data, from semi-structured interviews as well as follow-up data collection procedures, were gleaned from the participants over the course of an academic year and were subjected to analytical interpretation in the light of the said framework. The researchers came up with findings which, in the main, gave more weight to the well-roundedness of Priestly, Biesta, & Robinson’s model of teacher agency. The results also pointed to the highly situated nature of teacher responsiveness and action, thereby undermining the still prevalent views of the essentialist and idealized character of (teacher) agency. The results of the study are liable to be of use, among others, to case-based teacher education programs.
ملخص الجهاز:
"Purpose of the study This research, being of a qualitative nature, is an attempt at staking out the factors (both facilitative and debilitative) at work in bolstering a sense and conception of agency among Iranian teachers teaching EFL at the country's secondary education level.
Theoretical framework The theoretical model, taken from the field of general education and employed in the present study for guiding and assisting the processes of data collection and analysis, is the framework of teacher agency put forward by Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson (2013).
Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson's (2013) three-dimensional model of teacher agency The above model, at its core, seeks to capture the various temporal social manifestations of human agentive action so that, whereas the iterational dimension deals with one's past history, the practical- evaluative dimension concerns with what individuals do in the here and now, and the projective section of the model is, in turn, associated with the courses of action people intend to pursue in the future.
We will have more opportunity to express our opinions … those classes are still active … there have been some stops … some pauses … and they are not about teaching methodology or linguistics or testing … language testing and evaluation … but we are still holding those classes … In retrospect, the widespread use of technology among the members of the society, especially teachers, such as smart phones and the free messenger softwares was for the participants in the study also reminiscent of the difficulties they had, as learners of English and even as teachers a few years ago before the advent of such new technological advances as ‘e-collaboration’ (Honigsfeld & Dove, 2012, p."