Teacher Agency and Policy Response in English Language Teaching

English education programs are frequently reformed to reflect need for proficieny. In response to these changes, educational contexts worldwide have implemented English education with uniquely different goals, motivations, features and pedagogies. While most research has focused on macro level language policy and planning, there is a growing interest in micro planning, especially teachers' agency in policy response. Teachers' capacity to act and shape their responses to educational reforms and practices is a quality developed through knowledge and experience. This book examines the agency of the teacher in negotiating educational reforms and policy changes at the local and national levels.

Patrick C. L. Ng holds an EdD in Applied Linguistics and TESOL (University of Leicester, UK) and is currently a professor at the University of Niigata Prefecture in Japan. His research focuses on language planning and policy, sociolinguistics, language education, bilingualism, multilingualism, English as a lingua franca and Chinese language studies. Esther F. Boucher-Yip is an assistant professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, USA. She holds an EdD in Applied Linguistics and TESOL from University of Leicester, UK. She is the author of the book Language Maintenance and Shift Among the Semai in Malaysia: A Study of Indigenous Language Use and the co-editor of Local Contextual Influences on Teaching: Narrative Insights from ESL and EFL Professionals.

1. Introduction 2. English language teaching in China: teacher agency in response to curricular innovations 3. Acceptance and adaption: teacher agency during the introduction of English activities in Japanese elementary schools 4. Monolingual education in policy discourse and classroom practice: a look into Japanese junior high school EFL classrooms 5. Teacher agency, the native/nonnative dichotomy, and "English Classes in English" in Japanese high Schools 6. Teacher-designed high stakes English language testing: washback and impact 7. ESOL teacher advocacy: a response to teacher education standards 8. Teacher agency and policy response in the Australian adult ESL literacy classroom: a multi-site case study 9. Incorporating academic skills into EFL curriculum: teacher agency in response to global mobility challenge 10. Navigating Change: Kazakhstani English language teachers' response to multi-scalar education reforms 11. A call for English teachers in Morocco to practice agency through action research 12. Sociocultural factors affecting teacher agency in English-medium instruction in Japan 13. Introducing curricular change in ESL composition: an action research perspective 14. A primary school English teacher's response to language policy: teacher agency and autonomy in rural Vietnam