Nurturing Course Leaders in Uncertain Times: The Case of Co-teaching Mentoring for Early Childhood CSL Professional Development for Teachers

Abstract

With the emergence of early childhood second language (L2) education as a response to the call for multiculturalism and social integration around the globe, there has been a fast-growing demand for in-service professional development for course leaders who design, deliver, and oversee emergent literacy programs at school level. To cater for the diverse needs of very young learners from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds in uncertain times (Heck and Ambrosetti, 2018) like the coronavirus pandemic, the nurturing of cultural competence and pedagogical awareness in online-offline L2 classrooms is playing an increasingly important role. In this study, the authors present a theoretically and empirically grounded co-teaching mentoring model of early childhood CSL professional development for serving teachers. Drawing upon previous research on teacher change (Guskey, 1986, 2002; Hall and Hord, 1987) and professional development (e.g. Elm and Nordqvist, 2019; Knight, 2007), the current study addresses three research questions: (1) What are the roles and responsibilities of educators in planning and delivering co-taught lessons? (2) What are the obstacles to effective co-teaching? (3) What are the factors leading to the success of co-teaching, particularly for the enhancement of teacher professionalism in the hybrid online-offline mode, between curriculum development officers (teacher trainers and mentors for serving teachers) and class teachers (mentees)? Through class observations, semi-structured interviews and document study with a focus on the Hong Kong context, the results of this study indicate that the model helps to instill both theoretical knowledge and good practices of emergent L2 literacy and cultural awareness in serving teachers switching between different classroom settings with a combination of collaborative learning and mentor-coaching. References Elm, A., and Nordqvist, I. (2019). The research circle - a tool for preschool teachers’ professional learning and preschool development. European Journal of Teacher Education, 42(5), 621-633, https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2019.1652899 Guskey, T. (1986). Staff development and the process of teacher change. Educational Researcher, 15(5), 5-12. Guskey, T. (2002). Professional development and teacher change. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 8(3), 381-391. Hall, G. E., and Hord, S. M. (1987). Change in schools: Facilitating the process. New York: State University of New York Press. Heck, D., and Ambrosetti, A. (Eds.). (2018). Teacher education in and for uncertain times. Singapore: Springer. Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.