Empowering English Teachers to be Grammar ‘Experts’ and Coursebook Analysts via Perusall

Abstract

<p>Perusall, a web-based collaborative reading platform characterised by its social annotation functionalities,<br>was introduced in a postgraduate teacher-training language-awareness course in<br>Hong Kong during the shift to online teaching and learning brought about by the global<br>COVID-19 pandemic. Tasks were designed on Perusall to engage the participants in reading the<br>literature and references on grammar and lexis teaching and in analyses of coursebook materials<br>and classroom-teaching excerpts. In this article, I discuss why Perusall was adopted, the pedagogic<br>innovations at different stages, the impact this had on sharpening participants’ teacher language<br>awareness, and the implications this has for both teacher education and language learning. I aim<br>to highlight how autonomy can be fostered via effective task design and student-centred pedagogies.<br>I maintain that it is not just the platform that matters but how Perusall is utilised with a<br>strategic blend of synchronous and asynchronous classroom activities and instructor intervention<br>to promote teacher language-awareness gains and the empowerment of teachers as grammar specialists<br>and critical coursebook analysts and users.</p>