Teacher agency and curricular innovation in EFL secondary school in Mexico

Abstract

“This study is embedded in the stance of qualitative sociocultural research in relation to English as a foreign language (EFL) policy, EFL teacher education and professional development and the construct of teacher agency. In particular, the purpose was to explore the effects of the implementation of a new curriculum (i.e. National English Program) in relation to the role of teacher agency to cope with potential systematic gaps between the curricular approach and teachers’ praxis as well as how teachers’ education and learning-in-practice shaped their roles and sense of agency. Therefore, in light of policy context of curriculum innovation that might demand teachers’ agentic choices and agentic actions (Jian & Xuesong, 2017), agency is seen from an ecological and multi-layered genetic perspective because of its socially, historically, and discursively constituted nature. Consequently, the complexity and nature of teacher agency was analyzed in sociocultural domains of two EFL secondary school teachers’ classroom practice in Central Mexico. The analysis of what teacher thinks/does and the genesis that underpins this thought/praxis relationship determined these EFL teachers’ agency seemed to be framed by policy if policy or policies included teachers’ professional discourses and these discourses were assonant in their context.”