Collaborating in ESL Education in Schools

Abstract

This chapter explores how ESL and mainstream teachers can share understandings, not by abandoning their subject prejudices but by achieving a fusion of horizons, where new understandings emerge as individuals adjust their interpretations in light of the interpretations of others. One of the main issues in collaborative teaching has been how teachers from different discourse traditions and concerns can engage in sustained and productive dialogue. Inherent within the notion of collaborative teaching has been the unproblematic view that an ESL teacher can influence the mainstream teacher’s pedagogy. Given the different status and power that ESL and academic subjects have within the social conte..