Monolingual curriculum frameworks, multilingual literacy development: ESL teachers' beliefs

Abstract

This paper explores the extent to which ESL teachers’ understanding of their work as literacy educators has collective resonance with other practitioners in the same professional space. In so doing, it seeks to identify what aspects of individual knowledge stand the test of professional consensus (Wise, 2005), and thus give greater credence to practitioner-generated expertise that has become increasingly marginalised in the move towards more ‘scientific’, evidence-based paradigms for educational research (Harper & de Jong, 2009). While not arguing that professional consensus is, in itself, sufficient for defining best practice, it does argue of the need to recognise teacher expertise as one ..