Language Educators’ Understanding of Authenticity in Teaching and Its Impacts on Their Practices

Abstract

This grounded theory study explored the conceptualization of authenticity in language education. The participants were 30 Iranian English language educators, who were studied as adult learners. The findings revealed that authenticity was conceptualized by language educators as a social and reflective practice under the influence of the instructions of Islam and the collectivist culture of Iran as a country in the Middle East. Three main themes were identified as follows: three-way pedagogical relationship, reflectivity, and context-appropriate adjustments. Three-way pedagogical relationship addressed educators’ learning experiences, subjects driven from the context, and the importance of learners. Also, reflectivity included reflection on content, process, and premise. Furthermore, context-appropriate adjustments referred to the disagreement with conformity to educational systems encouraging nativeness. Indeed, the participants conceptualized authenticity as finding one’s own voice in the midst of the dominant native voices, while reflecting on one’s own pedagogical practices and respecting one’s own religion and context.

A systematic review and metasynthesis of qualitative research into teachers’ authenticity

“…'Social belonging' contrasted with 'Alienation' captures the essence of feeling accepted and valued by the learning community and has been most evident in the findings of Cranton and Carusetta (2005a, b), Rabin (2013), Rappel (2015) and Ramezanzadeh (2017). This theme splits into three polarised subthemes: shared values/ vailed values, validation/de-validation, webs of support/competitive exclusion.…”

“…As recognised by many of the teachers and researchers challenging the system is not always a viable option for the fear of losing their job (Rappel, 2015) or the efforts to do so might be perceived as futile. In such cases contestation refers to a choice of staying 'in disagreement' rather than intrinsically accepting what is and becoming compliant (Ramezanzadeh, 2017). As discussed in the response to the second question the compliance inhibits teacher's ability to recognise potentialities when they do appear.…”

“…Intentional critical consciousness's/ Kafkaesque clerk approach 'Intentional critical consciousness' was among the personal conditions fostering authenticity and all of the researchers have found that awareness of complexities enables teachers to act intentionally in response to ever changing realities. Being critical of the contextual influences (Carusetta & Cranton, 2005a;Ramezanzadeh, 2017), institutional norms and expectations (Cranton & Carusetta, 2004b), uniqueness of the students (De Bruyckere & Kirschner, 2016;Ramezanzadeh, 2016a) or power dynamics (Cranton & Carusetta, 2004b;Kreber, 2009;Rabin, 2013;Rappel, 2015) has to be considered collectively to consequentially act with intention. Teachers are acting intentionally when they adapt and develop pedagogies for complexity, where the learning is situated in a context relevant to students as individuals as well as a collective.…”

“…The first peer reviewed empirical studies on this specific subject was only conducted a few years prior (Cranton & Carusetta, 2004a, b). Since then, the majority of studies have been conducted in the context of adult/higher education and they were concerned with the teachers' perceptions (Carusetta & Cranton, 2005a, b;Cranton, 2010;Kreber et al, 2010;Ramezanzadeh et al, 2016a, b;Ramezanzadeh, 2017;Rappel, 2015) with the exception of studies by Kreber et al (2010) and Kreber and Klampfleitner (2013) where data came from both teachers and students. While the qualitative study by De Bruyckere and Kirschner (2016) and quantitative studies of De Bruyckere and Kirschner (2017) and Johnson and LaBelle (2017) in the context of secondary education focused purely on the students' perspective.…”