As mentioned in Chapter 2, community of practice and activity theory are two common frameworks of investigating teacher learning under sociocultural perspective. However, the framework postulated by Lave and Wenger (1991) and by Wenger (1998) is not really compatible with the context of this study. First, the idea of Lave and Wenger (1991) cannot be applied to a community where all of the members are inexperienced in the field they are working on, like in this study: all the teachers (except Hue) who were assigned to design courses claimed that they did not have any background or experience of curriculum development. Second, only when there is evidence of learning partnership in the teams of teachers as course developers can the framework postulated by Wenger (1998) be applicable. However, the working nature of different teams was not the same: while Team 1 mostly worked collectively, many members of Teams 2 and 3 worked more independently of the others.
Therefore, it leads to difficulty in employing Wenger’s (1998) framework for all of the teams in this study.
Meanwhile, activity theory concentrates on activity systems which are “enacted in the form of individual goal-directed actions” (Engestrửm et al., 1995, p.320, as cited in Fuller, 2005, p.54); community is part of a system instead of a unit of analysis as in Wenger’s (1998) framework. Moreover, activity theory is stated to be a framework for studying different kinds of human practices as development processes, “with both individual and social levels interlinked at the same time”. It helps to avoid the conventional dichotomies of cognitive functioning and sociocultural effects on cognition in the analysis of a human activity (Lantolf and Thorne, 2006, p.209).
Course design in this study is a collaborative activity undertaken in a community
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according to particular rules and labor division, and the practices of teachers who were involved in the course design project can result in certain professional development. Therefore, the activity theory fits well the purpose of the study:
exploring teacher learning through their participation in course design.
Moreover, as mentioned in 2.3.1.4, there are three generations of activity theory. The present study investigated teacher learning through their involvement in course design, in which collaboration occurred and contextual factors (e.g. life history, professional learning cultural, support from leaders and colleagues, and career phases according to Day, 1999) might affect the whole process. Therefore, it adopted the model of activity theory by Engestrửm (1987, 2015) as a theoretical framework for data collection and analysis, instead of the first generation which was limited to individual focus. Following is the elaboration on the use of activity theory in the study based on the Figure 2.6 and the five principles summarized by Engestrửm (2001). The five principles involve (1) activity system as a unit of analysis, (2) multi-voicedness of activity, (3) historicity of activity, (4) contradictions as driving force of change in activity, and (5) expansive cycles as possible form of transformation in activity.
First, the unit of data analysis, in the present study, is the teachers’ activity system of designing EAP course(s), in which the subjects are the involved teachers and their motive coincides with raw object expected by their managers: completing the project of course design. This object may change in many ways for different individual teachers during the process. The object may be to unquestioningly execute the orders of their boss, who automatically involves them in the predetermined project, or to gain the curriculum knowledge, or to learn how to teach the curriculum. The hierarchy of the activity of course design is illustrated in Table 3.1 in reference to the process of course design (Graves, 1996).
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Table 3.1. Hierarchical levels of the activity of course design
Activity level Designing EAP courses
Action level Planning the course
Teaching the course
Modifying the course
Reteaching the course
Ongoing assessment
Operation level
- Analyzing needs - Selecting the objectives
- Conceptualizing the contents - Selecting and developing materials and activities - Organizing contents and activities
- Realizing the objectives - Understanding the subject matters - Realizing the organization of the contents and activities - Realizing the operations of the materials and activities
- Re-analyzing needs - Re-selecting the objectives
- Re-conceptualizing the contents
- Re-selecting and developing materials and activities
- Re-organizing contents and activities
- Realizing the objectives - Understanding the subject matters - Realizing the organization of the contents and activities - Realizing the operations of the materials and activities
- Analyzing the match between the objectives and the materials/ activities - Analyzing the appropriateness of the contents for the students
- Evaluating the effectiveness of the course
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In case “planning the course” is considered to be a secondary activity, “analyzing needs, selecting the objectives, and so on” can be considered to be a chain of actions that form the secondary activity of planning the course. In this case, operation level involves such methods as doing research, reading, reflecting, or discussing. In all cases, The teachers or their activity (i.e. designing a course) are not analyzed independently of the conditions that more or less affect their doings (i.e. mediating artifacts, rules, community, and division of labor). Putting it differently, the teachers themselves, their actions (i.e. what they do to fulfill the activity of designing a course), their operations (i.e. how they take actions in their conditions), and the conditions in which the activity takes place are pulled together as a whole.
Second, more than one teacher designs a course. Even though these teachers form a community which share the same object, each of them takes a different role and is in charge of different tasks. Further, they have their own personalities, backgrounds, and histories, hence possibly different views and values. This reflects the second principle of multi-voicedness. On the other hand, it is noticeable that a person may belong to a number of communities of practice, those in which the members share the practice, at any given time (Wenger, 1998, p.6). The teachers-as-curriculum- developers in the present study are involved in at least two communities at the same time: one is the community of curriculum developers, and the other is the community of classroom teachers who implement the designed curriculum(s). As a result, the teachers-as-curriculum-developers are to interact with different members in the designing team as well as to interact with those who teach during the process of curriculum development. Such multiple interactions may lead to the multiplication of the multi-voicedness, which, according to Engestrửm (2001), is “a source of trouble and a source of innovation, demanding actions of translation and negotiation”
(p.136). In other words, it is a source of learning. Accordingly, the component
“community” in Figure 2.6 should not be limited to the community of teachers-as- curriculum-developers but extended to different sorts, including community of teachers-as curriculum developers, community of classroom teachers who teach the
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curriculum, and community of students who learn the curriculum.
Third, the fact that designing task involves a group of teachers also reflects the third principle of historicity: each and every activity has its own histories; the way in which the activity is done derives from such histories. For example, that a person is seen enthusiastic about her work does not mean that she has a liking for it; it may be that showing-off is her nature. Another example is that the boss involves a person as a leader not because of her work competence but of their prior relationship. This third principle drives the collection of the data about the teachers’ personalities, social and academic backgrounds, and their prior relationship with the other team members, and many other things related to the subject (see the complete categories of the subject- related data in Table 3.7).
Fourth, contradictions constitute a key concept of activity theory (Engestrửm, 2001).
They are not simply conflicts or problems, but are “historically accumulating structural tensions within and between activity systems” (Engestrửm, 2001, p.137).
They generate “disturbances and conflicts, but also innovative attempts to change the activity” (Engestrửm, 2001, p.134). Contradictions, therefore, are important, not in and of themselves, but because they can result in change and development (Engestrửm & Miettinen, 1999; Engestrửm, 2001). Engestrửm (2001) explains how contradictions can lead to innovation and transformation in an activity system:
As the contradictions of an activity system are aggravated, some individual participants begin to question and deviate from its established norms. In some cases, this escalates into collaborative envisioning and a deliberate collective change effort. (p.137)
Despite the potential of contradictions to result in transformation in an activity system, this transformation does not always occur. In fact, either contradictions can enable learning to progress, or they can actually “disable” it, depending on “whether or not they are acknowledged and resolved” (Nelson, 2002, p.34, as cited in Murphy
& Rodriguez-Manzanares, 2008, p.445). Contradictions may not be resolved because they may not be “easily identifiable or they may not be easily acknowledged, visible,
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obvious, or even openly discussed by those experiencing them” (Capper & Williams, 2004; Engestrửm, 1993, 2001, as cited in Murphy & Rodriguez-Manzanares, 2008, p.445). For those significant characteristics, the notion of contradictions as the driving force of change and development in activity systems has been gaining “due status as a guiding principle of empirical research” (Engestrửm, 2001, p.135). In the analysis of human activity, four levels of contradictions may be identified.
The primary contradiction of activities is in line with the view of capitalism that every commodity comprises both exchange value and use value and that the contradiction is
“the mutual exclusion and simultaneous mutual dependency of use value and exchange value in each commodity” (Engestrửm, 2015, p.68). This “double nature and inner conflict” are characteristic of all the corners of the triangular structure of activity (p.69).
The secondary contradictions are those appearing between the nodes. One typical example of this type is the lagging-behind of the stiff hierarchical division of labor, which inhibits the possibilities created by means of advanced instruments.
The tertiary contradiction appears when “representatives of culture (e.g., teachers) introduce the object and motive of a culturally more advanced form of the central activity into the dominant form of the central activity” (Engestrửm, 2015, p.70). For instance, the primary school pupil goes on a camp to play with nature (the dominant motive), but the parents try to make him learn several soft skills in a serious manner (the culturally more advanced motive).
The quaternary contradictions refer to the link between the central activity and the essential “neighbor activities” (Engestrửm, 2015, p.71). There are four types of
“neighbor activities”: (1) object activity, (2) instrument-producing activities, (3) subject-producing activities, and (4) rule-producing activities. The first type refers to the activities where the immediately appearing objects and outcomes of the central activity are embedded. The second type includes the activities that produce the key instruments for the central activity. The third type includes activities that educate or train the subjects of the central activity. The fourth type refers to administration and
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legislation activities in which the rules for the central activities are generated (Engestrửm, 2015, p.72).
In short, the four levels of contradictions are: (1) primary inner contradiction within each constituent component of the central activity; (2) secondary contradictions between the constituents of the central activity; (3) tertiary contradiction between the object/ motive of the dominant form of the central activity and the object/ motive of the culturally more advanced form of the central activity, and (4) quaternary contradictions between the central activity and its neighbor activities (Engestrửm, 2015, pp.71-72). They are graphically shown in the following figure:
Figure 3.1: Four levels of contradictions within the human activity system (Engestrửm, 2015, p.71) Given this focus of activity theory, the analysis centers on identifying the contradictions emerging during the teachers’ participation, whether they are resolved, and whether the resolution to the contradictions lead to the transformation of teachers’
knowledge and skills. The present study focuses on the first two types of contradictions. It seemed hard to recognize the tensions between objects of different teachers-as-curriculum-developers without video recordings or minutes of teachers’
interactions, which were not the primary sources of data in the study. To be more specific, not all of the meetings involved teachers’ interactions, many of which just
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aimed to assign tasks for team members. Most of the significant discussions took place at the very beginning of the project a long time ago, which inhibited the collection of adequate video recordings. With regard to meeting minutes, it had not been a culture of the studied teachers to take detailed notes of what was going during the meetings; in case a meeting minute was composed, it was just a short note of what was decided in the end. As a result, interactions among teachers or between teachers and the other stakeholders could hardly be revealed in those minutes, and the fourth kind of contradictions – those between the central activity (of one teacher) and its neighbor activities (of the other teachers in the team) could hardly be figured out. One example of primary contradiction is the tension between what the teacher knows about curriculum development and what he/she must do to accomplish the curriculum development project (within the constituent component named subject). A secondary contradiction can be the tension between what the teacher desires for the project quality (subject) and how tight the project schedule is (rule).
Fifth, when the raw object is transferred into a culturally more advanced one, a new activity system model accordingly emerges. This serves as the evidence of learning and development, and in Engestrửm’s (2001) words, “an expansive transformation is accomplished” (p.137). It means that the outcomes of the course design activity can be teacher professional development besides the products of the activity itself, including the curriculum and the course materials. Under the scope of the present study, only teacher professional development is examined as the outcomes of the activity systems.
In short, the course-design activity system in the present study is depicted in Figure 3.2. To be more specific, the Activity Theory is used in this study with a focus on the following questions:
Outcome: What is the desired goal and outcome?
Object: What is being worked on now to achieve the goal?
Subject(s): From whose perspective?
Tools: What is being used by whom?
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Division of labor: How is work shared?
Rules: What supports and constrains practice?
Figure 3.2: Course-design activity system