This study focuses on teacher talk in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching in China. Framed against China's current focus on "thinking, imagination and innovation" as stated in the National English Curriculum Standards (NECS), this paper reports the findings of a qualitative study aimed at understanding how the…

In 2011, the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership introduced new Professional Standards for Teachers, which require that graduate teachers possess knowledge and understanding of Indigenous students and cultures. The authors conducted interviews with 12 non-Indigenous teacher educators at one Australian university in order to…

This article reports on the results of a survey of Australian primary pre-service teachers' experiences, conceptions and perceptions of geography. Research was conducted with two cohorts of undergraduate primary pre-service teachers; one group in second year and another in the final year of a four-year teacher education course. The findings show…

A nationwide technology integration movement, FATIH Project, was initiated by Ministry of National Education. FATIH Project whose main objective is to provide equal opportunities to the learners during compulsory education is made up of many components: Hardware supply, procurement of software and e-content, infrastructure set up, and teacher…

This study is about student teachers' conceptual understanding of shapes. While the National Curriculum Statement stipulates that by the time learners exit high school they should have grounded knowledge of basic geometry and know shapes such as polygons and polyhedrons and their properties, this study finds that the majority of student teachers…

This study investigates Korean English teachers' responses to the current English Language Teaching (ELT) policies and reveals the attributes of their professional identity from their responses. Data collected from different narratives demonstrate that the teachers value the principles of communicative language teaching, but are not supportive of…

This paper reports a study on South African learners' knowledge about scientific inquiry using the Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI) Questionnaire. The sample consisted of 105 grade 11 learners from 7 schools across the socio-economic spectrum in a South African city. A rubric for scoring the VASI Questionnaire was developed and refined during…

This article reports on action research conducted at a primary school in rural New South Wales, Australia. The research responded to an expressed school aspiration to foster greater understanding of local Aboriginal culture, historical perspectives and knowledge systems within the school. An exploratory model was developed using a mixed methods…

The new Secondary Curriculum (implemented in 2008) saw greater emphasis on creativity within the National Curriculum for England. Since this term has been boldly stated, how have teachers and pupils responded to it in the classroom? This study draws on responses from a range of pupils in different Key Stages (2 (pupils aged 7-11), 3 (pupils aged…

The current longitudinal study examines the similarities and differences between primary and secondary foreign language curricula and pedagogy along with the development of motivation for language learning and second language proficiency. Data from 26 English learners of French (aged 10-11) were collected across three times points over a 12-month…

Understanding of nature of science (NOS) serves as one of the desirable characteristics of science teachers. The current study explored 55 Thai and 110 Bangladeshi in-service secondary science teachers' conceptions of NOS regarding scientific knowledge, scientific method, scientists' work, and scientific enterprise, by using the Myths of Science…

China has been instituting national basic education curriculum reforms since 2001. This study provides an updated understanding of present-day, rural primary school music education in Northeastern China's Tonghua region. A total of 126 rural primary music teachers and 674 students from 28 primary schools in the region were surveyed using a…

This article presents and discusses outcomes arising from a recently completed National Primary Science Survey (England) intended, in part, to elicit how teachers and others perceive the effectiveness of colleagues and the schools in which they work to implement and deliver primary science within the National Curriculum. While the majority view…

This article investigates the nature of enterprise pedagogy in music. It presents the results of a research project that applied the practices of enterprise learning developed in the post-compulsory music curriculum in England to the teaching of the National Curriculum for music for 11-14 year olds. In doing so, the article explores the nature of…

It is often asserted that UK school-leavers know less grammatical terminology than in earlier years. However, objective data on this supposed phenomenon are somewhat scarce. The study reported in this paper aimed to see whether and to what extent knowledge about language (KaL) has declined over three decades, and how this might relate to…