Page 131 - Getting of the fence
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                                The relevance and usefulness of the Comprehensive Approach
 empirical validation. The present study is an example of PCK research because it
aims to evaluate a theoretical teaching model, i.e. the Comprehensive Approach
to foreign language literature teaching and learning, in realistic existing teaching
contexts in terms of relevance and usefulness. In this chapter, we will examine how
teachers experienced the applicability of the Comprehensive Approach in their
existing EFL literature lessons and we will analyse how they experienced changes
regarding EFL literature teaching. As such, we address the following three central
components of PCK research: conceptions of purpose for teaching subject matter,
curricular knowledge, and knowledge of instructional strategies (Grossman,
1990). In terms of sensemaking, we will explore how the teachers reacted in terms
of assimilation, accommodation, toleration or distantiation, in relation to their
PCK beliefs and their practical ethics in terms of instrumentality, congruence,
and costs. More concretely, we will investigate the changes the teachers realized
in their EFL literature lessons regarding the time spent on the four approaches of
the Comprehensive Approach and we will investigate how teachers experienced
working with the Comprehensive Approach in terms of relevance and usefulness.
In order to find out how teachers experience the relevance and usefulness of a
foreign language literature teaching model that includes various aspects of the
learner, the context, and the literary text, when applied in a naturalistic setting, we 6 formulated the following two research questions:
1) Which changes in the EFL literature lessons regarding the time spent on the four approaches of the Comprehensive Approach did teachers realize? 2) Which changes regarding EFL literature teaching did teachers perceive
after working with the Comprehensive Approach for one year?
6.3 Method
6.3.1 Participants
For the study, a purposive sample of EFL teachers from our professional network was elected. Although purposive sampling raises issues due to researcher bias, we would like to emphasize that this study does not focus on generalizing our results but on evaluating the relevance and usefulness of the Comprehensive Approach according to teachers who have worked with this approach in their own teaching context. Voluntary participation was an important factor because of the
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