Page 157 - Getting of the fence
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                                The relevance and usefulness of the Comprehensive Approach
 school level (e.g. revised assessment policy). Such influences could have an effect on the extent of the implementation.
Third, the nature of the Comprehensive Approach as a descriptive and not
a prescriptive PCK model for EFL literature teaching and learning plus the focus
on enriching existing curricula, created a certain amount of freedom regarding
the extent of enrichment. This decision in the design of the current study could
have had an impact on how teachers dealt with the cost aspect of the Practicality
Theory, i.e. the “ratio between amount of return and amount of investment”
(Doyle & Ponder, 1977, p. 8). The difference in extent of enrichment regarding
how literary texts are approached ranged between a complete remodelling of
the curriculum on the one hand and only having an awareness of the options
on the other. Also, some teachers experienced a rise in confidence, energy, and/
or pleasure in teaching literature which enabled them to invest more time in
enriching their curriculum. Others experienced a lack of time and/or lack of
enthusiasm from colleagues, which was not helpful in pulling them out of the set
routines. For this second group the cost of the investment was mainly too high
due to external factors. The fact that teachers were not granted extra time from
their respective schools to participate in this research project could also be seen
as an influencing cost factor. Indeed, according to Luttenberg et al. (2013), “the 6 design, interpretation, and operationalization of reforms are strongly influenced
by the on-going dynamic interaction of various processes and factors at the levels
of the school and the individual teacher” (p. 291). Interestingly though, regardless
of extent of implementation, teachers indicated that they regarded this year as a
pilot year where the Comprehensive Approach either had to sink in and assimilate
with existing frames of reference or where they regarded the implementation of
the Comprehensive Approach as an experiment.
A somewhat different factor that should be considered in interpreting the extent of implementation is how teachers made sense of the Comprehensive Approach. Although the act of sensemaking is highly personal and selective (Spillane et al, 2002; Weick et al, 2005), we found several commonalities in how the eight participating teachers made sense of the Comprehensive Approach. As mentioned previously, most teachers regarded the Comprehensive Approach as a useful framework providing structure and awareness of the literature curriculum as well as variety through looking at the curriculum from a broader perspective. In addition, all eight teachers experienced a match between and their own frame of reference (Luttenberg et al., 2013) and the PCK. Where teachers differed
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