Email this article 
Hide
Show all
Mexican Secondary School Teachers’ Linguistic Expression of Attitude towards the National English Program in Basic Education
Abstract
Teachers’ attitudes play an important role in the implementation of educational reforms and innovations (Avramidis & Norwich, 2002; Fullan, 2001; Rogers, 2003; Waters, 2009; Wedell, 2009). Desired changes can successfully go through only if teachers respond positively to putting into effect those changes. Mexico is at present facing the challenge of an educational reform in basic education that involves adopting a new English as a second language program. Information about teachers’ attitudes towards the change is crucial to anticipate possible ways in which the process could unfold. This study explores the use of Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005) to examine the linguistic expressions of attitude toward the Mexican National English Program for Basic Education. Data came from 12 focus group discussions conducted as part of a state-wide project with 86 secondary school teachers and supervisors in the northeastern corner of the country. Findings indicate that teachers’ negative attitudes towards the program were associated to their negative evaluation of the procedures to disseminate information about the program, and the quantity and quality of teacher training. Findings also shed light on the conventions related to the roles that teachers and administrators play in the reform implementation process. Implications of the findings are briefly discussed.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Arkoudis, S. (2006). Negotiating the rough ground between ESL and mainstream teachers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 9(4), 415-433. Doi: 10.2167/beb337.0.
Avramidis, E. & Norwich, B. (2002). Teachers' attitudes towards integration / inclusion: A review of the literature. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 17 (2), 129-147. Doi: org/10.1080/08856250210129056.
Beckett, L. A. (2009). Appraisal in the Russian Press: The characterization of the Ukranian leaders. RaeL: Revista Electronica de Lingüística Aplicada, 8, 102-119.
Belz, J. A. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68-117.
Brooke, M. (2014). Attribution and authorial (Dis) endorsement in high-and low-rated undergraduate ESL students’ English academic persuasive essays. English Linguistics Research, 3(1), 1-11. Doi: 10.5430/elr.v3n1p1.
Chaiklin, H. (2011). Attitudes, behavior, and social practice. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 38(1), 31-54.
Crano, W. D., & Prislin, R. (Eds.). (2011). Attitudes and attitude change. NY: Psychology Press.
Derewianka, B. (2007). Using appraisal theory to track interpersonal development in adolescent academic writing. In A. McCabe, M. O’ Donnell and R. Whittaker (Eds.). Advances in Language and Education, 142-165. London: Continuum.
Eggins, S., & Slade, D. (1997). Analysing casual conversation. London: Cassell.
Folkeryd, J. W. (2006). Writing with an attitude: Appraisal and student texts in the school subject of Swedish. Studia Linguistica Upsaliensia, 5. Sweden: Uppsala.
Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change. London: Routledge Falmer.
González Rodríguez, M. J. (2011). La expresión lingüística de la actitud en el género de opinión: El modelo de la valoración. RLA. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada, 49(1), 109-141. Doi: org/10.4067/S0718-48832011000100006.
González, S. G. & González, V. M. (2012). Una aproximación a las valoraciones en torno a la discriminación de género en tres medios de la prensa chilena. Boletín de Filología, 47 (2), 71-99. Doi: org/10.4067/S0718-93032012000200003.
Hood, S. (2010). Appraising research: Evaluation in academic writing. NY: Palgrave Mcmillan.
Iedema, R. (2000). Bureaucratic planning and resemiotization. In E. Ventola (Ed.), Discourse and community: Doing functional linguistics. Tübingen: Gunter NarrVerlag, 47–67.
Kaplan, N. (2012). Nuevos desarrollos en el estudio de la evaluación en el lenguaje: La teoría de la valoración. Boletín de Lingüística, 16(22), 52-78.
Krzyzanowski, M. (2008). Analyzing focus groups discussion. In M. Krzyzanowski, & R. Wodak, (Eds.). Qualitative discourse analysis in the social sciences (pp. 162- 181). NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ksiazkiewicz, A., & Hedrick, J. (2013). An introduction to implicit attitudes in political science research. Political Science & Politics, 46(03), 525-531. Doi: 10.1017/S1049096513000632.
Lauring, J. & Selmer, J. (2012). Positive dissimilarity attitudes in multicultural organizations: The role of language diversity and communication frequency. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 17(2), 156-172. Doi: 10.1108/13563281211220292.
Liao, Z., & Cheung, M. T. (2001). Internet-based e-shopping and consumer attitudes: An empirical study. Information & Management, 38(5), 299-306. Doi: 10.1016/S0378-7206(00)00072-0.
Liu, X. (2013). Evaluation in Chinese university EFL students' English argumentative writing: An APPRAISAL study. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 10(1), 40-53.
Macken-Horarik, M. & Martin, J. R. (Eds.). (2003). Negotiating heteroglossia: Social perspectives on evaluation. Text, 23 (2).
Martin, J. R. (2003). Sense and sensibility: Texturing evaluation. In J. Foley (Ed.), NewPerspectives on Education and Discourse. London: Continuum.
Martin, J. R. & Rose, D. (2003). Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause. London: Continuum
Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation. Appraisal in English. NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Olivieri Pacheco, G. (2013). Análisis de la construcción discursiva presente en los artículos de opinión de la prensa venezolana tras las elecciones presidenciales de 2006. Anuario ININCO/Investigaciones de la Comunicación, 21(1), 193-214.
Putnam, R. D. (1966). Political attitudes and the local community. The American Political Science Review, 60(3), 640-654.
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations. NY: Free Press.
Secretaría de Educación Pública. (2011). Curricular Foundations. México: SEP.
Schuman, H. & Johnson, M. P. (1976). Attitudes and behavior. In A. Inkel, J. Coleman, & N. Smelser (Eds.). Annual Review of Sociology, 2, 161-207.
Waters, A. (2009). Managing innovation in English language education. Language Teaching, 42 (4), pp 421-458.
Wedell, M. (2009). Planning for educational change – putting people and their contexts first. London: Continuum. Doi: 10.1017/S026 144480999005X.
White, P. (2004). On line appraisal. Available at: http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/
Whitelaw, C., Garg, N., & Argamon, S. (2005). Using appraisal groups for sentiment analysis. In Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (pp. 625-631). ACM.
Xinghua, L., & Thompson, P. (2009). Attitude in students’ argumentative writing: A contrastive perspective. Language, 1, 3-15.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.4n.1p.65
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
2012-2023 (CC-BY) Australian International Academic Centre PTY.LTD.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature
To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the journal emails into your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders.