Learning as boundary-crossing in the Danwei workplace community of practice

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• Yongcan Liu (Faculty of Education)
• Monday 30 October 2006, 17:00-18:00
• Room 1S3 New Faculty of Education Building, Hills Road.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Edith Esch.

The present study, which looks at the ELT curriculum innovation and teachers’ professional development in a Danwei workplace community in China, is situated in the backdrop of globalization when the Chinese Ministry of Education advocates a more liberal way to teach English to college students so as to meet the social demands of a global culture. Drawing on a small set of data from a large project, this paper zooms in a series of community practices and identifies four learning episodes concerning how the issue of learning autonomy is taken up, develops and is finally settled. It crystallizes how teachers’ knowledge is co-constructed, mobilized and transformed. The paper argues that the Chinese Danwei workplace community of practice acts as a boundary-crossing zone for the global and the local discourse systems. The interaction and co-existence of different systems may lead to difficulties and conflicts. However, as Wenger (1998) notes that new knowledge is generated on the verge of conflicts amongst multiple communities of practice, the conflicts and differences could be reconceptualized as opportunities for teacher learning and renewal.

This talk is part of the CILR Monday Mailing: talks in language and linguistics series.

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