{"title":"Scrutiny of Global Citizenship in Chinese Elementary School English Textbooks and Teachers’ Practices during COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Tingting Sun, Adcharawan Buripakdi","doi":"10.21315/apjee2021.36.2.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21315/apjee2021.36.2.13","url":null,"abstract":"Problems associated with globalisation have been exacerbated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which made us more aware of the interconnected nature of the world. Global pandemic requires global solutions, and the educational system should look beyond the confines of national borders to advocate for Global Citizenship Education (GCE) to provide such solutions. However, it is still underexplored that to what extent Chinese elementary school English textbooks reflect the notion of GCE and how they guide teachers’ practices particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address the gap, a mixed-method study was conducted to scrutinize two versions of Chinese elementary school English textbooks and explore teachers’ practices, so as to contribute to China’s context-specific GCE endeavours through English language teaching (ELT). The findings demonstrate that the themes of GCE are embedded in two versions of textbooks to varying degrees and with unbalanced distribution. Some elements that do not comply with the proposition of GCE and the excluded themes may impede the full realisation of global citizenship values. Interview results show that teacher training is urgently needed to integrate GCE into interdisciplinary subjects and raise teachers’ critical awareness to challenge the prevailing routines in ELT. The findings could also provide some pedagogical enlightenment for teachers’ practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.","PeriodicalId":36930,"journal":{"name":"Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43833411","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Measuring Digital Competence: An Exploratory Study Mapping Digital\u0000Competence Profiles of Sri Lankan English Language Teachers","authors":"A. S. Karunaweera, Kean-Wah Lee","doi":"10.21315/apjee2021.36.1.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21315/apjee2021.36.1.6","url":null,"abstract":"The overall vision for 21st century learning has incorporated digitalisation as a key focus in teaching and learning practices. In Sri Lanka, however, despite major initiatives taken to improve digital competency of teachers, only minor improvement was noted. Using the DigCompEdu assessment tool, this study investigates to what extent Sri Lankan English language teachers are digitally competent. The results aim to inform national initiatives to facilitate the shift towards a bottom-up process, informed by actual realities based on skills and competences. The DigCompEdu 22-item quantitative survey was used to sample 40 English language teachers working within the public education system. Overall, the study finds that not even 50% of the sample is at one competency band. It is recommended that for substantial changes to occur, a more varied and individualised teacher-training is recommended, using the DigCompEdu as a diagnostic guide.","PeriodicalId":36930,"journal":{"name":"Asia Pacific Journal of Educators and Education","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49567111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}