26.3128, Diss: Applied Ling: Achilleas I. Kostoulas: 'A Complex Systems Perspective on English Language Teaching : A Case Study of a Language School in Greece'

Thu Jul 2 17:32:03 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3128. Thu Jul 02 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.3128, Diss: Applied Ling: Achilleas I. Kostoulas: 'A Complex Systems Perspective on English Language Teaching : A Case Study of a Language School in Greece'

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Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2015 13:30:35
From: Achilleas Kostoulas [Achilleas at kostoulas.com]
Subject: A Complex Systems Perspective on English Language Teaching : A Case Study of a Language School in Greece

 Institution: University of Manchester 
Program: School of Education 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2015 

Author: Achilleas I. Kostoulas

Dissertation Title: A Complex Systems Perspective on English Language Teaching: A Case Study of a Language School in Greece 

Dissertation URL:  http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.644472

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics

Dissertation Director(s):
Juup H. Stelma
Susan Brown
Julian Edge

Dissertation Abstract:

This thesis is a complexity-informed case study of a language school in Greece, which provides a rich description of how language pedagogy develops in the periphery of the English-using world. In addition, this study demonstrates the feasibility and potential of using Complex Systems Theory (CST) in the study of educational settings. The thesis begins by describing English Language Teaching (ELT) in Greece, thus setting the scene for the empirical investigation. This is followed by a review of ELT literature, with particular reference to theories of language, pedagogy and society, and by an overview of CST, which pragmatically synthesises complex realism and post-modern ways of knowing, and defines a set of principles to guide complexity-informed empirical inquiry. Having conceptualised the language school as a complex system, it is suggested that activity in the school was sustained by multiple intentionalities, i.e., collective, emergent, nested and generative drivers of activity. 
 These included: (a) an imperative to provide certification to learners, (b) some learners’ desire to integrate in transnational discourse communities, (c) the expectation that language learning should lead to increased awareness of ‘English’ culture, (d) competition against the state school system, and (e) the unstated aim of protecting the professional interests of the school’s staff and stakeholders. Intentionalities were associated with specific pedagogical outcomes and cultural outlooks, and their synthesis is defined as a dynamic of intentions. Next, the thesis looks into the learning materials used at the language school, and it is suggested that these generate affordances which impacted pedagogy. The distribution of learning activities in the books was associated with synchronic and diachronic changes in the dynamics of intentions underpinning activity in the school. Complexity-inspired conceptual instruments, such as an ‘affordance landscape’ and ‘attractors’
 , are developed to describe the influence of the learning materials, and it is suggested that the learning resources used at the language school made transmissive and communicative pedagogy more likely. The empirical component of the study concludes by describing prototypical instruction sequences that typified ELT in the language school, which evidenced traces of transmissive and communicative pedagogy. Some sequences (e.g., Reading and Vocabulary, and Transmissive Grammar) evidenced transmissive influences, which were associated with local pedagogical traditions, whereas others, such as Process-Based Writing, were more closely aligned with the communicative ideology that is mainstream in ELT. The thesis concludes by synthesising the findings with insights from the CST literature. In doing so, it demonstrates the theoretically generative potential of a complexity-informed inquiry, which can help to formulate understandings of ELT that are sensitive to the interface between systems 
 and their environments, while providing ontologically coherent accounts of structure and agency, and of behaviours that are neither completely random nor entirely predictable.

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