| Summary: | This research documents how a group of secondary English as a
Second Language (ESL) teachers attempted to work collaboratively
with their subject-specialist peers for the benefit of ESL students.
Using qualitative methods consistent with the case study strategy
(Yin, 1989), this study describes and analyzes how the ESL teachers
created and managed their new roles as teacher-collaborators (TCs)
and how their subject specialist (ST) colleagues responded.
In the process, the data also highlight seldom considered aspects
of the medical model of consultation, upon which collaboration in
schools is typically based. This research demonstrates that the
medical model fails to capture important aspects of joint work
within the educational context, including assumptions about who
initiates and terminates contact, sets the agenda, and is responsible
for implementing suggested or negotiated procedures.
In addition, joint work in schools is shown to be further
complicated by the need to take into consideration the pre-existing
hierarchy of authority structures in institutional settings, and how
these structures influence collaborative efforts. The TCs in this
study could not move directly to fulfill their joint work mandate but
had first to construct and establish the prerequisite components
that could subsequently lead to joint work with their ST colleagues.
This study has implications for both practitioners and
researchers. Classroom teachers moving into joint work need to be
given time and techniques to help them to develop an approach to
such work which will allow them to continue to meet their
professional responsibilities as they see them, while creating a
common platform for working with their colleagues. This process
should include careful examination of the underlying assumptions
that are part of any joint work effort, as well as the negotiation of
how these assumptions will be reconciled with the complex demands
of the daily teaching agenda.
Research needs to move beyond static models of joint work and
develop dynamic models. These models will need to capture the
processes by which the prerequisites for joint work are constructed
through the use of institutional discourse within the context of the
school.
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