AGENCY IN SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION: A SOCIAL REALIST PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This article argues that greater engagement with social realism is beneficial for Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) programme development and delivery. Because social realism offers a layered, non - reductive view of society and social phenomena, it grounds SLTE programmes within a robust social ontology, thus allowing programme designers and participants to move beyond the problems posed by dominant structuralist and interactionist perspectives. Specifically, a social realist approach to SLTE allows researchers, training programme organisers and teachers to understand language learning and teaching as a complex, layered and contingent educational reality, and answer fundamental questions such as: What is(are) language(s)? What is education? How can language teaching/learning help people to overcome social inequalities? and What is language teacher agency? These questions are of crucial importance to SLTE programmes. Providing theoretical justification and practical examples, this article makes the point that an SLTE approach grounded in social realism can potentially contribute to sustainable teacher and learner agency, engagement and motivation.

Headnote

ABSTRACT

This article argues that greater engagement with social realism is beneficial for Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) programme development and delivery. Because social realism offers a layered, non - reductive view of society and social phenomena, it grounds SLTE programmes within a robust social ontology, thus allowing programme designers and participants to move beyond the problems posed by dominant structuralist and interactionist perspectives. Specifically, a social realist approach to SLTE allows researchers, training programme organisers and teachers to understand language learning and teaching as a complex, layered and contingent educational reality, and answer fundamental questions such as: What is(are) language(s)? What is education? How can language teaching/learning help people to overcome social inequalities? and What is language teacher agency? These questions are of crucial importance to SLTE programmes. Providing theoretical justification and practical examples, this article makes the point that an SLTE approach grounded in social realism can potentially contribute to sustainable teacher and learner agency, engagement and motivation.

KEYWORDS

Second language teacher education, social realism, agency, TESOL.

1. INTRODUCTION

Organised commitment to high-quality teacher preparation is crucial to successful language learning programmes. However, the meaning of high-quality is understood in radically different ways depending on the epistemological point of departure. Some may regard language teaching mainly as a situated process in which students' intellectual curiosity should be the main focus, and second language teacher education (SLTE) as providing the tools to deal with the contingent nature of language pedagogy in a complex social world. From this perspective, careful attention is paid to how teachers perceive and understand their lived experiences (i.e., the interactionist approach). On the other hand, some view the role of educators more narrowly, instead focusing on the objects of study as systems/structures to be internalised (e.g., language teaching methodologies), and by extension viewing education as a process of producing a competitive labour force with "skills and ideologically compliant attitudes" (Hill, 2007, p. 204) (i.e., the structuralist angle). Although numerous nuanced positions exist between these two poles, for progress in SLTE to be made the ideological tensions between them should be resolved. The current article argues that a social realist approach to SLTE can, to some extent, help programme designers and participants to resolve these tensions.

These conflicting visions have posed numerous challenges for SLTE over the past 40 years (Crandall & Christison, 2016). It is now widely recognised that, in SLTE programmes, teacher candidates (TCs) should acquire discrete skills to meet their future classroom roles, while recognising the centrality of context and social situation in shaping their own beliefs, attitudes and practices. By understanding the links between contexts and beliefs, TCs are thought to be better prepared to deliver contextually relevant pedagogies. However, while recognition of these needs is arguably widespread, specifically how teacher beliefs and actions are related to context and broader social realities, or as we will argue below, how structure, culture and agency are related, needs to become an explicit pedagogical point in SLTE programmes. Progress in this regard, we argue, necessarily involves conceptual and practical consideration by SLTE programme organisers and participants for wider sociocultural realities related to the global spread of English, the neoliberal marketisation of English education, and common -sense ideologies associated with how the English language is perceived, promoted and taught. These are not mere abstract considerations, for they profoundly affect the beliefs and actions of language learners and teachers (Pennycook, 2021). Moreover, considerations for broader social realities by TCs should not be made lightly, or as bifurcations from the day -to-day business of language teaching; they should instead be grounded in a robust social ontology (developed further below).

Specifically, this article stresses that successful SLTE programmes should allow participants to demonstrate the skills to engage in social networks and communities of practice, while successfully mediating "the structured relations that place people differently in terms of access to goods and resources" (Carter & Sealey, 2015, p. 7). This position builds u pon the recognition that the social and material influences of institutional structures on language pedagogy on the one hand, and the culturally-informed perceptions of language teachers on the other, combine together into powerful conditioning forces impacting the choices and actions by language teachers and learners in context. An understanding of the complex interaction between agentive choices, actions and broader social realities is thus consequential to the ways TCs conceptualise and embody Language Teacher Agency (LTA) in their respective environments (Kayi-Aydar, 2019). As developed further below, LTA can be defined from a social realist perspective as involving the emergent, contingent, and reflexive capacity of language educators to act in context with regard to pedagogical, institutional and logistical realities acting as constraining and enabling forces in their everyday work.

This article adopts a conceptual tone precisely because it argues that problems and ongoing tensions within SLTE programmes to date can be traced back to theory, and more specifically to ontological questions about society and the phenomena within it, including language learning and teaching. To frame the overall argument, two dominant epistemologies of SLTE are first summarised. Second, key social realist principles are introduced. From this conceptual basis, a discussion on LTA and reflexivity within SLTE contexts is offered, followed by an examination of key issues in the politics of English with implications for SLTE. Finally, we conclude with the more practical aspects of a social realist approach to SLTE design and delivery.

2.EPISTEMOLOGIES OF SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

Traditionally, SLTE has been conceptualised and practised from a structuralist perspective through the transmission-based approach, which mainly offers a "decontextualised presentation of theory and practice" (Crandall & Christison, 2016, p. 4). One of the basic assumptions in this approach is that both theory and practice learnt should be applicable regardless of contextual contingencies. As Freeman and Johnson (1998, p. 399) critique, in the transmission -based approach to SLTE, teachers are required to develop ideas about the "quintessential teaching behaviours that could be linked to specific learning outcomes." Although applications of the transmission-based approach to SLTE vary, in principle, this approach favours an atomistic view of language programme content, design and delivery (Richards, 2017). Teachers and learners tend to be conceptualised largely as deliverers and recipients of knowledge content, respectively, and are required to move more or less sequentially through the teaching -learning process. Accordingly, curriculum leads to syllabus, which leads to the teaching-learning practice, with norm referencing assessment serving as a feedback mechanism further informing curriculum design, in a cyclical fashion.

While this approach may appear somewhat mechanistic, TCs are also invited to draw from their own experience as (language) learners and question and transcend preconceived ideas with new knowledge and skills. TCs need to identify viable pedagogical strategies of use to specific teaching situations. In this way, LTA is both valuable and expected in a transmission -based programme to some extent, as the latter does emphasise the need for TCs to successfully manage the curriculum-syllabus-teaching/learning-assessment-curriculum cycle in local contexts. The problem, however, is that the complexity and variability of contextual contingencies are not necessarily made explicit. This lacuna results from the assumption that target knowledge and skills should be applicable more or less uniformly across contexts, regardless of sociohistorical factors. TCs involved in transmission-based SLTE programmes, therefore, learn a limited range of possible responses to structural and cultural forces presented by language policies, materials and testing apparatuses. In short, the transmission-based approach becomes effective if the complexities of situated language learning and teaching realities are considerably reduced and/or neutralised. This unfortunately creates a considerable gap between knowledge and skills developed by TCs in SLTE programmes, which tend to be based on idealised teaching situations, and the lived realities of language teachers in contexts, which tend to be a lot more fluid and complex.

Largely in response to the rigidity of the transmission-based approach, sociocultural and ecological approaches to SLTE prioritise LTA by preparing TCs to deal with a more comprehensive range of pedagogical situations throughout their careers. From this angle, the notion of curriculum design is understood as an emergent outcome of situated and contingent classroom practice rather than mandated from above. According to Johnson and Golombek (2011), a sociocultural perspective takes as its epistemological origin the emergence of human cognition out of social interaction, hence the interactionist angle. In parallel, the ecological approach presents classroom activities as designed and facilitated by teachers (a) in response to perceived learners' needs, and (b) as the result of ongoing interaction between learners and teachers as active classroom agents. Although realities beyond classroom walls (e.g., TESOL and educational theory, government policies and curricula, the language testing industry, etc.) are seen as important causal forces, they tend to be seen largely in terms of their constraining influence upon practice on the ground, thus as phenomena to be circumvented and/or modified to suit local needs. At the heart of the ecological perspective is the principle that effective pedagogical strategies are fluid, responsive and profoundly situated. Also, prominent within this perspective is the concept of learner autonomy (LA), which emphasises learners taking increasing responsibility for their learning experience (Cirocki, 2016). Autonomous learning is generally understood here as optimised when learning is made more personal.

From a social realist angle (summarised in the next section), both the transmission -based approach and the sociocultural/ecological orientation to SLTE are valuable but contain problematic features, notably their reductive tendency to prioritise either agency or structure at the detriment of the other. They are also problematic in terms of critical language pedagogy. In contrast, a social realist view of SLTE first identifies the distinct and emergent properties and powers of agency (e.g., language teachers and learners, their beliefs and actions, human reflexivity, etc.) and the structural elements at play in language programmes. From this basis, it then looks at their complex interplay in context, and identifies problematic outcomes of their relationship, including constraining ideologies and systems of oppression. Central to a social realist approach to SLTE is how teacher and learner subjectivities are structured and cultured. For example, while language teachers and learners are relatively free to have beliefs, make choices and guide their learning experiences in the classroom on a daily basis, these agentive processes do not emerge ex nihilo; they are largely responses to contextual realities, including distinct and antecedent structural and cultural phenomena, including language learning resources, scheduling, government policies, educational values, language ideologies, socio -economic and political phenomena, neoliberalism and globalisation. It is from this basis that questions related to the optimisation of LTA can then be dealt with. In this way, a social realist approach aims to integrate the valuable aspects of both the transmission-based and sociocultural and ecological orientations within a robust social ontology, the subject of the next section.

3. REALISM, UNDERLYING GENERATIVE MECHANISMS, AND LANGUAGE

To reiterate, problems and ongoing tensions within contemporary SLTE programmes originate from particular theoretical positions and answers to ontological questions about the nature of social processes, including language learning and teaching. In presenting social realism as a robust social ontology of pertinence to the development of SLTE programmes, we assume that any perspective towards language learning and teaching is based on a particular understanding of the structure-culture-agency relationship, succinctly described by Carter and New (2004, p. 3) as follows: "People as agents and actors are influe nced, though not determined, by their structural situations. People choose what they do, but they make their choices from a structurally and culturally generated range of options - which they do not choose." Phrased differently, while language teachers and learners possess the means to generate and engage in situated pedagogical experiences, their choices and actions remain profoundly structured and cultured (e.g., through language policies, curricula, textbooks, scheduling, learning materials, etc.). Research on SLTE programmes must therefore reveal how agency, structure and culture interact to produce contingent language learning phenomena, experiences and contexts.

To structure this complex task, social realism offers a stratified (or layered), emergentist viewpoint into social phenomena. Within this stratified social terrain, structure, culture and agency are irreducible to each other due to their distinct and emergent properties and powers. Agency is characterised by self-consciousness, reflexivity, emotionality and intentionality, features which cannot be attributed to structure or culture. Human agents have the unique power to cause things to happen in the world through their decisions and actions. In contrast, structure possesses antecedent and enduring properties and powers which both precede and survive individual human involvement. As such, structure can cause things to happen not because it is intentional or reflexive, as people are, but rather by providing constraining and enabling influences upon human agency, as people attempt to fulfil their objectives within contexts and over time. The causal potential of structure is therefore understandable in terms of its effects on human agency.

While structure generally encompasses objective, pre-existing sets of social and institutional relations we experience throughout our lives as social beings and as a result of being and acting in the world (Bouchard, 2021), culture is more limited to the ideational realm of human experience. Culture can be understood as similar to structure in that it also provides affordances and limits upon human decisions and actions. However, Archer (2000) notes that conflating culture and structure together propagates the myth of cultural integration, which erroneously presents culture as an integrated system. Because of these ontological differences, structure, culture and agency can never be reduced to an epiphenomenon of one or the other. In this sense, social realism offers a perspective beyond the either/or viewpoint which has driven much of the structuralist/interpretivist debate over which approach to SLTE is best. It does so by looking specifically at how the distinct and emergent components of society interact to produce the social realities we experience. Sealey and Carter (2004, p. 12) present social realism as "an explanatory model in which the interplay between pre-existent structures, having causal powers and properties, and people, possessing distinctive causal powers and properties of their own, results in contingent yet explicable outcomes." As an emergentist ontology, social realism is thus particularly mindful of the dangers of ontological conflations which reduce agency within structure (e.g., structuralism), structure within agency (e.g., interpretivism), or structure and agency as two aspects of the same thing (e.g., Giddens' structuration theory, Bourdieu's theory of habitus). The importance of avoiding ontological conflations is precisely because we are interested in understanding the causal interplay between the distinct and emergent components of society.

From this basis, we draw from Archer (2003) to present reflexivity as an essential part of LTA. Reflexivity can be understood as the internal conversation we have within ourselves, about our positionings and roles in the world, as we attempt to fulfil goals and aspirations over time, in light of structural and cultural constraints and enablements. Reflexivity is a largely self-conscious and relatively rational process of deliberation, decision -making and commitment, although also profoundly influenced by emotionality. While human beings adopt unique and personalised reflexive approaches, reflexivity, as a core feature of human agency, can be identified as common to all people. By reflexively deliberating on a number of issues in our lives, with regards to structural and cultural constraints and enablements, we, as individuals and within groups, can (although not always) reach decisions that affect our behaviours and actions in context. From that point, our behaviours can then affect the course of social life, and over time, have causal effects on structure and culture (e.g., structural and cultural reproduction and/or transformation). In sum, reflexivity constitutes a crucial causal force in the production of social life, since it includes the intentionality necessary for human action, and by extension for structure and culture to deploy constraints and enablements. Although reflexivity has been discussed since the beginnings of philosophy, social realism gives reflexivity central importance in the formulation of causal explanations of social phenomena. For this reason, we underline reflexivity as a central analytical focus in educational research, including TESOL research.

Also, core to a social realist ontology, and to critical language pedagogy for that matter, is the notion that there are phenomena which cannot be perceived through the senses or through measuring tools (i.e., empirically), but nevertheless have real effects on real people in real contexts. These hidden but consequential social phenomena are called underlying generative mechanisms (UGMs), and examples of these include social class distribution, the conservative powers of social inertia resulting from the maintenance of vested interests, credentialism, and the reproductive and transformative potentials of education. UGMs are commonly although not exclusively associated with the structural and cultural realms and can act as constraints and enablements. Notably, UGMs possess generalisable, cross-contextual features. Within educational contexts, and at a much more local level, learning can arguably be considered a UGM (if we define learning as a social experience rather than a purely cognitive process). Unlike teaching, which is an observable phenomenon, no one can empirically pin down learning when it occurs, although we can certainly detect its existence by observing changes in learner behaviours, for example. Motivation can also be conceptualised likewise, not as a learner characteristic exclusively, but rather as a relational outcome of the structure-culture-agency relationship (Sealey & Carter, 2004), and by extension as a UGM, the effects of which can be detected in observed behaviours. However, when talking about UGMs, we need to: (a) distinguish mechanisms within the structural/cultural realms and those more closely associated with people's lived experiences, and (b) remind ourselves that UGMs possess cross -context features and properties. Moreover, social realism makes an important distinction between traces of UGMs (e.g., statistical data about a population, results on a language test, changes in behaviours, etc.) and the UGMs themselves as ontological entities with causal potential which may or may not be actualised in context, and which are apprehended mainly through theory. Although labelled mechanisms, UGMs are not mechanistic because they (a) depend on the powers of people to do things in the real world; (b) are always situated, even if they can be found across contexts; (c) are not static entities in the sense that their causal potential may or may not be actualised; and (d) always interact with other causal forces, including other UGMs and notably people's powerto act. UGMs possess the above characteristics precisely because the social realm is an open system. The social realist approach to explaining causal relationships in the social realm is thus cognisant of and responsive to the unique power of people to deliberate and act, and the power of structure and culture to constrain and enable these deliberations and actions.

Another important feature of social realism is its layered, emergentist view of the real. Bhaskar (2008) divides the real into three layers: the empirical, the actual and the real. The empirical is the realm of human perceptions and experiences; in social research, this layer is commonly captured through quantitative data analysis, and qualitatively through interviews and/or surveys, for example. The actual includes outcomes which did/do happen as opposed to all those that could have happened but did/do not. It therefore encompasses the empirical but also all events in the world, whether they are perceived by people or not. Finally, the real includes the empirical, the actual, and rather importantly, all phenomena such as UGMs. The following table summarises how UGMs, social events, and human experiences are differently situated within the empirical, the actual and the real.

If we look at the somewhat contentious issue of real or authentic language, certainly an important issue in SLTE programmes, a social realist viewpoint presents (a) real language as a set of UGMs allowing humans to produce and perceive language in all its forms, as well as the emergent properties of language-as-cultural-resource which both facilitate and constrain situated interaction; (b) actual language as all linguistic phenomena which do happen, for example, all dialects and linguistic varieties in the world; and (c) empirical language as situated linguistic behaviours and phenomena apprehended through sensory experience and measuring tools (e.g, classroom interaction). This stratified view of language presents language as both a social construction and an entity with intransitive properties (i.e., beyond situated interaction), and allows us to understand why, for example, "the structure of verb tenses in English is a human construction but not alterable by individual effort" (Mackenzie, 1998, p. 61). Again, this stratified view of language is crucial to the clarification of content knowledge in SLTE programmes. As both beginning and experienced language teachers are inevitably faced with the dilemma of what to teach, the answer provided by social realism is rather clear - the real, actual and empirical aspects of language together, along with awareness of their differences.

In parallel, the benefits of a social realist ontology to the study of TESOL research problems become clear when we look at the long-standing debate about target language (TL) and first language (L1) use in the classroom, another common topic in SLTE programmes. Monolingual language policies, which hold that language proficiency increases through exclusive use of the TL, are understood from a social realist angle as profoundly empiricist because they assume that only situated, real-time practice in the TL is meaningful. A monolingual orientation to TESOL is therefore reductive because it disregards the more conceptual, ideational and affective factors and resources which also impact language learning and use (e.g., extant linguistic knowledge from the L1, learners' attitudes towards the TL, language -as-cultural-resource, sociocultural processes and ideologies, motivation). From social realism's layered perspective, however, we can consider all relevant factors and resources (at the levels of the empirical, the actual, and the real) of consequence to the language learning experience, and from this basis, characterise monolingualism as an unnecessarily reductive approach to language learning and teaching.

Social realism's stratified approach is also effective in optimising LTA and LA development because, instead of dichotomising agency and structure as somewhat antagonistic forces, it positions both in relation to each other. A social realist approach considers, yet also moves beyond, subjectivities to view the complex development ofboth LA and LTA as involving people looking both within (to understand the self as different from others) and beyond (to understand the situated and the deeply structured and cultured nature of self/ves). An important ramification for SLTE programmes is that teacher educators and TCs need to develop both conceptual and practical understandings of LTA, LA, language teaching methodologies and other important elements of language pedagogy, including UGMs as layered and contingent realities.

Although insufficient and perhaps abstract to some extent, we hope that this summary of social realism has further clarified some of the problems posed by the transmission -based and sociocultural and ecological orientations, and helped readers to come to terms with the importance of grounding SLTE theories and practices in a robust social ontology.

4. LANGUAGE TEACHER AGENCY, REFLEXIVITY AND SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

The social realist view summarised above allows us to understand LTA as involving the emergent, contingent - and reflexive - capacity of language educators to first recognise contextual constraints and enablements, then decide and act in context. This involves TCs becoming cognisant of specifically how the languages they teach are embedded in networks of ideologies, and in the context of English language teaching (ELT), reflecting on the socio - political implications of English in relation to other languages (Shohamy, 2006). This type of critical analysis in LTA is inherently geared towards understanding the complex and multi- theories, so as to situate agency within its structural and cultural context. Here, a social realist approach emphasises the multi-directional nature of reflexivity by combining at least two core approaches to reflection: developing theory -grounded methodologies and practices to meet situated

needs, and drawing insight from situated practice to reinforce or modify existing conceptual knowledge. For example, Naka (2018) reflects on the successful design of one preservice teacher training course in Japan in which learners reflected on the concept of Global Englishes, and adopted more creativity in their lesson planning. However, he stresses that "preservice teachers' linguistic and c ultural awareness is often neglected in [teacher training] programs" (p. 89), which is why a programmatic approach grounded in social realism may have promise. Farrell (2015)

divides reflection into five distinct yet closely intertwined levels: (1) beyond practice; (2) practice; (3) theory; (4) principles and (5) philosophy. His framework for reflection thus resonates with a social realist approach by firstly recognising that reflection on practice is not an isolated activity but rather constitutes an ongoing process unfolding at multiple levels, prior to, during and beyond the SLTE programme. For example, TCs can be trained to identify the limitations of ELT materials from structural, cultural and agentive viewpoints, reflect on the links between theory and practice, and suggest concrete strategies for improvement. In the layered focus of language pedagogy and its implications for the lives of teachers and students alike. It also requires the realisation that language teaching does not consist of essentialised, onesize-fits-all approaches, as advocated by and popularised through language teaching methodism. In the context of ELT, developing reflexive capacity is challenging, given English's enduring legacy of linguistic imperialism and global neoliberalism (O'Regan, 2021; Pennycook, 2017; Phillipson, 1992), and the powerful, normalising forces guiding the production and consumption of commercial ELT materials (Daghigh & Abdul Rahim, 2021; Gray, 2012). Obviously, these issues reveal ELT as a profoundly conflictual practice (Throop, 2007), exerting greater pressure on TCs and experienced language teachers alike. It is for these reasons that a sociologically - grounded understanding of LTA by scholars and practitioners is necessary. As argued earlier, a social realist approach to SLTE conceptualises LTA in relation to structural and cultural constraints and enablements, not outside or contra these. Within SLTE programmes, understanding of this relationship by TCs involves answering complex and sociologically-laden questions such as: How do TCs contemplate their roles regarding structural and cultural constraints and enablements? and How do TCs develop LTA in response to expectations and wider sociopolitical realities? Admittedly, these are not novel questions; indeed,

the notion of reflective practice, influenced in part by the work of Schön (1983), has gained increasing attention to become somewhat of a buzzword nowadays. Central concepts in Schön's approach include reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, with the former constituting an integral part of situated pedagogical practice, and the latter emphasising post hoc analysis (Sellberg, Lindwall, & Rystedt, 2021). Our understanding is that, for researchers, practitioners and laypersons alike, reflection is an ongoing process of linking concepts with practice. To optimise this process, SLTE programmes should allow TCs to reflect on the connections between their strategies for improvement. In the process, and while considering broader social issues, SLTE participants can identify hegemonic assumptions and traces of dominant ideological discourses, and develop effective critical strategies to unpack them. Such critical engagement allows TCs the opportunity to consider the contingent nature of LTA, its situatedness within the broader socio-political environment of ELT, and their capacity as agents, actors and causally efficacious beings to act in relation to structural and cultural constraints and enablements. To be critical, SLTE programmes must therefore be more than a matter of (a) emphasising the lived realities of teachers or (b) meeting standards of accountability; they must be about understanding the distinct, layered, emergent and contingent nature of LTA in relation to structure and culture, and the persistent forms of inequalities which are the products of such a relationship.

Before we outline the more practical aspects of the social realist approach to SLTE, we address in the next section certain socio -political issues which we believe are central to critical and emancipatory SLTE programmes.

5.THE POLITICS OF TESOL: IMPLICATIONS FOR SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

In view of current global circumstances, Cochran-Smith, Ell, Grudnoff, Ludlow, Haigh and Hill (2014, p. 111) state that realism "provides the theoretical underpinning for the investigation of teacher education understood as complex systems with multiple in teracting parts and players." This vision, which incorporates attention paid to UGMs and human reflexivity in terms of their causal features, matters a great deal to the development of critically -informed SLTE programmes worldwide. After all, most English TCs come from countries where English is either spoken as a second or foreign language (Crandall & Christison, 2016). Consequently, SLTE programmes must clarify, for one, the conflictual history of the spread of English internationally as well as the complex links between English and TCs' first languages. Second language teacher education programmes must also help teachers conceptualise how their role fits into wider and complex systems of macro-level socio-political, economic and cultural elements profoundly influencing their everyday work.

An important component of any SLTE programme is therefore the development of TCs' critical understanding ofproblematic ideologies deeply ingrained within ELT contexts, including the hegemonic presence of English in tod ay's world. This critical understanding requires realisation that the use of the English language is not only a situated practice (as interactionists would hold); it also draws from antecedent and enduring cultural and structural realities (a realist argument). Consequently, SLTE programme designers and participants must also become social critics, and understand (a) how non-discursive phenomena (e.g., the physiological elements necessary to acquire and use language(s), classroom objects and designs, money invested in language education programmes) and discursive realities (e.g., SLA theory, learner and teacher identities, etc.) are intricately related, and (b) that social inequalities, even if they are social constructions, are also more than discursive realities alterable through individual efforts alone (e.g., by simply modifying discourse or "changing the conversation "). As social critics, SLTE participants must also ponder why structures of inequalities have antecedent and enduring properties somewhat beyond people's capacity to fully control and modify them, all the while keeping in mind that people, as powerful social agents, retain the unique ability to dismantle structures of oppression and guide their own future. These are not easy questions to ponder, yet they are inherent to critically-informed language pedagogy.

Structures of inequality, as consequential UGMs, are numerous in ELT worlds. Providing a rich historical account of the English language, O'Regan (2021) argues that the global capitalist system (and neoliberalism as its most prominent ideology) is inextricably linked to the spread and hegemonic presence of English around the world. Neoliberalism, as we have come to understand it, diverts attention from systemic forms of oppression, thus neutralising attempts towards collective and sustained resistance. In language learning and teaching contexts, it also introduces a stabilising yet problematic hierarchy of languages and discourses, as suggested by Gray (2010, p. 14): "the ability to talk a certain kind of talk becomes a marketable skill" Neoliberalism thus commodifies multiple aspects of English language education (Kubota & Takeda, 2021) by naturalising the idea that competence in the language ensures competitiveness in a global marketplace. As these ideological processes unfold, systems of oppression (e.g, language shift/death, discrimination against non -native speakers, etc.) persist largely unscathed.

These emergent outcomes of inequalities within ELT are largely structural and cultural, with consequences for real people in real contexts. This means that critical LTA requires a layered viewpoint which not only affords shared awareness of structures of oppression as UGMs, but also posits LTA in relation to structure and culture. The following two examples demonstrate why it is crucial for SLTE programme organisers and participants to conceptualise agency in relation to structure and culture. Firstly, the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR) is an example of language policy and planning (LPP) as a structure established at the supranational level, which has now influenced LPP across Asia (Daghigh & Abdul Rahim, 2021). Although the CEFR has been largely uncritically accepted around the world as a benchmark for the classification of language skills, it has also been criticised for its reduction of language learning to a process of acquiring competencies for survival in market-based societies (Bori, 2018). Many Asian governments have generated a wide range of language -in-education policies inspired by the CEFR designed to improve the methodological competence of local teachers (Butler, 2011; Kaplan, Baldauf, & Kamwangamalu, 2011; Tsui, 2021). In the process, they have unfortunately promoted policies based on Western-oriented pedagogical values largely out of sync with local sociocultural realities and contingencies. In many of these policies, prioritisations of the TL through teaching English through English initiatives in Japan and South Korea (Glasgow, 2018; Tsui, 2021), or English as a medium of instruction programmes in Europe (Macaro, 2018), for example, provide tangible and enduring examples of the universalisation of Western-oriented educational values accepted by non-Western governments, boards of education, and teachers, a considerably problematic UGM indeed.

Secondly, and more closely connected to the lived experiences of educational stakeholders is how the global ELT coursebook market influences the day -to-day work of teachers. ELT textbooks aimed at global consumption have been criticised as reflecting neoliberal values (Bori, 2018; Daghigh & Abdul Rahim, 2021; Gray, 2012) in the way they promote individualism, celebrity and success. Other ELT textbooks in countries like Japan have been shown to prioritise Western, Inner Circle characters and Anglo-American models of English (Y amada, 2015) as the language of the outside world. While textbooks are most often published by private companies and sold globally, others may be subject to government authorisation systems, a critical step in curriculum reform and implementation processes. Nagamine (2017), for example, recounts how, as an editorial board member for a Japanese EFL textbook publisher, he was restricted in his ability to make changes to content that align with curriculum reform initiatives due to the publisher's demands for profit maximisation, themselves conditioned by public expectations about what constitutes "appropriate" and "effective" language learning. In other words, LTA can be constrained at multiple levels of the EFL industry, including materials development (Glasgow & Paller, 2019; Kennedy & Tomlinson, 2013), which reveals the need for SLTE programme participants to adopt a layered sociological perspective and critically assess and improve language learning materials.

Also, of relevance to a critical approach to SLTE programmes is analysis and dismantlement of the ideology of native-speakerism, defined by Houghton and Rivers (2013) as stereotyping and/or discrimination against or by foreign language teachers, based on the native speaker identity. Native-speakerism is a resilient ideological force within TESOL (Bouchard, 2020) indelibly tied to racism (Rivers, 2017; Glasgow, 2023). It has persistently encouraged material racio-linguistic inequalities such as job discrimination for non-native English speaker teachers, as noted by Moussu and Llurda (2011). In language learning and teaching contexts, this pervasive ideology reinforces the considerably constraining (because unrealistic) view that native speaker competence is the ultimate goal for language learners (Hall & Cook, 2011). For SLTE programmes populated mainly by non -native English speaking TCs, this ideology therefore needs to be brought front and centre, dismantled and replaced by new and emancipatory ideologies, including notably the notion of the intercultural speaker as a constructive alternative to the native speaker criterion (Byram, 1997).

This potential can be found to some extent within the "Global Englishes" movement, which includes a broad range of counter-discourses, including world Englishes, English as an international language, and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) (Rose & Galloway, 2019). Although these perspectives do contain problematic elements (see Pennycook, 2021, for a discussion), they also promote the non -native English speaker teacher sub -movement (Braine, 2010), which offers resistance to the discriminatory effects of native-speakerism. Overall, this epistemological shift away from the native speaker criterion within TESOL has helped redefine the very bases upon which SLTE programmes are developed and implemented, and recent efforts to change TC perceptions and language ideologies have so far been extensive, primarily in ELF circles. That being said, research and practice are not homologous processes, and it is worth noting that new developments in SLTE often clash against recalcitrantly outdated language policies and practices still monopolised by the normative powers ofnative -speakerism (O'Regan, 2021).

While recognising that all language teachers everywhere must face unique, fluid and contingent realities, we also emphasise that there are UGMs of relevance across contexts. For example, language teachers everywhere must deal with issues related to globalisation, neoliberalism, the powerful influences of the language testing industry, nationalism and education as a mechanism of social reproduction and transformation. They must also question deep-seated assumptions about language and learning, and attempt to bridge often out-of-touch government-mandated language policies and complex and rapidly changing local pedagogical realities. Because these challenges usually remain persistently elusive, and certainly frustrating, the layered and critically-informed perspective offered by social realism is, in our opinion, a useful one for SLTE participants to adopt.

6. A SOCIAL REALIST APPROACH TO SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION DESIGN AND DELIVERY

With this understanding in mind, we draw from Layder's (1997) theory of social domains (see also Bouchard & Glasgow, 2019) to propose that the lived realities of TCs and experienced language teachers everywhere can be layered into four domains: psychobiography, situated activity, social settings and contextual resources. The two domains closely related to the immediate experiences of language teachers are psychobiography and situated activity, while those most removed from these experiences are social settings and contextual resources. Psychobiography relates to an individual's existence and experiences from birth to the present time. It considers how people have developed their individual identities in close interaction with intimate others, rendering them unique. Situated activity has more to do with social encounters and their episodic nature. Social settings refer to the immediate environment in which situated activity can be found, and encompass loosely structured networks (e.g., family, friends) to more structured settings (e.g., schools, universities). They embody the aspects of social life that tend to possess tightly structured patterns of relationships and hierarchies. The outermost domain, contextual resources, consists of material, structural and cultural forces accumulated over time and that condition the other three domains. These distinct and emergent social domains can help structure SLTE programmes in a stratified fashion through specific learning goals (Table 2).

Although these different layers of experience are certainly not mutually exclusive, they unfold along different time frames, and afford different types of resources, limitations and insights. Of crucial importance, the elements populating each domain must also be understood in terms of their distinct and emergent properties and powers first, before their relationship with other layers can be fully understood. This layering of SLTE programme goals can be extended further to produce specific SLTE courses which address even more specific objectives and tasks. Table 3 shows how this is possible.

Courses in a layered SLTE programme can introduce strategies for creating realistic and effective teaching plans, having TCs role-play specific teaching situations, and having TCs reflect on the links between intentions and performances. Digital technology, especially in this post- pandemic age, is paramount to optimising lesson observation and feedback. Courses can also address the important issue of materials development, for instance, how to combine existing materials (which are often ideologically problematic and/or inadequate for local needs) with upto-date methodologies and emancipatory strategies (Glasgow & Paller, 2019; Nguyen, 2018). In addition, final SLTE projects can involve students creating action plans to solve specific and authentic teaching problems, such as lack of student motivation at a specific grade level, or learners struggling with reading comprehension. Together, these possibilities provide fertile grounds for a layered and critical approach to SLTE, one which is best suited to strengthening both LTA and LA, especially th rough "student teachers' performance in specific real-life tasks in authentic contexts such as classrooms or other school settings" (Cirocki, Madyarov, & Baecher, 2019, p. 15).

As readers can surely denote at this point, we are not arguing that a social realist approach to SLTE provides radically different principles, methodologies, and practices. In this article, we have instead offered valuable conceptual tools with which to reframe existing approaches and situate them within a more robust social ontology than those provided by the dominant structuralist and/or interactionist perspectives. We have advocated a new way of thinking about SLTE programmes as equipping current and future teachers with the ability to make decisions based on both conceptual and practical insights, rather than exclusively centred on the lived experiences of teachers or the fulfilment of standards of accountability. Overall, SLTE programmes designed from a stratified, social realist perspective are, in our view, likely to help TCs to develop more sophisticated beliefs and act more effectively in context and raise their awareness that the job of language teachers is indeed complex, multi -layered, contingent and profoundly ethical.

7. CONCLUSION

Our approach in this article has been to re-consider the contents and purposes of SLTE programmes from the broader angle of social theory, specifically the ontological viewpoint offered by social realism, to see how fundamental questions such as What is(are) language(s)? What is education? How can language teaching and learning help people to overcome social inequalities? and What is language teacher agency? can be more successfully tackled. Answers to these complex questions, it must be stressed, are fundamental to successful SLTE programmes. We have argued that a social realist viewpoint can help teacher educators to plan more effective and sociologically grounded SLTE programmes which establish valuable principles and frameworks through which aspiring and experienced teachers can design curricula and create activities appropriate to the complex reality of language learning and teaching within and across cultural contexts. While it is evident that the sociocultural turn in SLTE has helped redefine TCs as active practitioners instead of passive receivers of knowledge, further discussion should focus on designing programmes that can deal with global shifts, sociocultural changes, and resilient systems of oppression within ELT worlds, and help both teachers and learners face the complexity of a constantly changing world. Given its layered and emergentist view of the social world, social realism is adequate to the creation of SLTE programmes that engage and motivate language teachers and learners, as transformative agents, in these uncertain times.

References

REFERENCES

Archer, M. (2000). Being human: The problem of agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Archer, M. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bhaskar, R. (2008). A realist theory of science. New York, NY: Routledge.

Bori, P. (2018). Language textbooks in the era of neoliberalism. New York, NY: Routledge.

Bouchard, J. (2020). The resilience of native-speakerism: A realist perspective. In S. A. Houghton & J. Bouchard (Eds.), Native-speakerism: Its resilience and undoing (pp. 17-43). Singapore: Springer.

Bouchard, J. (2021). Complexity, emergence, and causality in applied linguistics. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bouchard, J., & Glasgow, G. P. (2019). Agency in language policy and planning: A theoretical model. In J. Bouchard & G. P. Glasgow (Eds.), Agency in language policy and planning: Critical inquiries (pp. 22-76). New York, NY: Routledge.

Braine, G. (2010). Nonnative speaker English teachers: Research, pedagogy and professional growth. New York, NY: Routledge.

Butler, Y. G. (2011). The implementation of communicative and task -based language teaching in the Asia-Pacific region. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 36-57.

Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Carter, B., & New, C. (Eds.). (2004). Making realism work: Realist social theory and empirical research. Abingdon: Routledge.

Carter, B., & Sealey, A. (2015). Realist social theory and multilingualism in Europe. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1), 1-19.

Cirocki, A. (2016). Developing learner autonomy through tasks: Theory, research, practice. Halifax: LinguaBooks.

Cirocki, A., Madyarov, I., & Baecher, L. (2019). Contemporary perspectives on student teacher learning and the TESOL practicum. In A. Cirocki, I. Madyarov, & L. Baecher (Eds.). Current perspectives on the TESOL practicum: Cases from around the globe (pp. 1-20). Cham: Springer.

Cochran-Smith, M., Ell, F., Grudnoff, L., Ludlow, L., Haigh M., & Hill, M. (2014). When complexity theory meets critical realism: A platform for research on initial teacher education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 41(1), 105-122.

Crandall, J., & Christison, M. (2016). An overview of research on English language teacher education and professional development. In J. Crandall & M. Christison (Eds.), Teacher education and professional development in TESOL (pp. 3-34). New York, NY: Routledge.

Daghigh, A. J., & Abdul Rahim, H. (2021). Neoliberalism in ELT textbooks: An analysis of locally developed and imported textbooks used in Malaysia. Pedagogy, CultureandSociety, 29(3), 493-512.

Farrell, T. S. C. (2015). Promoting teacher reflection in second language education: A frameworkfor TESOL professionals. New Y ork, NY: Routledge.

Freeman, D., & Johnson, K. E. (1998). Reconceptualizing the knowledge -base of language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 32(3), 397-417.

Glasgow, G. P. (2018). Curriculum reform and professional development: The problems faced by Japanese senior high school teachers. In K. Hashimoto & V -T Nguyen (Eds.), The professional development of English language teachers in Asia: Lessons from Japan and Vietnam (pp. 45-60). New York, NY: Routledge.

Glasgow, G. P. (Ed.). (2023). Multiculturalism, language, and race in English education in Japan: Agency, pedagogy, and reckoning. Hong Kong: Candlin & Mynard ePublishing.

Glasgow, G. P., & Paller, D. L. (2019). Agents of change or products of compromise? How Japanese senior high school EFL textbooks (mis)represent foreign language curriculum reform. Kobe University of Foreign Studies Journal of Research Institute, 59, 55-77.

Gray, J. (2010). The construction of English: Culture, consumerism andpromotion in the ELT global coursebook. London: Palgrave McMillan.

Gray, J. (2012). Neoliberalism, celebrity and 'aspirational content' in English language teaching textbooks for the global market. In D. Block, J. Gray, & M. Holborow (Eds.), Neoliberalism and applied linguistics (pp. 86-113). New York, NY: Routledge.

Hall, G., & Cook, G. (2011). Own-language use in language teaching and learning. Language Teaching, 44(3), 271-308.

Hill, D. (2007). Critical teacher education, new labour, and the global project of neoliberal capital. Policy Futures in Education, 5(2), 204-225.

Houghton, S. A., & Rivers, D. J. (Eds.). (2013). Native-speakerism: Intergroup dynamics in foreign language education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Johnson, K. E., & Golombek, P. R. (2011). Research on second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective on professional development. New York, NY: Routledge.

Kaplan, R. B., Baldauf, R. B., & Kamwangamalu, N. (2011). Why educational language plans sometimes fail. Current Issues in Language Planning, 12(2),105-124.

Kayi-Aydar, H. (2019). Language teacher agency: Major theoretical considerations, conceptualizations and methodological choices. In H. Kayi-Aydar, X. Gao, E. Miller, M. Varghese, & G. Vitanova. (Eds.), Theorizing and analyzing language teacher agency (pp. 10-23). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Kennedy, C., & Tomlinson, B. (2013). Implementing language policy and planning through materials development. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Applied linguistics and materials development (pp. 255-267). London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Kubota, R., & Takeda, Y. (2021). Language-in-education policies in Japan versus transnational workers' voices: Two faces of neoliberal communication competence. TESOL Quarterly, 55(2), 458-485.

Layder, D. (1997). Modern social theory: Key debates and new directions. London: UCL Press.

Macaro, E. (2018). English medium instruction: Content and language in policy and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mackenzie, J. (1998). Science education after postmodernism. In D. Carr (Ed.), Education, knowledge and truth: Beyond the postmodern impasse (pp. 53-67). New York, NY: Routledge.

Moussu. L., & Llurda, E. (2011). Non-native English-speaking language teachers: History and research. Language Teaching, 41(3), 315-348.

Nagamine, T. (2017). The potential for non -native teachers to effectively teach speaking in a Japanese EFL context. In J. de Dios & M. Agudo (Eds.), Native and non-native teachers in English language classrooms. Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton.

Naka, K. (2018). Professional development f or pre-service English language teachers in the age of globalization. In K. Hashimoto & V-T. Nguyen (Eds.). Professional development of English language teachers in Asia: Lessons from Japan and Vietnam (pp. 76-92). New Y ork, NY: Routledge.

Nguyen, N. T. H. (2018). Vietnamese teachers' views on a large scale professional development course on using computer-assisted language learning. In K. Hashimoto & V-T. Nguyen (Eds.), Professional development of English language teachers in Asia: Lessons from Japan and Vietnam (pp. 130-148). New York, NY: Routledge.

O'Regan, J. P. (2021). Global English and political economy: An immanent critique. New York, NY: Routledge.

Pennycook, A. (2017). The cultural politics of English as an international language. New York, NY: Routledge.

Penny cook, A. (2021). Critical applied linguistics: A critical re-introduction. London and New York: Routledge.

Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Richards, J. (2017). Transmissive and transformative approaches to language teacher education. Indonesian Journal of English Language Teaching, 12(1), 15-38.

Rivers, D. J. (2017). Native-speakerism and the betrayal of the native speaker language-teaching professional. In D. J. Rivers & K. Zotzmann (Eds.), Isms in language education: Oppression, intersectionality and emancipation (pp. 74-97). Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton.

Rose, H., & Galloway, N. (2019). Global Englishes for language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in practice. New York, NY: Routledge.

Sealey, A., & Carter, B. (2004). Applied linguistics as social science. London: Continuum.

Sellberg, C., Lindwall, O., & Rystedt, H. (2021). The demonstration of reflection-in-action in maritime training. Reflective Practice, 22(3), 319-330.

Shohamy, E. (2006). Language policy: Hidden agendas and new approaches. New Y ork, NY: Routledge.

Throop, R. (2007). Teachers as language policy planners: Incorporating language policy into teacher education and classroom practice. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 22(2), 45-65.

Tsui, A. B. M. (Ed.). (2021). English language teaching and teacher education in East Asia: Global challenges and local responses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Yamada, M. (2015). The role of English teaching in modern Japan: Diversity and multiculturalism through English language education in a globalized era. New York, NY: Routledge.