Abstract This article reports on a British Council—funded project that sought to develop teachers’ understandings of multilingual pedagogies in linguistically diverse primary schools in northern Vietnam. The project trained English teachers to lead teacher activity groups (TAGs) with colleagues from other subjects, based on the assumption that English teachers, due to their specialist knowledge of how languages are learned and taught, could act as agents of multilingualism in their schools. The study examined how TAGs supported teacher learning, collaboration, and the development of teacher leadership in multilingual pedagogy. Fifteen English teachers and thirty subject teachers participated across fifteen primary schools. Data included interviews, TAG meeting recordings, and reflective journals, analysed thematically. Findings indicate that TAGs fostered collaboration and increased awareness of multilingualism, although leadership development was uneven. The project identified some systemic factors as barriers to linguistic inclusion, such as policy–practice tensions.

Von Oktober 2022 bis März 2023 führte das Zentrum für Fremdsprachenausbildung (ZFA) der Ruhr-Universität Bochum ein Programm zur beruflichen Weiterbildung seiner Lehrkräfte durch. Dieser einleitende Artikel stellt Professional Inquiry (professionelle Unterrichtsuntersuchung) als eine Strategie für die Entwicklung von Lehrkräften vor und beschreibt die Prinzipien, die ihr und somit auch dem ZFA-Projekt zugrunde liegen. Überdies wird im Folgenden ein Überblick über die drei von den Lehrkräften des ZFA durchgeführten Projekte gegeben und dargelegt bzw. erläutert, welchen Nutzen das Projekts für die Lehrkräfte hatte und welchen Herausforderungen sie dabei begegnet sind. Im Anschluss an diesen einleitenden Teil werden die vollständigen Berichte der teilnehmenden Lehrkräfte vorgestellt. Diese Berichte zeigen, wie systematische Unterrichtsuntersuchungen von Lehrenden ihr Verständnis vom Lehren und Lernen vertiefen können. Die Erfahrungen dieses Projekts am ZFA zeigen, dass die professionelle Unterrichtsuntersuchung ein praktikabler Ansatz für die Entwicklung von Sprachlehrern an Universitäten ist.

Research on students' perceptions of feedback in higher education has largely focused on students' general preferences, with little insight into the kind of feedback that students experience. Against this backdrop, the current study investigates students' reactions to a specific intervention which aimed, using research-informed strategies, to promote teacher and peer formative feedback with two groups of students at a teacher education institution in Norway. The qualitative analysis of 188 written reflections revealed that the students were overwhelmingly positive towards teacher feedback. Peer feedback was valued, though less favourably, suggesting that the role of peer feedback in higher education may need to be reconceptualised to recognise its strengths and acknowledge its limits. Opportunities to engage in feedback dialogue with their instructors were not exploited by the students, leading to the conclusion that such processes may need to be more formally structured and initiated by course instructors.

The national 'Competence for Quality' in-service programme in Norway aims to enhance the subject knowledge and instructional competences of primary and secondary school teachers across subjects. The programme is evaluated annually through a teacher survey which, however, does not capture in depth how the programme impacts on participants. This study tracked four primary school teachers of English over 26 months and found that the in-service course they completed had positive effects on their confidence to speak English in class and their oral fluency, though a reduction in the accuracy of their classroom English was also noted. Variable but positive changes in teachers' classroom practices during the course were noted too. Overall, the study highlights links between teacher knowledge, teacher confidence and teacher change, provides insight into how professional development impacts on these dimensions of teaching, and illustrates how case studies can complement quantitative evaluations of in-service programmes for teachers.

In 2004 English became a compulsory subject in the primary curriculum in Saudi Arabia, yet analyses of this reform have been limited. This mixed methods study examines the perspectives on the primary English reform of 504 long-serving ELT professionals. Based on interviews and questionnaires, the study concludes that respondents were largely supportive of the policy to start English early; they believed it had a positive effect on levels of English among Saudi state school pupils, even though it was also felt that the official targets stipulated by the Ministry of Education were over-ambitious. Most respondents believed, too, that teaching English in primary school had allowed pupils to develop more positive attitudes to English. Despite these positive views about the 2004 reform, it was also felt that primary ELT in Saudi Arabia was still characterised by a number of challenges, particularly regarding the lack of specialised teacher preparation, demanding textbooks and the limited time allocated to English in the curriculum. It is recommended that addressing such challenges should be an important element in any reforms, particularly given the recent decision in Saudi Arabia to introduce English from Grade 1.

Abstract One of priorities of the EU’s climate change policy is the energy performance of buildings. This is reflected primarily through the series of Directives the EU has enacted along the years, but is most precisely conveyed in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). As part of the European Union, Lithuania has enacted its own long-term strategy aimed at transforming the current building stock in one which is more energy efficient. Building energy certification, legalized in accordance with the requirements of the directive is the primary tool used to evaluate the energy-efficiency of a building, which includes determination of the energy consumption of a building and subsequently assigning it with an energy performance class. Energy performance certificates (EPC) are obligatory for new and existing buildings in all European Union (EU) member states and provide not only a description of the energy performance characteristics of individual buildings, but are also useful source of legal information for determination of the achievements of building energy efficiency improvement strategy. Despite the current wide spread presence of EPC analyses in other European countries, similar information on the national EPC register of Lithuania is still hardly present in research studies. To this effect this paper presents a detailed overview of the stock of Lithuanian residential 1-2 apartments buildings using data from the national EPC register. The results obtained present the impact of the implementation of EPBD on Lithuanian residential 1-2 apartments buildings, including changes in thermal insulation of building elements, heating system typology, energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

This paper reviews the literature on the use of video-based observation (VBO) with particular attention to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) on development projects. While the use of video both as a research tool and as a strategy for supporting professional development is well-documented across several disciplines, the extent to which VBO has been utilized in M&E contexts is less clearly defined. In order to provide theoretically-grounded recommendations for the development and implementation of one organisation's innovative VBO impact evaluation scheme, this review examines recent evidence of VBO in M&E contexts and draws on VBO literature more generally to identify its advantages and challenges together with advice for enhancing its effectiveness. Based on this analysis, the paper highlights a number of practical issues that should be considered when VBO is being developed for M&E in development contexts, particularly where videos are being made by participants themselves. The value of VBO in responding to COVID-19 and reducing carbon emissions is also noted.

Improving teacher competence has become a critical element in global efforts to enhance educational quality. While teachers can improve through professional development activities which are wholly autonomous and individual, this chapter focuses on attempts to promote systemic change in teacher quality through formally organised in-service initiatives. The discussion will examine central issues in the planning, implementation and evaluation of in-service programmes that are organised by educational authorities and which seek to promote change in the competence and practices of large numbers of teachers in a particular context. A substantial literature on the evaluation of development interventions more generally, teacher professional development and language teacher education specifically exists and this provides valuable direction for the evaluation of in-service teacher education programmes. The systematic evaluation of in-service language teacher education is a key to understand how theoretical drivers and contextual parameters can be optimally reconciled to support effective professional development and sustainable educational reform.

The study of impact on professional development initiatives (PDIs) is characterized by a tradition of quantitative work. There are clear reasons for this: quantitative data provide the kinds of 'hard' statistical evidence that funders and stakeholders often find more concrete and persuasive; numerical data are typically more economical to collect and process than qualitative data; and success criteria for PDIs are often framed in quantitative terms. Qualitatively, though, interesting questions can be asked about the manner in which teachers' propositional knowledge develops during PDIs and about the role enhanced knowledge of this kind plays in teachers' pre-active and interactive decision-making, and in their professional lives more generally. While confidence – teachers' beliefs about their own abilities – on its own is not an indicator of competence, there are good reasons why boosting confidence might be an objective on a PDI.

This questionnaire study examined the beliefs, practices and constraints related to learner autonomy reported by 359 teachers (mainly expatriate) working on an English Preparatory Year Programme (PYP) at a university in Saudi Arabia. The teachers associated learner autonomy primarily with notions of independence and control and saw it as the ability and motivation to complete tasks, individually and/or collaboratively, in and/or outside the classroom, and with no/little teacher involvement. They believed that promoting learner autonomy was a desirable goal and described how they tried to achieve this goal in their teaching. Most were, however, less positive about the feasibility of promoting learner autonomy and explained this in relation to curricular, societal and, above all, learner factors (such as lack of motivation and independence and low proficiency in English). In discussing these findings, several avenues for further research are identified and through which teachers' conceptualizations of learner autonomy can be understood using mixed methods research and with reference to a range of socio-cultural, intercultural, professional, occupational and institutional forces.

Teacher cognition – the unobservable dimension of teachers' professional lives – has been the focus of empirical and practical interest in language teaching since the mid-1990s. This chapter reviews current perspectives and debates in this field of inquiry. The starting point for the analysis is the term teacher cognition itself, with a discussion of concerns about its scope and mentalistic heritage. Further contemporary critiques of language teacher cognition research as predominantly "cognitive" and "individualist" are also addressed, with particular attention to the problematic nature of the latter characterization. Methodological issues in the study of language teacher cognition are subsequently discussed, with an emphasis on the value of methodological pluralism and the role that both quantitative and qualitative research can play. Another theme that is examined is the highly intellectualized and theorized nature of some recent discussions of teacher cognition and the impact that such an approach has on the accessibility of the field to a wider audience. The issues discussed in the chapter are explored with reference to a set of contemporary publications on language teacher cognition, and this analysis highlights the predominance of smaller-scale qualitative work in which "cognition" and "belief" remain the dominant concepts. Examples of "theoretical retrofitting" are also in evidence, i.e., the use of more contemporary theories to justify the kinds of research that have been done for some time. The chapter concludes by presenting a contemporary definition of teacher cognition which reflects the various terminological, theoretical, and methodological themes that have been discussed.

In the context of increasing global interest in teacher evaluation, this article describes the development of a self-assessment tool (SAT) for teachers of English and analyses responses to it by 1,716 teachers from around the world. One feature of respondents’ self-assessments was that they were mostly positive, and this issue is discussed in relation to concerns about the accuracy of self-assessed competence more generally. Teachers also provided feedback on the tool itself and their comments on its relevance, clarity, coverage and value were mostly positive too. The teachers did, though, suggest ways in which the SAT could be developed further, and a number of design enhancements are discussed. Two particular challenges highlighted by the results of this study are also considered: the feasibility of developing a self-assessment tool that teachers of English in all contexts can use, and the extent to which teachers are able to assess their competence without reference to the specific circumstances in which they work. The potential for further research around the SAT is also noted, particularly in terms of how it can be combined with classroom observations to provide a more robust overall picture of what teachers are able to do.

The present case study sets out to investigate the potential and limitations of passive building design in a typical Mediterranean climate. The Maltese Islands were taken as the case study location. Assuming a fully detached, cuboid-shaped, generic multi-storey office building, one representative storey was modelled by means of the building energy simulation code WUFI®Plus. Thermal comfort was analysed based on the adaptive acceptable operative room temperature concept of EN 15251 for buildings without mechanical cooling systems. Assuming neither artificial heating nor cooling, the free-running operative room temperature was evaluated. By means of a parametric study, the robustness of the concept was analysed and the impact of orientation, window to wall area ratio, glazing, shading, thermal insulation, nighttime ventilation and thermal mass on the achievable level of thermal comfort is shown and discussed. It is concluded that in a well-designed building and by means of decent insulation (present case: Uwall = 0.54 W/(m2 · K)), double glazing, variable external shading devices and passive cooling by nighttime ventilation, a high level of thermal comfort is achievable in this climate using only very minor amounts of energy for artificial heating and cooling or possibly even none at all.

Professional development is central to teacher competence and, with particular attention to larger-scale, structured and formal professional development interventions (PDIs), this article discusses how the impact of professional development can be conceptualized and evaluated. Various kinds of impacts on teachers, organizations and systems, and students that PDIs can have are considered, and examples from actual PDIs in the field of English language teaching (ELT) are used to illustrate how such impacts can be assessed. Throughout, various challenges that arise in trying to demonstrate that PDIs make a difference are noted, and the article concludes by suggesting some criteria that can be used to guide the development of impact evaluation frameworks on PDIs.

As part of Myanmar's current educational reforms, the EfECT project aimed to improve the competence of pre-service teacher educators in Education Colleges across the country. Drawing on baseline and exit measures collected through questionnaires, tests, observations, interviews and written reflections, this paper examines the impact of the two-year project on 1647 teacher educators' propositional knowledge of teaching methodology, practical teaching skills, reflective abilities and professional confidence. Overall, but not exclusively, the outcomes of the project in relation to these issues were positive, and these results are analysed critically with particular attention to the tools used to measure project impact.

This chapter presents the analysis which is very relevant to the theme of language awareness as the latter encompasses both teachers' beliefs about language and the pedagogical strategies they adopt in promoting learners' knowledge about language. In their overview, Phipps and Borg note those teachers' beliefs: are, at the same time, not always reflected in what teachers do in the classroom; can exert a persistent long-term influence on teachers' instructional practices and influence how teachers react to educational change. In the case of beliefs about teaching second language (L2) reading and language learning, beliefs and practices were found to be consistent. One factor that may have facilitated this was that the prescribed textbook the teacher used allowed him to teach in a way that reflected his beliefs. Based on a review of empirical research, four forms teachers' beliefs and practices relationship may take are defined: beliefs influence practice, practice influences beliefs and beliefs are disconnected from practices.