Intentional Dynamics in TESOL: An Ecological Perspective

Intentionality in TESOL

In our article, we describe three TESOL settings in different places in the world. These are:

• a Norwegian EFL classroom;
• Teaching English to Young Learners in Turkey; and
• TESOL in Korea.

This is not our first attempt to describe these settings. In fact, Juup, Zeynep, and WooJoo each described one of these settings in their doctoral dissertations.

Intentionality in language education

What is new in this article is that we add another layer of understanding to our descriptions, by using a new concept, intentionality. This concept, which we have taken from ecological psychology and ‘nativised’ to TESOL, means –roughly speaking– ‘purpose’. It is a way of saying what each system (the Norwegian classroom, the TEYL system in Turkey, the TESOL system in Korea) ‘is for’, or ‘what it does’.

Intentionality offers us an elegant way of defining systems in language education by avoiding the so-called ‘boundary problem’. To illustrate: it is challenging to decide what constitutes TEYL in Turkey (apart from teachers and learners, does it include parental attitudes? Education policies? Pressures from outside the country?). However, it may not be necessary to list all these components to define the system. Rather, we can say that this is a system for teaching English to young learners and that everything connected to this purpose (everything that ‘intends towards’ it) is part of the system.

Intentionality and intentional activity

In the article, we describe intentionality in the following terms:

[w]e suggest viewing intentional activity as a journey across a metaphorical landscape. The ground in the landscape is what we, as individuals and collectives, stand on and travel across as we act in the world. The course we take across the landscape is determined by the topology and available routes. Our wish to reach other points in the landscape is what drives us forward. Finally, as human beings, we may pause to reflect on the landscape and our position in it, what are the available routes, and our desired destinations.

What this means is that a description of a TESOL / language education setting that builds on intentionality should contain the following four components.

• The ground of intentional activity. This consists of individual-level shaping influences, such as beliefs, knowledge, and emotions connected to language and learning, and social shaping influences, such as expectations projected by others and influences embedded in social artefacts and practices.
• The course of intentional activity, which is a description of the trajectory of the system. For example, it may describe the learning trajectory of a student or the development of a national policy.
• The drivers of intentional activity. These are purposes and motivations held at the individual and social level.
• The critical agent of intentional activity. This is the higher-order ability of people in the system to reflect on the intentionality of the systems of which they are part

Intentionality and self-similarity

What we have tried to do in this article, is describe how intentionality operates at various levels. Complex systems, including those in language education, tend to operate at different scales: classes are parts of schools, schools are parts of educational systems and so on. Our aim was to show that these ‘nested’ systems are similar across levels, and they produce similar phenomena.

Across timescales, intentionality emerges in similar ways without a visible central organising force. Also, across timescales, the structures of the systems that emerge then go on to recursively shape TESOL activity.

What this description affords us is a shared way to talk about language education, whether we describe individual classes or broader structures. This has considerable potential for developing a common theoretical frame that can provide coherence to language education.

How to access the article

The paper, incidentally, is Open Access, which means that you can read, download and share it without going through a paywall. We hope that you find the article interesting and useful. You can download it by clicking on the button below:

As hinted by the scope of the journal, the model that we are developing is very much a work in progress, so if you want to find out more about what we are doing, or if you have any feedback, do get in touch. Oh, by the way, we are also happy to be cited. ;)

How to reference this article

The full APA citation is:

Stelma, J., Onat-Stelma, Z., Lee, W., & Kostoulas, A. (2015). Intentional dynamics in TESOL: An ecological perspective. Studies in Applied Linguistics and TESOL [formerly Working Papers in TESOL and Applied Linguistics Teachers College, Columbia], 15(1) 14-32.