Abstract:
This paper is based on a series of interviews conducted with Malcolm as part of a larger study investigating teachers' work (in the context of devolved school reform and the implementation of local school management). In contrast to most of his colleagues who are generalist classroom teachers, Malcolm is a specialist teacher of Japanese who provides two, forty-five minute lessons a week to each of fifteen classes in a metropolitan primary school. The paper focuses on the tensions between Malcolm's sense of identity, his tacitly understood ideological beliefs about what teaching is (defined by Denscombe (1982) as 'hidden pedagogy') and the institutional requirement that Languages Other Than English (LOTE) be taught as part of the 'official' curriculum in South Australian public schools. The main argument is that institutional and systemic structures that position specialist teachers in isolated and highly structured teaching roles can dislocate them from their personal beliefs in effective pedagogic practice. Collaborative teaching approaches that enable specialist teachers to overcome their isolation and work alongside colleagues to strengthen the relationships with students and the links between the LOTE curriculum and other Learning Areas is a powerful strategy for supporting the development of a spiral of success in teaching and learning.