Adeline Borti, assistant professor of English education, completed her dissertation in 2019 using quantitative methods to examine preservice teachers’ reading and writing instruction knowledge in six colleges of education in Ghana. But Adeline also wanted to explore qualitative research to follow up and to explore qualitative methodologies.

She has been glad that GVSU emphasizes teaching and had available support for the scholarship of teaching.  She contacted Bob Smart in the Center for Scholarly and Creative Excellence about funding her qualitative research to find out what pre-service and new teachers know about literacy and their opportunities for learning literacy.  She successfully navigated the Institutional Review Board process and attained funding for her project.

Adeline wanted to conduct interviews in Ghana of preservice and novice teachers, but like many others, when the pandemic hit, she pivoted to virtual interviews. 

She reached out to some teachers she had worked with in Ghana when they had been preservice and found them now newly in their first teaching positions after graduation. It was her intention to find research subjects through them (an approach called snowball sampling).

As a new professor herself, she realized that these novice teachers were in an interesting stage, too, and looking at how they make this transition would enrich her research. 

“That gave me two things to focus on,” Adeline explains.  “I decided to work with the new teachers as well as having them help me do the snowball sampling.  In November and December, I intended to do my collection.  I sent the information to IRB [Institutional Review Board] to make sure that the people and purposes were well aligned.”

The interviews started by getting to know the subjects: what they were doing and what they knew about literacy, and what was available to them to develop as teachers.  “What is it like to become a new teacher, what is that journey like?  What are their opportunities for learning as new teachers?  Was professional development self-pursued or provided?”

“If we have the right opportunities to grow, retention is almost guaranteed,” Adeline states. To that end, she wanted to discover what types of support were available.

Her subjects were making discoveries, too.  They realized that Adeline was one of the resources available to them.

As the Zoom interviews began, there were some connection issues.  When there were issues with one platform, they’d move to another. In total, about 15 of the interviewees, novice teachers, stuck with it. 

After looking at the data, Adeline spotted some trends and followed up on these with a focus group. Her group had some following up of their own in mind. 

“They decided that it would be a good idea to start their professional development,” Adeline explains.  “So now the research opportunity changed and included professional development.  They wanted more of what I was sharing with them.  I asked what they needed from me.”

Adeline describes the complexity of the teaching situation in Ghana.  “English is the official language but there are also about 80 native languages, so students come from lots of different language backgrounds.  So the novice teachers wanted to learn literacy classroom strategies.  Some are posted to areas where students are not fluent in English, so they wanted strategies for students not fluent in the language of instruction.”

Many of the novice teachers were less interested in scholarly research articles than in practical classroom strategies.  Adeline found that an article[i] she had written for the MITESOL (Michigan Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) newsletter was the sort of material they wanted.  Her first article was a critique of a long-used but ineffective technique known as Popcorn Reading (where students are put on the spot to read aloud).  Adeline argued that this technique, which is used in many disciplines, doesn’t produce strategic and independent readers but instead causes confusion, anxiety, and humiliation—which she herself had experienced as a child.

The critique led to a second article on what a teacher might try instead.[ii] This time she involved two GVSU preservice teachers in the literature review, and they are listed as second (Tanja Peter) and third (Meghan Martinez) authors.  The second article recommends engaging in pre-reading activities to develop vocabulary, scanning passages for hard words, and even making links to readers’ language culture.  It also describes how to teach silent reading and guided reading as alternatives that nurture a love of reading. 

The research and professional development sessions continue.

Adeline laughs, “One very resourceful guy runs an online newsletter and wants me to publish monthly for pre-service and new teachers in Ghana. I’m not sure if it can be monthly, but I love the enthusiasm.”

One thing leads to the other.  “I’m thinking of having virtual study abroad with my GV students and the pre-service Ghanaian students.  I’m looking forward to that in the near future.  Not everyone can do in-person study abroad.” 

And when Adeline is not making opportunities for students and teachers, she is working on a book chapter using the qualitative data she collected.

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[i] MITESOL | August 2020 Issue: MITESOL Messages

[ii] MITESOL | August 2021 Issue: MITESOL Messages