Teacher Stories : Perspectives on Inclusive Pedagogical Language in Zimbabwe

The teaching of English in multilingual contexts such as Zimbabwe, where English is often not the primary language of the Black majority public school student population, is a highly contested issue. Though generally considered as necessary in an increasingly globalized, English language dominated world, this conventionally Eurocentric, elitist-oriented English education system is imbued with colonialist discourses that tend to shape and complicate educators’ understandings about the place of diverse sociocultural backgrounds, ethnic-identified indigenous languages, indigenous knowledge systems, and differently abled learners within its conventional structures.

In Teacher Stories, the author utilizes postcolonialist theoretical lenses and a poststructuralist-inflected narrative inquiry approach to self-reflexively analyze her impressions of three veteran Zimbabwean teacher educators’ interpretations of what they understand to be their experiences of learning and teaching English.

The purpose of this research is to provide English education scholars and policy makers with some insights into what veteran Zimbabwean English teacher educators perceive as the efficacies and challenges of implementing policy-mandated inclusive education pedagogical practices. Since English teacher educators’ perspectives are a much under-researched area of English in a Zimbabwean context, this study makes a meaningful contribution to the international field of English education.