| This arts-based narrative study revealed how arts-based approaches to teaching and learning facilitated personal and professional growth of both the instructor and her students within a language curriculum in a pre-service early childhood teacher education course in a Hong Kong context.; This study has two layers of design. The outer layer was the research framework of arts-based inquiry. The pertinent theoretical concepts included: curriculum as autobiographical text; curriculum as based on the arts and aesthetic knowing; curriculum as nurturing of the soul; and learning as construction of knowledge. The process of learning and teaching within the language module constituted the site-based inquiry. The inner layer consisted of the integration of arts-based approaches into the prescribed language curriculum. These arts-based approaches, including narrative, photograph, collage, drawing, metaphor, served as tools to enhance the self-inquiry of both the students and the instructor. Multiple sources of data such as anonymous written feedback from her students, reflective journals, audio-tape and video-tape transcriptions, lesson plans, artifacts, and interview transcripts, were collected for analysis and interpretation. Alternative forms of representation were employed to represent the meaning of their teaching and learning experiences.; The study demonstrated that the learning experience enabled the students to gain new understanding about curriculum design and pedagogy. They were able to make connection between their own learning and children's learning. Their perception about language learning and teaching had changed. At the same time, they also gained better understanding about self and their course-mates. As for the instructor of the language module, the arts-based journey helped her to understand better the processes that had shaped how she has become the teacher educator she was. As with her students, she also gained new insights into her pedagogy and learned how to link theory and practice in her teaching.; The experience I, the instructor gained through this inquiry enabled me to reflect on teacher education reform, the design of the teacher education course, and lastly teacher education research in Hong Kong. |
