Cultural Contexts and Situated Possibilities in the Teaching of Second Language Writing

Premised on the conception of teacher knowledge as situated and the agency of the teacher in perceiving and exploiting “situated possibilities” in the classroom, this article argues that it is important for teachers to construct local understanding of their work embedded in the local cultural traditions and to explore possibilities for student learning in the context of constraints. The authors report on an investigation of the pedagogical strategies developed by two L2 writing teachers in Hong Kong, which showed that these strategies emerged as the teachers perceived and responded to situated possibilities for learning and that the strategies were rooted in the cultural traditions of the learners as well as the micro-cultures of the classroom. The authors suggest that teacher education programs should provide ample opportunities for teachers to gain a deep understanding of local cultures and to explore opportunities for student learning that build on such cultural traditions.