ABSTRACT
The assignment task was to reflect upon a practical teaching activity within the context of key writings on learning theories. In other words, it attempted to create a conceptual bridge between the day-to-day business of the classroom and the global heritage of thinking about teaching and learning. The examples explored so far have considered how personal agency, mediated through praxis, can be brought to bear upon major existential issues which test our core beliefs as English teachers. It is important to stress that teachers must take active responsibility for raising serious questions about what they teach, how they are to teach it, and what the larger goals are for which they are striving. This means that they must take a responsible role in shaping the purposes and conditions of schooling. Such a task is impossible within a division of labor where teachers have little influence over the ideological and economic conditions of their work.
