Jane goes to Timor: How time, space and place shape English language teaching in international development

Abstract

This is a travel story - it is specif-ic, particular, and yet situated also in the flows of people, media, languages, disciplines and ideas in a globalised world. It concerns the travel of English language teachers from Australia to work in international aid programs in East Timor; it tells of a teacher's mission, and how that mission was translated into a spatial practice through experiences of embodied engagement in the contact zone (Pratt, J 992). I start the story by outlining the way English language teaching practices arc shaped within dominant narratives that privilege time over space, and then take a closer look at how one teacher slipped the temporal bonds to engage with an embodied sense of place.