https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/22325 Fri, 31 Jul 2026 03:26:34 GMT 2026-07-31T03:26:34Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148325 Title: Educators on the front lines of armed conflict : well-being, roles, and agency Authors: Xerri, Daniel Abstract: This chapter examines educators’ well- being, roles, and agency in contexts of armed conflict. Its purpose is to show how teaching on the front lines involves not only the continuation of schooling but also the maintenance of care, hope, identity, and social continuity amid violence and institutional disruption. Drawing on literature from diverse conflict and post- conflict settings, the chapter first explores the psychological effects of war on teachers, including trauma, burnout, resilience, and the dual burden of supporting learners while also experiencing insecurity themselves. It then analyses how teachers’ roles expand beyond instruction to include trauma-sensitive care, psychosocial support, community stabilisation, peacebuilding, and learning design. Lastly, it examines teacher agency as a situated and uneven practice shaped by survival, resistance, silence, advocacy, and risk. The chapter argues that teachers’ resilience and commitment cannot substitute for sustained institutional, professional, and psychosocial support. Fri, 01 Jan 2027 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148325 2027-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148186 Title: Digital technologies as epistemic tools for teacher inquiry Authors: Xerri, Daniel Abstract: This article examines the role of digital technologies as epistemic tools that support teacher inquiry, reflective practice, and professional identity formation. It understands teacher inquiry as a broad field of practitioner-led classroom research, within which action research is one prominent but not exclusive example. The article argues that digital tools enable teachers to move beyond the use of technology for instructional delivery and towards the systematic investigation of teaching and learning. It discusses how video recordings, digital artefacts, learning analytics, decision-support applications, social media, online platforms, and collaborative digital spaces can help teachers collect, analyse, share, and interpret classroom-based evidence. Particular attention is given to how these tools can support iterative cycles of reflection, action, observation, and pedagogical refinement, while also making teacher inquiry more collaborative, visible, and professionally sustained. The article further considers how technology-mediated professional learning can strengthen teacher agency by supporting evidence-informed decision-making and practitioner-led investigation. It concludes that digital technologies should be embedded within human-centred, ethically grounded, and teacher-led inquiry processes so that they affirm teachers as legitimate knowledge producers rather than reinforcing technocentric models of professional development. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148186 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148022 Title: Liquid identities and generative AI : a research-practice partnership exploring English language teachers’ integration of AI tools for teaching writing Authors: Xerri, Daniel; Block, Josianne; Boezio, Jessica Laura; Davis, Savannah Abstract: This chapter discusses a research-practice partnership (RPP) project involving a collaboration between two university-based researchers and two English language teachers working in private language schools in Malta. Utilizing collaborative action research (CAR), the project explores how the integration of generative AI tools (specifically ChatGPT) into the process of teaching writing impacts teachers' professional identity[cite: 1, 1]. In light of the concept of "liquid modernity," the study examines how technological disruptions contribute to the evolving, fluid nature of teacher roles. The findings highlight the transition of teachers from traditional instructors to facilitators, collaborators, and advisors who foster crucial twenty-first-century skills, including AI literacy and critical thinking frameworks. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/148022 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/147969 Title: Language mediation as meaning-making, access, and institutional practice Authors: Xerri, Daniel Abstract: This editorial examines language mediation as a situated practice through which meaning, access, participation, and institutional relations are negotiated. It synthesises recent literature across four interrelated areas: intercultural mediation, multilingual mediation, mediation as a resource for learning and meaning-making, and mediation as access, power, and institutional practice. The discussion argues that mediation involves interpretative, relational, ethical, pedagogical, technological, and political work rather than neutral transfer between languages or contexts. It considers how translators, interpreters, teachers, learners, institutions, and technologies participate in the reformulation and circulation of meaning, while also shaping what becomes intelligible, legitimate, and accessible. The editorial then relates this conceptual discussion to the articles in issue 25.1 of Traduction et Langues, which is organised around translation studies and intercultural mediation; language teaching, pedagogy, and educational practices; language, discourse, and cultural representations; and language policy and institutional transformations. The issue’s contributions examine topics including Vietnamese endearment terms, Qur’anic reciprocal ellipsis, audiovisual translation, multilingual dubbing, AI-assisted translation of greeting formulae and diplomatic texts, educational reform, classroom meaning clarification, culturally responsive literacy, teacher development, English-medium instruction listening strategies, Business German, gender representation in literary discourse, written text on cinema screens, and Algeria’s shift from French to English in higher education. These studies show that mediation operates across translation, pedagogy, discourse, technology, and policy as a process through which language practices are adapted to particular audiences, purposes, histories, and institutional conditions. The editorial positions mediation as both enabling and ambivalent: it can widen participation, foster intercultural understanding, and support access to knowledge, but it can also obscure loss, reproduce asymmetry, reinforce institutional priorities, or constrain whose meanings are recognised. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/147969 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z