Learning to Learn to Become an English Teacher: Teaching, Reflecting and Understanding Which is Which

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The Ministerial Order ECI/3858/2007 (BOE núm. 312: 53751-53753) presents a major shift in pre-service secondary teacher-education in Spain; for the first time in history university graduates aiming to enter the teaching profession will be required to take a one-year professional master course. For those seeking to become English teachers, the course will include modules on Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and Practicum, among others.
It is in this scenario that a teacher education scheme, whose main pedagogical option is to achieve teacher empowerment through cycles of collaborative teaching and shared reflection, is being developed in a bottom-up approach, in line with the principles of exploratory practice formulated by Allwright & Bailey, 1991. The case-study we present in this paper is inserted in this experience.
Through the analysis of multimodal data (student-teacher’s journal, written reports, e-mails, video-recorded lessons, audio-recorded feedback conferences and a delayed interview) the study reconstructs the developmental process undertaken by one student-teacher in the pilot version of the course. The account follows a threefold goal (a) to describe the nature of the informant’s main accomplishments on her teaching practice as well as on the quality of her reflection on that teaching practice; (b) to identify and characterize key stages in her developmental process; and (c) to gain understanding of how teaching-practice and reflection are related and fuel each other.

Stream: Literacy, Language, Multiliteracies; Languages Education and Second Language Learning

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

Cristina Escobar Urmeneta has taught English at all levels from Primary School to University. Presently she works at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where she coordinates the Teacher Education Master course on Teaching English as a Foreign Language. She conducts research in the field on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and Teacher Education.