Nuoren vieraan kielen opettajan pedagogisen ajattelun ja ammatillisen asiantuntijuuden kehittyminen

Nyman, Tarja The development of pedagogical thinking and professional expertise of newly qualified language teachers Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla, 2009, 121 p. (Jyvaskyla Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research ISSN 0075-4625; 368) ISBN 978-951-39-3664-8 (PDF), 978-951-39-3636-5 (nid.) Summary Diss. The aim of this study was to explore how the pedagogical thinking and the professional expertise of newly qualified language teachers (NQTs) develop during the first years of their career. The research addressed three questions, which were studied through five articles: 1) How has teacher education influenced the work of NQTs? 2) What kind of language learning environments do NQTs create? 3) How does the language teacher’s expertise develop in working life? The findings of the study described in the articles are presented on a more general level through a fourth research question formulated on the basis of the articles: 4) What are the overall features of language teachers’ development? The fourth research question was further divided into three questions: a) How does teacher education show in language teachers’ development? b) In what direction has working life taken professional development? c) Are there differences in the way expertise develops during training and working life? Expertise is seen to form the basis of pedagogical thinking. The development of expertise is an on-going, dynamic process which requires teachers to engage and take responsibility for their own development but also for that of others. Professional teachers have broad theoretical knowledge and the capacity to adapt it in different situations and circumstances, both individually and collectively. They feel empowered to use their expertise. For foreign language teachers the change of paradigm in language teaching means an orientation towards language education. Especially for NQTs, who are at the outset of the career, this is a most demanding task. According to the criteria of a qualitative approach, it is of great importance that the researcher is able to get close to the participants in the study in order to personally understand the realities of their everyday life. Led by this notion, the study of the experiences of NQTs took the form of a qualitative study. A phenomenological approach was chosen to increase and deepen the researcher’s understanding of herself and of the NQTs’ professional development. The data were collected over the 2003–2008 period. It consist of 11 NQTs’ essays and interviews, with a focus on discourses describing teachers’ experiences at the beginning of their working life. The meanings individual teachers gave to their experiences were compared one with another. From the data emerged three developmental paths: a path of wide expertise, a path of expertise in foreign language and culture and a third tenuous and vague path. The development of professional expertise is individual. This challenges teacher education to find means to support teachers in their development process not only during formal education but also after it in working life.