TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE LANGUAGE
TEACHER EDUCATION COURSE ROOM:
A critical sociocultural perspective*
Gurmit Singh and Jack C. Richards

Abstract
This paper is a reconsideration of the nature of teaching and learning in the language
teacher education course room. Drawing broadly on sociocultural perspectives of Laveand Wenger and Vygotskian models of cognitive apprenticeship, it considers how todesign the course room as a learning environment. It begins with a critique oftechnical-rational discourses of teacher education, one of the implications of which has
been to assert the primacy of the social construction of teacher identity. We present
the case for the course room as a community of practice where teachers learn throughengaging in activities and discourses, mediated through cultural artifacts. A communityof practice is also shaped by larger systems of power, which are reproduced in the
micro-context of the course room. Teacher learning is a site of struggle over activities,
discourses, tools and identity because of its situated nature within institutional,
historical and cultural contexts. A revised role for teacher educators in shaping an
emerging course room culture is presented, acknowledging the realities of power andideology that influence the daily practices in the course room.

Introduction
This paper reflects the experiences of two people. One has taught in postgraduate
applied linguistics programs for over 30 years and has also contributed to the literatureon language teacher education (LTE) (e.g. Richards and Farrell 2005). The other has
had recent experience as a learner on such programs (Singh 2004), has recently
commenced a career as a teacher educator and researcher, and is currently involved inschool-based teacher development. We hope to bring our collective experiences andperspectives to bear on the discussion below by exploring both sides of thelearning/teaching encounter in LTE, namely: what do we understand by learning in thecontext of post graduate in-service courses in LTE, and what do we understand byteaching? The paper is organized in three parts. In the first part we will outline theconcerns that prompted this paper.
*Paper presented at the RELC International Conference on Teacher Education in
Language Teaching, Singapore April 2006. We are grateful to Graham Crookes forhelpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper.

1The second part explores a sociocultural view of learning in the context of the LTE
course room, including the identity work teachers do in this context. The third partexamines the implications of this concept of learning for teaching in the LTE courseroom.
1.1. The problem as we see it
Lecturers on LTE courses spend much of their professional lives in course rooms(lecture theaters, classrooms, seminar rooms), seeking to provide a quality educational
experience for their students (henceforth, teacher-learners) through a repertoire ofcourse room practices that includes lectures, discussions, simulations, case studies andso on. However it is probably true in most areas of LTE that people who work asuniversity lecturers see themselves primarily as subject matter specialists and do nothave any formal study or qualifications in pedagogy, even less so in the field of adultor teacher education. Thus a typical MA TESOL program is taught by specialists infields such as testing, SLA, reading, linguistics, discourse analysis, or methodology andwho view their job as transmitting some of what they know to language teachers. Thisis done largely through intuition and experience – the process of doing so has hardly
been mentioned in the lecturers own graduate education. Consequently discussion
about course design in MA TESOL programs tends to focus on debate about content
and to a lesser extent, how to deliver content effectively (e.g. Wallace 1991,
Woodward 1991, Ur 1996, Richards and Nunan 1990, Bartels 2005). Good teaching, if
it occurs, is viewed as a private matter, something that lecturers do in the privacy of
their course room, and only rarely are colleagues allowed or invited to observe it.
While conversations about the content of LTE courses are common, discussions about
LTE pedagogic practices in the course room are much less frequent. In general, ourfield has been grounded in the dominant technical-rational discourse of teacher
education, which maintains that language teaching expertise can be acquired throughcontent-based courses followed by a practicum or school-attachment. As such,practitioners have tended to view the problem of LTE course design and program
implementation as one of how to enhance the uptake of subject and pedagogic
knowledge by looking to improve the training model (Bax 1997, Hayes 2000, Wolter
2000, Waters and Vilches 2000, Bartels 2005). Unfortunately however, the findings ofresearch on LTE courses suggest that they tend to be ineffective in changing teachers’

2classroom practices (Tomlinson 1990, Lamb 1995, Roberts 1998). Focusing on
designing courses has ignored how human learning is emergent through social
interactions, and where context and identity play crucial mediating roles. For LTE
courses, this means understanding how teacher learning emerges in the life of thecourse room, which this paper sets out to explore.
Another part of the problem as we see it is that teacher educators have tended toassume that learning on LTE courses is the teacher-learner’s problem. It is thelearner’s problem to find ways of absorbing knowledge passed on by subject matter
specialists and to learn how to cope individually with the demands of the course.
Formal learning positions the “good learner” as someone who can master subject
knowledge quickly and apply it in their course assignments or in their later classroom
practice. The view of learning to be discussed here however is a somewhat different
one. Drawing on sociocultural theory and identity construction we wish to explore how
the social processes of the course room can contribute to professional learning (Moon
2001). From this perspective the location of teacher-learning – the course room –cannot simply be taken as a given. Instead, the LTE course room is viewed as having arich life which unfolds over time, as events and processes interact, and shape the way
participants think, feel and act. The question then is, how can teacher learning be
provided for in an LTE course, particularly in contexts where in-service courses are
viewed as little more than a survey of current teaching methods? We pose thisquestion because, while like other teacher-educators who have to work within thisinstitutional reality, we need to find ways of making the LTE course moredevelopmentally - rather than training - oriented.

1.2 The issue of teacher identity
Learning to teach is a struggle not only around methods and content knowledge, butessentially, about who one is as a ‘teacher’. It is common nowadays in LTE to speak of
producing ‘professional’ teachers who are ‘critical reflective practitioners’ (Wallace1991). Another view is that teacher development is seen as part of the process of“transformative re-imagining of the self” (Danielewicz 2001, 133). Both these views
assume that carefully designed course programs will somehow “transform” participants
into the kind of teachers the program envisions. Also, such views assume that teachers
are autonomous agents, able to take a reflexive stance towards their teaching, to look3

at their own practice critically. Instead, from a sociocultural and critical perspective,
the change in teacher identity is seen to be socially constructed (Johnson 2001), as
well as influenced by the powerful ideologies teacher-learners bring to the classroom
with them and the discourses and activities that shape the practices of teacher
education. Teacher- learners will not simply “convert” to a program’s student-centered“progressive” pedagogy, as if this were a smooth, uncontested process. A good
example is the conflictual positions between the passive learning approach favored bysome learners and the trainer’s expectation they become active, reflective learners oncourses run according to progressive, liberal pedagogic principles. The challenge forteacher-educators is hence to shape a teacher’s knowledge in the context of an LTE
course, while being sensitive to the conflicts in agendas and expectations, the powerand status asymmetries, and the implicit ideologies at work – all of which impact on
the behavior and attitude of teacher-learners. We therefore see teacher identity as‘woven’ through the ideologies, discourses, contents and approaches of the course,
and the individual teacher’s own desire to find meaning in becoming a teacher.
In this light, critical questions are: what sort of teaching and what kinds of learning
experiences are needed to initiate the processes of teacher development? Morefundamentally, what are these processes? We view these questions as importantbecause there has been a critical lack of research into the lived experiences of teachersin LTE course rooms, and how teachers constantly negotiate their identities in relation
to its’ particular activities and relationships.

1.4. A critical sociocultural perspective
Adopting a critical sociocultural perspective on education, we believe there is arelationship between the micro-context of LTE – the course room – and theconstruction of teacher identity, which for us is a prerequisite for teacher learning.
Sociocultural theories of teacher learning centre on the concept of learning as situatedsocial practice, which includes mediation, discourse, social interaction and participation
structures. These in turn are situated in ideologies – both the participants’ own andthat of the institution which is running the course – about what learning is and shouldbe.

4Our view therefore builds on the following precursors:•

Social and situated perspectives on LTE and teacher learning (Johnson 2001,
Johnson and Golombek 2003, Hawkins 2004)•

Identity construction in teacher-learning and teacher education (Danielewicz
2001)

•

Learning in a community (Lantolf 2000, Rogoff 1990, Lave and Wenger 1998)•

The classroom as a site where learners exercise their agency in identity
formation (Norton and Toohey 2001)•

Classrooms as an ecology (Breen 1985), having a life to be managed (Wright2005), and•Identities-in-practice (Holland and Lave 2001).

While sociocultural theories address limitations in prior LTE research - which too often
treats learning, teaching, content and method as discrete domains – they must becomplemented by understanding learning as identity construction. Relating the microprocess of the courses room to the larger macro context in which LTE is situated, weconceptualise teacher-learning as the appropriation and resistance to skills andknowledge for the purpose of remaking identity. Therefore, we combine both
approaches to study teacher learning as a dialogic relationship between the self andthe social, the course room’s daily encounters and the larger discourse community it issituated in.

2.1. Learning in the LTE course room
We now wish to examine in more detail the processes of teacher learning in the courseroom. From the discussion above we take as axiomatic that:•

Before learning, there must be engagement, which includes the atmosphereand the climate of course room life (Wright 2005).

••

the course room has social participation structures that can enhance or inhibit
learning opportunity. This includes both the discourse and the activities ofcourse room life, which affect how meaning is made and knowledge
constructed. (Hawkins 2004, Wenger 1998, Lantolf 2000).
Learning is also tied to artifacts, identities and the cultural space in which it issituated. These artifacts include whiteboards, worksheets, journal articles,
videos and posters that learners produce, which give flesh to identities inpractice (Holland and Lave 2001).

5

These perspectives reconfigure the course room as a complex ecological site in which
unfolding events and processes in the classroom shape the way in which participants
think, feel and act. A teacher-learner has to navigate these multiple layers in order tobe able to participate in learning, which is a precursor to learning. Central tounderstanding these processes of teacher-learning are learning as situated social
practice, induction to a community of practice, development of a new identity,acquiring a professional discourse, and developing a theory of pedagogy.
Diagramatically, this looks like:

Figure 1: The Course Room as a Community of Practice
SLTE COURSE ROOM
Identities in practiceMediation
Overlapping& Multiple
Social Contexts

Activities

Discourses

Artifacts

SituatedSocialInteraction

Teacher
Identity

2.2 Learning as induction to a community of practice
From a situated social perspective on learning, an LTE course can be conceptualized as
an emerging “community of practice” (Lave & Wenger 1991). This shifts the focus topeople jointly engaged in a mutual enterprise, with a shared repertoire of actions,discourses and tools (Wenger 1998). On an LTE course, these relations could include‘knowing how to design an ESP course’, ‘finding out the what, how and why ofobservation’ or ‘discussing the pros and cons of using textbooks’. While negotiation of
meaning, knowledge and understanding are core to all of these, communities ofpractice grant a primary place to the social activities being engaged in. In thisperspective, knowledge is distributed across the community and not possessed6individually. Thus, we come to view the LTE course room as a site for specific cultural
practices, with participants immersed in a longitudinal experience, where everyone
negotiates, contributes to and cares about the long-term outcomes: enhancing
teacher’s capacities to think about what they do, and how they do it. Through thisimmersion, teacher-learners deepen their understanding and perceptions of issues
around pedagogic practice. In the process of doing so, the teacher-learner’s identity
can be reshaped when her/his experience is critically theorized, rather than taken as
the truth. Teacher identity and the community of practice in the course room are
mutually constituted through participation.
We view the course room as a site where participants are encouraged to try out new
identities, e.g. as mentor, action researcher, curriculum developer, rather than simply
sitting back and being a passive learner. Working collaboratively with peers createssocial relationships in the course room, both formal and informal, that condition
participants’ relative success in learning: Experts are ‘learning resources’ and “thesocial process…subsumes the learning of knowledgeable skills.” (Lave & Wenger 1991,
p. 29).

2.3. Learning as identity construction
Teacher- learning involves not only discovering more about the skills and knowledge oflanguage teaching but also what it means to be a language teacher. Identity seems toplay a special role in teaching, as compared with other professions. Nias (1989, 202-3)
comments: “[Teachers] self image is more important to them as practitioners than isthe case in occupations where the person can easily be separated from the craft”. Nias
implies that there is an intricate relation between teacher identity and teacher
knowledge. Teacher-learners construct their identity through the unfolding social
interaction of a particular situated community, within the specific activities andrelationships in context.
We lack studies of how teachers negotiate their identity through the interaction
processes of the course room. The difficulty or impossibility of changing teachers’
practices through INSET courses has been noted (Bailey 1992, Lamb 1995), and isoften described in terms of resistance to change (Hayes 1995, 2000). Issues such asteachers’ internal motivations and emotional attitudes to change, as well as thecontextual conditions for change make the processes of initiating and sustaining

7

change difficult to capture, track and analyze. However what is often missing from thisliterature is an acknowledgement of the internal struggles and dilemmas teachers areconfronted with when challenged to take on new practices, which may require theteacher to assume new identities and a changed mind set. Whether teachers have theagency to remake themselves through repositioning within the course room will
determine if they engage with or resist the activities and discourses of a course.

2.4. Learning, identity and the non-native speaking teacherlearner
In LTE courses, learning to teach can pose special struggles for non-native speaking
teacher-learners (N- NS- TL), particularly when they are in the same learning
community as native-speaker teacher-learners. These struggles include:•

the feeling that the N- NS- TL may have a sense of inadequate language
knowledge (Johnson 2001);•

language competence that may impede participation in group-based
collaborative learning favored by the course lecturer, and•The clash of cultures of learning. Teacher- learners from some cultures haveculturally-specific expectations of the roles of teachers and learners (Singh2004).

The above factors may hinder teachers from taking on the dispositions needed toparticipate as active learners in the LTE course room. Teacher-learners from traditional
cultures of learning may have long, prior experiences of passive learning, of not seeing
themselves as ‘educated’, thereby perpetuating their sense of dependency on Western
experts. Their embodied sense of intellectual dependency created through priorpassive, hierarchical learning experiences frequently make them uncomfortable withthe work attempted by trainers to cultivate active learners. In such cases, theemerging community of practice in the course room may reproduce top-down, didactic
practices despite a trainer’s best efforts. Lecturers need to be sensitive to teacherlearners’ histories of participation and the expectations they bring, when creating newcommunities to engage them.

8

2.5

Learning, community of practice and the wider context

The process of acquiring a new set of discourses and becoming a member of new,wider professional communities is hence inherently conflictual. This is because the LTE
course room is not a neutral location, but a complex small culture (Holliday 1999), withoverlapping personal agendas and course agendas, which include:♦

Teacher-learners own perceptions of how to learn, based on their‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie 1975)♦

Teacher-learners personal agendas – why am I here, what will I get out of this,how much do I have to contribute, will this advance my career in my school.

♦

Course aim and agendas – often set by ministries, decided by bureaucrats given
the task of injecting innovations into educational systems to prepare future
workers for the ‘new knowledge economy’.

♦

Trainers own beliefs – about learning, knowledge, assessment, their roles etc.

♦

Institutional, country, professional-academic and course-specific cultures.

Although sociocultural theories of a community of practice focus on its social
interactions, and activities, they fail to connect to larger system of power in which thecommunity is nested. Taken together, the micro and the macro focus make theeveryday processes of teacher learning both situated in discourse communities andshaped by power relations, which are reproduced and contested in the course room.

2.6

Learning, identity and social practices

The identity of teacher-learners is thus tied to the social practice in the cultural worldof the LTE course room. While teacher-learners may initially enter this world at amarginal position, they acquire the agency to challenge this negative social position
through interacting with cultural and social artifacts. Through their participation in theactivities of the course room, teacher-learners grow into this world, gaining a sense of
their position and standing in a community of practice. The ethnographic work of Singh(2004) on Chinese teachers on a British INSET course shows how the social
construction of identity in the LTE course room offers an opportunity for teacher
change, one person at a time. As teachers adopt the cultural artifacts of a world that is
new but gradually becomes their home, and then rehearse them in a community ofpractice, they develop a sense of agency as the practice becomes meaningful.

9The study of identity-in-practice posits a turn toward relational notions of identity inwhich the focus of analysis is not the individual her or himself, but the activity orpractice through which the individual is being produced. In the case of LTE courses,
therefore, we are compelled to consider not only individual case studies and personalaccounts of identity formation, but also the space of practice where identity is formed.
Whether this space leads to change, or obstructs change, depends on the activities,
the individual teacher’s dispositions, the ideology of the course, and the culture of theinstitution within which the LTE community of practice emerges.

2.5. Acquiring a professional discourse
The LTE course room is a site which develops its own discourse. Acquiring this
discourse is essential for effective participation in the course room. By Discourse (Gee
1996) we include the following:•

the dominant discourse of TESOL (e.g. learner-centredness, learner autonomy,authenticity, genuine language, accountable learning, and some version ofcommunicative methodology and the four skills);•

ways of acting and interacting (e.g. how to be a teacher-learner on an MA
course in the US, UK, Australia or elsewhere);•acquiring the appropriate cultural practices in the course room (e.g. how towrite a term paper in the appropriate style and voice, how to pose questions
and respect different points of view) and•enacting the identity of a teacher-learner.

Becoming a member of a new community of practice is not just about learning newcontent but also about acquiring new practices, values, and ways of thinking whichenable particular identities to be realized. Multiple discourses have to be navigated by
the learner. Holliday (2005,42-43) points out that central to the professional discourseof TESOL is the notion of the four skills and a major aim of training programs,
particularly for novice teachers, is to initiate teacher learners into being able to see
and understand English language teaching through the framework of the four skills.
Singh (2004) found that on an M.Ed course, new practices, initially something theteacher-learners felt alienated from, became second nature to them over the year longcourse through trial and error. These discursive practices included reflecting journal
writing, valuing other course members’ perspectives, working in groups, sharing
thoughts in online discussion board, and critically reading texts. Discourses are a wayof signalling identities. Teachers move between Discourses as they move between

10different contexts. For example, the Discourses of teaching in a school are very
different from those on an INSET course; the former tends to be about exam results
and school achievement, the latter about learner-centered progressive pedagogy.
Teacher-learning is thus shaped by Discourses and how they are used. The Discoursesof LTE can have a powerful impact on teachers’ identity development, for they look tothe ‘expert’ lecturer as role-models of TESOL Discourses. Teachers start thinking ofthemselves as inquirers if the LTE course room discourse actively invites teachers toresearch their own practice (see Wright 1992). If we understand how identity issocially situated, we will better appreciate why is that teachers are often seen as not
implementing innovations they are exposed to on INSET. This happens when teacher
development and school development do not go hand-in-hand (Fullan 1991), such thatthe teacher has to make a choice between two sets of Discourses calling out to her orhim. So, there are multiple discourses of being a teacher in different contexts, and it ismore sensible to appreciate them rather than try and impose a dominant ideology or
way of thinking about what TESOL should be.

2.6. Developing a theory of pedagogy
In teacher education research, there are many theories of the nature of teacher
knowledge, and the part in-service courses play in developing it. We want to frame
the teacher knowledge question differently. Instead of viewing teacher education astransmitting theories and practices from one context to another, we regard LTE asaligning a teacher’s theory of pedagogy with the curriculum goals for students’learning. In the course room, teachers construct this theory from questioning
assumptions about language and learning, through action research and reflection in a
professional community of learners (Cochran-Smith 2000).
Alexander (2002, 2) explains the difference between teaching and pedagogy in theseterms:
Pedagogy I define as the discourse which attends the act of teaching.
Teaching and pedagogy are not the same. Teaching is a practical andobservable act. Pedagogy encompasses that act together with the
purposes, values, ideas, assumptions, theories and beliefs which inform,
shape and seek to justify it.

11

Developing a theory of pedagogy involves seeking answers to questions such as:
What caused me to want to become a second language teacher?
Do these reasons still exist for me now?
What does it mean to be a teacher?
Is the teacher I am the person I am?
Where did the ideas I embody in second language teaching come from historically?
How did I come to appropriate them?
Why do I continue to endorse them now in my teaching?
Whose interests do these ideas serve?
Who has power in my classroom and how is it expressed?
How do power relationships in my classroom influence my interactions withstudents?
How might I teach differently?
What is the nature of knowledge that guides my teaching of content?
Who creates this knowledge?
How did this knowledge emerge during the evolution of teaching?
Whose interests does this knowledge about language teaching serve?
How do/can I personally work to uncover the contradictions in my teaching?
How does what I do affect the opportunities in life of students?
What connections do I make with organizations outside the school or centre todemonstrate my active role in society?
Do I wish to uncover the “hidden curriculum” – the inconsistencies – in myteaching?
(From Bartlett 1990, 206-207)
In other words developing a theory of pedagogy involves examining not just the“what” and “how” of teaching – content knowledge and classroom methodology
respectively - but the questions of “what kind of teacher am I and what kind of teacher
do I want to become?” Grappling with these fundamental questions is part and parcelof becoming a professional. Alongside the technical procedures and skills of language
and teaching, the professional language teacher has the capacity to reason and makesound judgments about what ‘academic theories’ are conducive to the moral andintellectual development of language learners. Brumfit (1997), for example, hasdeveloped a position advocating teachers as ‘educational linguists’, which includes thestudy and exploration of beliefs and role of language in society. But how is this to bedone in the course room?
Much of what we do when we teach in LTE courses is to pass on information, ways ofthinking, conceptualizing, talking, and being. It is part of the process by whichteachers are encouraged to engage in personal theorizing based on their own
experience, taking on or revising beliefs, values, and understandings. The explorationof these beliefs, values and theories is a central part of the conflicts that arise in thecourse room. In our view, rather than ignoring these conflicts, we can invite teacher-12

learners to interrogate their and our assumptions about what teaching and learningmean, and why they cause us so much trouble.
Teachers develop their own theory by exploring classrooms and language (language
awareness) through the cultural artifacts and social practices in the course room. Thus
they are not simply seen as passive absorbers of functional knowledge about syntax,
stylistics and semantics, but are actively engaged in developing their own
understanding of grammar through inductive study by looking at corpuses of authentic
textual data. Lecturers can model and demonstrate how to make students aware of the
discourse features of a newspaper article, a business report, an advertisement, andalso sensitivity to issues of power, gender and linguistic imperialism (Hedgcock 2002,
Philipson 1992). In this way, teacher-learners develop an operational knowledge that
can help them assist their own learners to become critical language users, not justfunctional ones. To counter teacher passivity and dependency, LTE courses must
engage notions of what a ‘language teacher’ looks like, and elaborate the discourses
and practices of such an imagined identity and world.

3.1. Teaching in the LTE course room
Given the view of learning as critical sociocultural practice outlined above, the role ofthe teacher educator is to manage the life on the course room as a space wherelearning is possible and sustained. The aim is to scaffold opportunities for learning,rather than transmitting ‘pre-set’ theories. Central to this role are modeling good
instructional practice, dialogically organizing instruction, encouraging participation in
multiple discourses and setting up collaborative learning. In short, teaching is notrecitation of prior knowledge from elsewhere, but establishing the parameters andnorms for guiding co-constructed understandings in the daily life of the group.

3.2. Modeling good instructional practice
A challenge for anyone teaching LTE courses is how well the teacher’s and the course’s
instructional practices model the kinds of learning opportunities and dispositions thatteachers are encouraged to create in their own classrooms. We have all heard jokes
about lecturers who present a session on co-operative learning through a lecture. As
Feiman-Nemser comments (2001, 1020):

13

The pedagogy of teacher education mirrors the pedagogy of higher
education where lectures, discussions, and seat-based learning are thecoins of the realm. Too often teacher educators do not practice what
they preach.
Gaudart (1994, 85) similarly observes:
While advocating pupil-centred teaching, many teacher education
classes themselves are more inclined to be teacher-centred rather thanstudent-centred… If we stopped and looked at our own teacher
preparation programs, would we find that it allows student teachers todevelop, or would we find that it forces them into a mould which wehave created for them?
Johnston (2000, 157) raises the same issue:
Increasingly, teacher educators are encouraging their teacher learners totake a reflective approach to their teaching and to use action researchmethods to gain a better understanding of their own classrooms: yet …
teacher educators are rarely seen to be practicing what they preach,that is, conducting reflective inquiry in their own classrooms and sharing
the results of this inquiry in the professional forum.
To practice what we preach requires teacher educators to have the appropriate ethicalcommitments, professional knowledge and pedagogical repertories they expect of theirteacher-learners. Examples of three such approaches are presented below.
Hedgcock (2002) discusses a technique for using assigned readings in an LTE course inwhich reading tasks model the same reading strategies which teachers are expected todevelop in their own students. That is, the activities the instructor uses with teacherslearners in relation to reading assigned texts are the same ones the teachers can inturn teach their students to use.
An example of a task of this kind is the following activity which develops genresawareness as well as content knowledge:
Text Analysis Task
Directions: With a partner, select a sample article or chapter from an applied
linguistics source you know. Refer to the following prompts as you analyze yourtext.
1. Scan your text carefully. What are your best guesses about its
a. topicb. genre, or textual category (e.g. research report, review article, essay, etc)
c. primary argument(s) (i.e. thesis/es or central claim[s]?
d. conclusions (including findings for/against research questions or hypotheses,
support for a theory, implications, etc)?

14

2. Identify specific textual clues that you used to make the inferences you drew ina. above. Consider features such as the sample’s topic and focus, thearrangement of its content, its formatting, and so on.
3. How would you describe the text’s rhetorical structure (how the author choseto sequence information)?
4. What do textual signals tell you about the text’s structure? Consider elements
such as the abstract, heading, topic sentences, tables, figures, and so on.
5. For what audience(s) is the text written? Consider these formal elements:
specialized terminology, reliance on the existing literature (bibliographic
resources), style sheet, typographical conventions, and so on.
(Hedgcock 2002, 316)
Johnston (2000) describes a self-study project in which he examined dialogic featuresof his teaching in an MATESL methods course as he sought to implement a studentcentred non-transmission approach to teaching. Data sources on his teaching included
a teaching journal, audio recordings of class sessions, teacher-learners’ journals andassignments, and other classroom data. Thought investigating his own teaching hesought to demonstrate a professional development activity to his teacher-learners.
Generally speaking, in all my work in teacher education, I try to provide
what Woodward (1990) calls loop input and enact in my own classroom
the teaching principles I espouse. Conversely, I always offer myself up
as a living specimen. I encourage teacher learners to think critically
about my teaching, pointing out that if I am claiming to be able to tell
them
how
to
teach,
I
shouldpracticewhatIpreach.
(Johnson, 2000, p. 160)
And thirdly, Wright (2002) provides another example of how good practice can bemodeled – language awareness. A cycle of activities is organized using real texts (e.g.
newspaper and magazine articles) that move from the ‘user’, ‘analyst’ to ‘teacher’domains of language awareness. This process first exposes teacher-learners tolanguage data, which they analyze, drawing on their previous experiences, and then areflective stage follows. Here, participants share new insights gained about how
language works, and work out rules that can help in their classroom teaching. In thisway, participants move from considering language in use to working with language andhow to teach it. They share insights, with the teacher-educator on hand to provoke,
elucidate and clarify. Thus, teacher-learners’ linguistic knowledge is linked topedagogic application. Expanding analytical skills and acquiring the meta-language todiscuss language points go hand in hand. The attitude of curiosity and openness
towards language is one which both teachers and teacher educators can model for15their students, rather than depending on existing sets of grammar rules. Thus, LTE canbe a site for initiating teacher-learners into a spirit of inquiry.
All the above three examples take place within the dynamic teaching-learning context
of the course room. While modeling practice, in each case the teacher-educator also
scaffolds learning. An ‘expert’ shows a learner the more essential moves in a newactivity, such as how to teach a tricky language point, and then gradually hands things
over to the teacher-learner as s/he becomes more confident. So, the trainer does not‘tell’ but supports, while the learner takes on a more expert role, as his perspective
grows and his skills expand. It is an evolving reciprocal relationship.

3.3

Organizing Dialogic Instruction

Many teacher-learners report that one of the most obvious benefits of attending an LTE
course is not what the instructors say, but conversations and networking with otherteachers, an opportunity that many teachers say they have little time for in theirprofessional lives. Of learning through talking with other teachers, a teacher-learnercomments:
Talking in a seminar provides you with time to talk about your teaching
and hear about the teaching of others and this in itself becomesconfidence inducing. You know, you think stuff about your teaching all
the time, but when you talk about it in public, with people who know you
and where you are coming from, it becomes real. Through this talk, weknow what we are doing, we know why we are doing it, we know what
we do, and we can tell others why we are doing it.
(Quoted in Freeman and Johnson 2005, p.85)
Through participating in group conversations around teaching and learning issues,teachers can come to validate their own knowledge and beliefs or reshape themthrough dialog with others. Dialogic teaching (Alexander 2004) is at the heart of ateacher’s repertoire. It need not always involve spoken dialog and can take placethrough journals or on-line. Danielewicz (2001, 146) describes her use of letter
writing as a dialogic activity. Teacher-learner write letters both to their peers and totheir teacher, “focusing on issues and ideas related to teaching, drawn from thereadings, discussions, and experiences in the course”.
However, while discussion is a more coherent form of learning than recitation(Nystrand 1997), dialogic teaching can create a dilemma for teacher-learners whocome from cultures where a transmission-oriented mode of teaching is the norm and16where the lecturer is expected to lecture and the students to listen and learn. Johnston(2000,157) comments that sometimes he received student evaluations that suggested
he should lecture more and that students would like to hear more of his views andlisten less to those of their peers. Dialogic modes of teaching thus raise issues if
identity, power, and agency. Johnston suggests that dialogue in educational settings
has at least three interrelated elements – participation, contingency, and negotiation.
First, it requires the participation of the teacher and the teacherlearners. …The point is that both these sides are needed: There can be
no learning if either one is missing. Next dialogue is fundamentallycontingent. Because of the complexity of what the teacher and teacherlearners bring to the classroom, and the further complexity of theirinteraction in class, it is impossible to predict exactly what teacher
learners will or will not learn.
…Finally, dialogue involves contestantnegotiation. Because of its contingency, truly dialogical relations canonly be maintained through a constant moving to and fro between
participants in the domains both of content (what we are studying) andprocess (how we go about it). (158)
Lave and Wenger (1990), in writing about situated learning, stress the importance of‘learning how to talk’ to participate in a community of practice. Singh (2004) describes
how on an INSET course in the UK, the course members did ‘micro-training’ sessions,
had online discussions with peers doing the distance program from Mexico, and took
part in an action learning (Baldwin and Williams 1988) set. Through these activities, hecame to examine his own criteria for what constitutes ‘progress’, and came to realize
how the way teacher-learners look at things is tied to their biographies and theircontexts. Moreover, in the multiple practices that the course leaders had structured forthe teacher-learners, he became aware how teacher learning happens not only throughthe content of activities, but also by each specific encounter and the authentic talkwithin it. As a member of an action learning set, he could only speak honestly to otherset members because he was among people he could trust as co-learners.
Learning to share with others and listening without judgment but in the interest offurthering understanding thus make the processes of LTE just as important as the preplanned content. Hence even experiential learning cycles (Kolb 1984) might not work if
the sort of talk within it obstructs knowledge co-construction. Indeed, talk and learning
are not separate from the individual, or from the group. Teacher-learners cannot talkabout teaching without reflecting on what they went through as learners, while grouplearning adds meaning to the teacher’s self-development as professionals. A key

17

challenge for teacher-educators is having the process competence to keep the spirit ofcollaborative learning alive, as well as recognizing that knowledge is not transmitted,
but tentative, not prescriptive but constructive. In effect, it is not the written
assignments that should be valued as the ‘products’ of learning, but the right kind oftalk that initiates reflective review of unquestioned habits and ideas about language
and learning.
Consequently, some questions for LTE practitioners to consider are:♦

What is the relationship between how a LTE course is set up and the type oftalk that results?

♦

In what way is talk related to the topics in the course?

♦

How can one provide a variety of opportunities to talk?

♦

How does talk relate to teacher-learners’ engagement and participation?

♦

When does talk become assimilated into personal change?

3. 4 Encouraging participation in multiple discourses
A critical sociocultural view sees learning as the remaking of identity in a particularspace, through the mediation of new discourses, and knowledge as the ability to usein-practice (Hawkins 2004, 89). During LTE course room interaction, teacher-learnerroles are largely shaped, if not assigned, by the roles the lecturer assumes throughsetting up activities, the questions asked and the responses to learner answers, tests
and assignments. If teacher-learners are not to be merely passive empty vessels into
which knowledge is poured, then they need to be able to shape the course of the talk.
When they assert their agency, they remake their identity as they compete for accessand control of the course room. Dialogic discourse is less predictable because it isnegotiated, but all the more invaluable for teacher-learners. As Danielwicz(2001, 168) argues, the course room should be a site where teacher-learners create
and experience different representations of themselves. Changing the talk, as well as
the physical arrangements of people and spaces within the course room, helps redefineteacher and student roles.
The discourses a teacher-learner participates in within the course room are diverse: asan experienced teacher, teacher-learner, group member, peer, researcher, and aunique individual (Hawkins 2004). The language and behavior participants exhibit, forinstance, towards lecturers and their peers in the course sessions are very different.

18

How many teacher-learners have the identity of an ‘expert’ or ‘colleague’ that would
allow them to call their lecturers by the first name? Their ability to successfully
participate in diverse social settings and roles relies on the ability to deploy multiple
identities, and knowledge of attendant discourses for different purpose and times. This
perspective, then, complicates teacher learning, and problematizes what we are‘teaching’ participants in the course room.
Wenger (1998) has written about how successful members ‘take on’ the practices of acommunity of practice in their everyday life. But what was left out was how there isalso a discourse attendant to participation in communities, as Gee (1996) points out. If
we think of teachers as ‘taking hold’ of theories of language and education and also as
acquiring pedagogical repertories, then LTE needs to be constituted accordingly. Thatis, rather than ‘teaching knowledge, skills and awareness’ for transfer to classrooms inschools located in other countries, it is the behavior, attitudes, tools and ways ofengaging that participants will need to successfully demonstrate at the end of thecourse. These can be learnt through their apprenticeship into an identity of a
successful member of a course community of practice. For instance, if we wantlanguage learning to be more than just about functional knowledge of language but
also a tool for learners to participate in global society, we need to provide opportunities
for teachers to explore what this means in terms of curriculum design and classroom
pedagogies.

3.5

Developing collaborative learning

Teacher-learners collectively on a course bring a great deal of accumulated knowledge,
skills, and awareness to many of the issues they will explore in a course. In a typicalcohort some have taught abroad, many have considerable classroom experience, somehave learned several foreign languages successfully, and some have worked as
mentor-teachers and trainers themselves. Their collective knowledge and experience,
together with the course content and the course-room artifacts, provide the resources
through by which they learn. Danielewicz comments (2001, 141):19

Collaborative learning creates a social context that helps students
negotiate entry into the academic discourse community and acquiredisciplinary knowledge. But, at the same time, their joint efforts willproduce new knowledge, and eventually lead to a critique of acceptedknowledge, conditions, and theories, as well as of the institutions that
produce knowledge.
From a Vygotskian perspective on learning, “cognitive development is a sociallymediated activity” (Johnson and Golombek, 2003, 730).

Key concepts here are thezone of proximal development (ZPD) and mediation. These two constructs present aview of learning as a process of “apprenticeship”, where apprentices collaborate insocial practices with teacher educators as well as mentors, critical friends and peers toacquire and construct new forms of interaction and thinking (Vygotsky 1978). Crucial
to the process is the role of mediating artifacts in constructing new meanings. In the
LTE course room these include handouts, worksheets, technology, video, as well as thephysical course-room layout (Singh 2004). For example the course might make use ofvideoed lesson segments or lesson transcripts to raise awareness of issues such as
action zones, group dynamics, turn-taking, corrective feedback, teacher’s role etc.
When discussing a new concept such as focus-on-form, through a video analysis
participants think about what they see and share and discuss it with colleagues.
Through such discussions teacher-learners reveal their implicit understandings of theimportance of grammar, acquisition versus learning, focus-on-form and so on.
Working in collaboration on classroom tasks offers many benefits. Johnson comments:
At the course level, collaborative efforts emerge among cohort groups ofteachers as they engage in the meaningful exchange of ideas andexperiences based on their understanding of themselves as teachers, oftheories and pedagogies presented in their academic course work, of thestudents they teach, and of the day to day realities of their teachingcontexts. …. Whether occurring in face-to-face or via computer-mediatedcommunication, such exchanges foster the emergence of a professional
discourse, heighten a feeling of membership in a professional
community, and lessen the isolation and irrelevance often associatedwith university-based professional course work (2000, 2-3).
An important decision has to do with how much collaboration, how much individual
work and how much lecturer lead teaching will constitute the course (Johnston 1994).
The balance will take different forms with different groups and with different content.

20

Again, we cannot assume that more collaboration, more inductive ‘discovery’-based
instruction will lead to ‘more’ learning as compared to lecturing and telling. We need torealize that whatever the chosen form of instruction, the course room is a contested
domain, mirroring the tensions and complexities of society. Part of the learning process
is the conflicts and bargaining teacher-educators and teacher-learners engage in toenable learning to take place. For example, some teacher-learners from a traditional
culture of learning may overtly accommodate collaborative, active learning tasks while
covertly opposing them. They may feel that they do not have the competence to dowhat is asked for them and it may take time for them to negotiate the rules andpractices of a new community of practice.

Summary
Hawkins (2004, 6) poses the challenge that faces teacher educators in view of theshifts in beliefs about learning and teaching that are becoming apparent in the TESOL
field. It means:
A change not only in the content of what teachers learn through teacher
education, but also in the process. For teacher educators, it becomes
crucial to engage in critical, reflective practices as well, and to envision
their work as creating learning communities within which they also
participate as teachers and collaboratively negotiate new understandingsof their profession and practices. Teacher educators, too, must establish
new practices and take on new roles.
Teacher-learners and teacher-educators develop their practices and senses ofthemselves in relation to the course room world they live in. In this paper, we offereda nuanced reappraisal of teaching and learning in LTE, tying it closely to the space andpractices of the course room. Previous studies have situated LTE in the sociocultural
framework that includes concepts such as apprenticeship, mediation and modeling. A
lot has also been written about how to foster a more inquiry-oriented developmental
approach, and which tools and activities can do so. The concept of teacher identity
construction both expands the sociocultural model, and augments our understanding ofsituated social practices. We argue that teacher identity is formed in relation to, andteacher learning embedded in, socially organized and complex ecological spheres ofactivity in the course room. Teacher learning is about how teacher-learners, as social
actors, learn the meanings of certain practices and reposition themselves sociallythrough the use of artifacts, and with the assistance of experts, thus creating acommunity of practice.

21

If an LTE course in a course room is to ‘work’ – to have its life survive and prosper toresult in any transferable impact – we need to understand not only the individualcomponents but the ways in which the patterns, and the ebb and flow of contacts andengagement result from and contribute to the whole. To achieve the objective of
guiding EFL/ESL teachers into becoming critical language professionals in a ‘TESOL
learning community’ through in-service courses requires more research on theconditions for supportive dialogic learning in the course room, recognizing the struggle
teacher-learners encounter as well as the systems of power in which meaning making
takes place on a daily basis. Managing an ecology of learning, its interactions andactivities, and the related epistemologies to create a rich space conducive for teacher
learning and identity construction is the challenge for LTE lecturers and course
designers.

22

References
Alexander, R. (2002). Dichotomous pedagogies and the promise of comparative
research. ERIC Document ED478168
Alexander, R. (2004). Towards Dialogic Teaching: Rethinking Classroom Talk. London:
Dialogos.
Allwright, D. (1996) Social and pedagogic pressures in the language classroom: The
role of socialisation. In H. Coleman (ed.) Society and the Language Classroom. (pp209-228). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bailey, K. M. (1992). The processes of innovation in language teacher development:
What, why and how teachers change. In J. Flowerdew, M. Brock and S. Hsia
(1992) (eds.) Perspectives on Second Language Teacher Education. (pp. 253282). Hong Kong: City Polytechnic of Hong Kong.
Baldwin, J. and H. Williams (1988). Active Learning: A Trainer’s Guide. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Bartlett, L. (1990). Teacher development through reflective teaching. In Jack C
Richards and David Nunan (eds.) (1990) Second Language Teacher Education.
(pp. 202-214). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bax, S. (1997). Roles for a teacher-educator in context-sensitive teacher education.
ELT Journal, 51/3, 232-241.
Breen, M. P. (2001a). The social context for language learning: a neglected situation?
In C. N. Candlin and N. Mercer (eds.) English Language Teaching in its Social
Context. (pp. 122-146). London: Routledge.
Brody,C. M and Davidson.N.(Eds). 1998. Professional Development for Cooperative
Learning: Issues and Approaches. New York: State University of New York Press.
Brumfit, C.J. (1997). The teacher as educational linguist. In L. van Lier and D. Corson(1997) (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Language and Education: Vol. 6, Knowledge about
Language. The Hague: Kluwer.
Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Calderhead, J. (ed.) (1988). Teachers’ Professional Learning. London: The Falmer
Press.
Clarke, M. A. (1994). The dysfunctions of the theory/practice discourse. TESOL
Quarterly, 28/1, 9-25
Claxton, G. (1996). Implicit theories of learning. In Claxton, G., T. Atkinson, M.
Osborn and M. Wallace (eds.) Liberating the Learner: Lessons for Professional
Development in Education. (pp. 45-58). London: Routledge.
Cochran-Smith, M. (2000) The Future of Teacher Education: framing the questions
that matter. Teaching Education, 11/1, 13-24.
Cortazzi, M. and L. Jin (1996) Cultures of learning: language classrooms in China. In
H. Coleman (ed.) Society and the Language Classroom. (pp. 169-206).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Danielewicz, J. (2001). Teaching Selves: Identity, Pedagogy, and Teacher Education.
New York: State University of New York Press.
Day, C (1999). Developing Teachers: the Challenge of Lifelong Learning. London:
Falmer.

23

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
Feiman-Nemser, Sharon. 2001. From preparation to practice: designing a continuum
to strengthen and sustain teaching. Teachers College Record, 103/6, 1013-1055.
Freeman, D. (2002). The hidden side of the work: teacher knowledge and learning toteach. Language Teaching, 35, 1-13.
Fullan, M. (1991). Professional Preparation of Teachers. In M. Fullan. (ed.) The New
Meaning of Educational Change. (pp. 289-314). London: Cassell.
Gee, J (1996). Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses. London: Taylor& Francis. Second Edition.
Gaudart, H. (1994). Merging theory and practice in pre-service language teacher
education. In Li, D., D. Mahoney and J.C. Richards (eds). Exploring Second
Language Teacher Development. (pp. 85-100). Hong Kong: City University ofHong Kong.
Hargreaves, A. (1998). The emotions of educational change. In A. Hargreaves (ed.)(1998) International Handbook of Educational Change. The Hague: Kluwer.
Hawkins, M. (2004). Researching English Language and Literacy Development in
Schoools. Educational Researcher, 33/3, 14-25.
Hawkins, M. (ed). 2004. Language Learning and Teacher Education: a Sociocultural
Approach. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Hayes, D. (1995). In-service teacher development: some basic principles. ELT Journal,
49/3, 252-261.
Hayes, D. (2000). Cascade training and teachers’ professional development. ELT
Journal, 54/2, 135-145.
Hedgcock, J. S (2002). Towards a socioliterate approach to second language teacher
education. The Modern Language Journal, 86/111, 299-317
Holland, D & Lave, J (2001). Introduction. In Holland, D & Lave, J. (eds.) History in
Person: Enduring Struggles and the Practice of Identity. (pp. 3-33). Albuquerque:
School of American Research Press.
Holliday, A. (1999). Small Cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20/2, 237-264.
Holliday, A. (2005). The Struggle to Teach English as an International Language.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Johnson, K.E. (ed.) (2000). Teacher Education. Alexandria, Virginia: TESOL.
Johnson, K.E. and P. Golombek. (2003). “Seeing” teacher learning. TESOL Quarterly,
37/4, 729-737.
Johnson, K. (2001). Social identities and the NNES MA TESOL student. ED 457682
Johnston, B. (1994). Teacher education and the MA in ESL: the students’ perspective .
In Li, D., D. Mahoney and J.C.Richards (eds). Exploring Second Language Teacher
Development. (pp. 131-150). Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong.
Johnston, B. (2000). Investigating dialogue in language teacher education: the teacher
educator as learner. In Karen Johnson (ed). Teacher Education. (pp. 157-174).
Virginia: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
Kelchtermans, G. (2004). Moving beyond knowledge for practice: research on
continuing professional development. In C. Day and J. Sachs. (eds.) International
Handbook on Continuing Professional Development of Teachers. UK: Open
University Press.
Kolb, D. (1984). Experiential Learning as the Science of Learning and Development. 3rd
Edition.Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

24

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001). Towards a postmethod pedagogy. TESOL Quarterly, 35/4,
537-560.
Lamb, M. (1995). The consequences of INSET. ELT Journal, 49/1. 72-80.
Lantolf, J. P. (2000). (ed.) Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lave, J. and E. Wenger (1991). Situated Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Mercer, N. (1995). The Guided Construction of Knowledge: Talk Amongst Teachers andLearners. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Mercer, N. (2001). Language for teaching a language. In C. N. Candlin and N. Mercer(eds.) English Language Teaching in its Social Context. (pp. 243-257). London:
Routledge.
Moon, J.A. (2001). Short Courses and Workshops. London: Kogan Page.
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and Language Learning: Gender, Ethnicity and Educational
Change. Harlow: Pearson.
Norton, B. and K. Toohey (2001). Changing perspectives on good language learners.
TESOL Quarterly, 35/2. 307-322.
Nystrand, M. (1997). Opening dialogue: Understanding the dynamics of language andlearning in the English classroom. New York: Teachers College Press.
Philipson, R. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Richards, J.C. and D. Nunan (eds.) (1990). Second Language Teacher Education.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J.C. and Farrell T.S.C. (2005). Professional Development for Language
Teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, J. (1998). Language Teacher Education. London: Arnold.
Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social
Context. New York: Oxford University Press.
Singh, G. (2004). A case study of the culture of a short INSET course room.
Unpublished M.Ed dissertation. College of St. Mark and St. John/University of
Exeter.
Tomlinson , B. (1990). Managing change in Indonesian high schools. ELT Journal ,44/1. 25-37.
Ur, P. (1996). A Course in Language Teaching: Practice and theory. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wallace, M (1991). Training Foreign Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Waters, A. and Vilches, M.L.C. (2000). From seminar to school: bridging the INSET
gap. ELT Journal, 54/2, 126-134.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolter, B. (2000). A participant-centred approach to INSET course design. ELT Journal,
54/4, 311-318.

25

Woodward, T. (1992). Ways of Training. Harlow: Longman.
Wright, T. (1992). L2 classroom research and L2 teacher education: towards a
collaborative approach. In J. Flowerdew, M. Brock and S. Hsia (eds.) Perspectives
on Second Language Teacher Education. (pp. 187-209). Hong Kong: City
Polytechnic of Hong Kong.
Wright, T. (2002). Doing language awareness. In. H. Trappes-Lomex and G. Ferguson(eds.) Language in Language Teacher Education. (pp.113-129). Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Wright, T. (2005). Classroom Management in Language Education. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.

26