'What I Didn't Want To Do', 'What I Thought I Would Do', and 'What I Ended Up Doing': Novice EFL Teachers' Narratives of Experience in Learning to Teach
type: CreativeWork
description: Learning to teach has been the subject of many studies in the field of second language teacher education. These have included looking at the impact of teacher education programs (Peacock, 2009) and student teachers’ experiences in them (Malderez, Hobson, Tracey & Kerr, 2007), exploring beginning teachers' issues and challenges in their first year of teaching (Richards & Pennington, 1998; Farrell, 2003, 2006), examining the development of foreign language teachers' identity in the context of educational reforms (Liu & Xu, 2011, 2013; Ju, 2013; Tsui, 2007), and studying pre-service teachers' learning and development through narrative inquiry within a sociocultural perspective (Johnson, 2007; Golombek & Johnson, 2004; Johnson & Golombek, 2011; Kayi-Aydar, 2015). This qualitative narrative study sought to contribute to the literature in learning to teach by examining a group of novice EFL teachers' distant and recent conceptualizations of language teaching as they navigated through different academic and professional stages. These included their experiences as EFL learners in basic education before entering a teacher education program, as teacher learners and student teachers in a four-year teacher education program, and then as novice teachers in their second or third year of professional teaching. The study was theoretically framed within the constructs of narrative as a phenomenon and sociocultural theory as related to second language teacher education. Participants were a group of six Colombian novice EFL teachers with an average of 17 months of professional teaching experience, at the time of the study, at private primary or secondary schools in a city in Colombia. Data sources included personal narratives, individual retrospective interviews, a focus group interview, concept maps, analysis of documents (e.g. practicum learning journals and current lesson plans), and classroom observations. Findings revealed that participants' conceptualizations of language teachin…
abstract: Learning to teach has been the subject of many studies in the field of second language teacher education. These have included looking at the impact of teacher education programs (Peacock, 2009) and student teachers’ experiences in them (Malderez, Hobson, Tracey & Kerr, 2007), exploring beginning teachers' issues and challenges in their first year of teaching (Richards & Pennington, 1998; Farrell, 2003, 2006), examining the development of foreign language teachers' identity in the context of educational reforms (Liu & Xu, 2011, 2013; Ju, 2013; Tsui, 2007), and studying pre-service teachers' learning and development through narrative inquiry within a sociocultural perspective (Johnson, 2007; Golombek & Johnson, 2004; Johnson & Golombek, 2011; Kayi-Aydar, 2015). This qualitative narrative study sought to contribute to the literature in learning to teach by examining a group of novice EFL teachers' distant and recent conceptualizations of language teaching as they navigated through different academic and professional stages. These included their experiences as EFL learners in basic education before entering a teacher education program, as teacher learners and student teachers in a four-year teacher education program, and then as novice teachers in their second or third year of professional teaching. The study was theoretically framed within the constructs of narrative as a phenomenon and sociocultural theory as related to second language teacher education. Participants were a group of six Colombian novice EFL teachers with an average of 17 months of professional teaching experience, at the time of the study, at private primary or secondary schools in a city in Colombia. Data sources included personal narratives, individual retrospective interviews, a focus group interview, concept maps, analysis of documents (e.g. practicum learning journals and current lesson plans), and classroom observations. Findings revealed that participants' conceptualizations of language teachin…
author: Macias, Diego Fernando
language: en_US
date published: 2017
date modified: 2026-07-24T00:57:45Z
provider: University of Arizona
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Arizona.

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/624531