INTRODUCTION

The focus of this chapter is twofold: What do we understand by “learning” in the context of postgraduate in-service courses in language teacher education (LTE), and what do we understand by “teaching”? Drawing broadly on the sociocultural perspectives of Lave and Wenger and Vygotskian models of cognitive apprenticeship, it considers how to design the course room as a learning environment.

SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS

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 of course-room practices that include lectures, discussions, simulations, case studies, and so on. Whereas conversations about the content of LTE courses are common, discussions about LTE pedagogic practices in the course room are much less frequent. In general, LTE has been grounded in the dominant technical-rational discourse of teacher education, which maintains that language teaching expertise can be acquired through content-based courses followed by a practicum or school attachment. Focusing on designing courses however has ignored how human learning is emergent through social interaction, and where context and identity play crucial mediating roles (see Franson and Holliday, Chapter 4; Miller, Chapter 17). For LTE courses, this means understanding how teacher learning emerges in the life of the course room, which this chapter sets out to explore. From this perspective, the location – the course room – is contingent on teacher learning, as its life unfolds over time, as events and processes interact, and shape the way participants think, feel, and act.

Sociocultural theories of teacher learning center on the concept of learning as situated social practice, which includes mediation, discourse, and participation structures. However, sociocultural theories need to be complemented by understanding learning as identity construction. Relating the microprocess of the course room to the larger macro context in which LTE is situated, we conceptualize teacher learning as the appropriation and resistance to skills and knowledge for the purpose of remaking identity.

OVERVIEW

We take as axiomatic that before learning, there must be engagement, which includes the atmosphere and the climate of course room life (Wright 2005). The course room is also viewed as a site for social participation structures that can enhance or inhibit learning opportunity.