Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 1 The Landscapes of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 1 The Scope of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 2 Trends in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 3 Critical Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 4 Social and Cultural Perspectives
- Section 2 Professionalism and The Language Teaching Profession
- Chapter 5 Second Language Teacher Professionalism
- Chapter 6 Certification and Professional Qualifications
- Chapter 7 Standards and Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 8 Assessment in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 9 Teacher Preparation and Nonnative English-Speaking Educators
- Chapter 10 “Trainer Development”: Professional Development for Language Teacher Educators
- Section 3 Pedagogical Knowledge in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 11 The Curriculum of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 12 Knowledge About Language
- Chapter 13 SLA and Teacher Education
- Chapter 14 Acquiring Knowledge of Discourse Conventions in Teacher Education
- Section 4 Identity, Cognition, and Experience in Teacher Learning
- Chapter 15 Personal Practical Knowledge in L2 Teacher Education
- Chapter 16 Language Teacher Cognition
- Chapter 17 Teacher Identity
- Chapter 18 The Novice Teacher Experience
- Chapter 19 Teaching Expertise: Approaches, Perspectives, and Characterizations
- Section 5 Contexts for Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 20 Teaching and Learning in the Course Room
- Chapter 21 School-Based Experience
- Chapter 22 Language Teacher Education by Distance
- Chapter 23 Technology and Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 6 Second Language Teacher Education Through Collaboration
- Chapter 24 Collaborative Teacher Development
- Chapter 25 The Practicum
- Chapter 26 Mentoring
- Chapter 27 Language Teacher Supervision
- Section 7 Second Language Teacher Development Through Research and Practice
- Chapter 28 Second Language Classroom Research
- Chapter 29 Action Research in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 30 Reflective Practice
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Acknowledgments
Chapter 4 - Social and Cultural Perspectives
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 February 2023
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction: Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 1 The Landscapes of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 1 The Scope of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 2 Trends in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 3 Critical Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 4 Social and Cultural Perspectives
- Section 2 Professionalism and The Language Teaching Profession
- Chapter 5 Second Language Teacher Professionalism
- Chapter 6 Certification and Professional Qualifications
- Chapter 7 Standards and Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 8 Assessment in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 9 Teacher Preparation and Nonnative English-Speaking Educators
- Chapter 10 “Trainer Development”: Professional Development for Language Teacher Educators
- Section 3 Pedagogical Knowledge in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 11 The Curriculum of Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 12 Knowledge About Language
- Chapter 13 SLA and Teacher Education
- Chapter 14 Acquiring Knowledge of Discourse Conventions in Teacher Education
- Section 4 Identity, Cognition, and Experience in Teacher Learning
- Chapter 15 Personal Practical Knowledge in L2 Teacher Education
- Chapter 16 Language Teacher Cognition
- Chapter 17 Teacher Identity
- Chapter 18 The Novice Teacher Experience
- Chapter 19 Teaching Expertise: Approaches, Perspectives, and Characterizations
- Section 5 Contexts for Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 20 Teaching and Learning in the Course Room
- Chapter 21 School-Based Experience
- Chapter 22 Language Teacher Education by Distance
- Chapter 23 Technology and Second Language Teacher Education
- Section 6 Second Language Teacher Education Through Collaboration
- Chapter 24 Collaborative Teacher Development
- Chapter 25 The Practicum
- Chapter 26 Mentoring
- Chapter 27 Language Teacher Supervision
- Section 7 Second Language Teacher Development Through Research and Practice
- Chapter 28 Second Language Classroom Research
- Chapter 29 Action Research in Second Language Teacher Education
- Chapter 30 Reflective Practice
- Author Index
- Subject Index
- Acknowledgments
Summary
INTRODUCTION
The content of teacher training, or education, needs to include not only the linguistic features of English and how these may be taught and learned, but also its social and cultural position in the world and its subsequent impact on the lives of both teachers and language learners. If teachers of history do not address with their students the way in which often uncertain events can be used by governments and movements to promote political agendas, the teaching of history can be reduced to propaganda. There will be a similar effect if English is not presented as a postcolonial language that is deeply socially and culturally involved in world politics, which is often unequal.
SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS
Much of prevailing second language education practice remains dominated by an essentialist view of culture in which students and their language-learning attitudes and abilities are very much characterized by imagined and problematic stereotypes of their national, ethnic, regional, or religious cultures. To counter this, there has been a call for a decentered, or locality driven, approach to the way in which teachers and students recognize and explore the cultural complexity and diversity within their own experiences (e.g., Kumaravadivelu 2007), and to the way in which students are exposed to curriculum content that addresses the political nature of English in the world and non-center forms of English (e.g., Holliday 2005). Attention to the social “contexts” of language teaching has gone some way to meeting this need; but these contexts have often been overgeneralized or oversimplified as a result of superficial center-led investigation. Attention to specific contexts can also suffer from inattention to the bigger political picture.
In this chapter we are going to address this state of affairs by juxtaposing two sets of experiences that we feel have often remained apart. The first is the very generalized international arena called Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), which although it has produced critical understandings of English in the world, has few examples of rich decentered research. The second derives from the more localized contexts of publicly funded education, which is often described as English as a Second Language (ESL), and which includes immigrant and adult English language programs (often termed ESOL).
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- Cambridge Guide to Second Language Teacher Education , pp. 40 - 46Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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