Theories of situated knowledge support that knowledge involves experience of practices rather than just accumulated information. While an important segment of foreign language teacher education programs focuses on the theoretical component of second/foreign language acquisition theories and relevant methodological concerns, it is mainly through practice that novice teachers construct their new professional identities. Consequently, typical teacher preparation programs require a number of classroom practice hours, which is not easily carried out in the educational context where there is a limited number of target language courses; such is the case of Spanish language instruction in Serbia. This study presents examples of two service-learning programs aimed at providing teaching practice for pre-service Spanish teachers in Serbia, while answering to the needs and interests of specific communities. The theoretical and practical implications of this investigation may help outline a model of foreign language teacher education programs for social and educational contexts that lack a large-scale target language audience. Issues of future foreign language teachers’ identity and cognition regarding the language education policy creation and the teaching process itself are also addressed.
This qualitative research aims at linking recent findings related to cognition and self-regulated learning with complexity-driven educational framework that promotes Teacher-Learner communities of practice, in which knowledge is generated and constructed through a complex process of reflection and negotiation. Building on the data that was obtained through a textual academic literary self-report, we explore students' engagement and agency in the activities that are inherent to higher levels of academic education (Ph.D. studies), that is, researching, reading, writing, participating and interaction with other members of academic communities. The results are relevant for our deeper understanding of academic maturation from the cognitive and socio-cultural perspective within a complexity-driven, transdisciplinary educational paradigm.
Abstract-Although much work has been conducted on deductive and inductive approaches to second language learning, insufficient attention has been dedicated to abductive reasoning. This paper presents the results from an exploratory study on the processes that motivate initial hypothesis-making and their possible repercussions for L2 instruction. More specifically, the beginner foreign language learners' ability to infer word meaning based on their overall linguistic knowledge (e.g., knowledge of the first language, knowledge of other foreign languages) was tested in order to draw conclusions about abductive reasoning in L2 learning.
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