Metamorphosis of a teacher educator: A journey towards a more critical self

Abstract

Critical teacher education emerged as a response to the liberal, hegemonic, and power-oriented world that affected teacher education as well. Albeit widely discussed, moving towards becoming this type of teacher educator is neither easy nor fast. This autoethnographic narrative study describes my journey as a teacher educator from a non-critical, product-oriented, passive teacher educator to a more critical, processoriented, active teacher educator who learns, questions, relearns, and unlearns. The data are gathered from different sources of my personal portfolio, including training diaries, field notes, memories, feedback, and observation. The findings of the study reveal the underlying factors that shape our thoughts, beliefs, and practices and how we can gain voice and agency and transform into critical teacher educators.

Exploring the effective language teaching components from teachers’ point of view: A community of inquiry perspective

“…Without promoting critical thinking in classrooms, learners may not be able to address these situations effectively enough to succeed in an L2 community. Kamali (2014Kamali ( , 2021Kamali ( , 2023 posited that teacher metamorphosis (transforming a teacher -or a teacher trainer -to a material designer, assessor, and critical thinker) is a path toward effective teaching; the concept that this study further confirms. This study could add to this concept arguing that teacher metamorphosis is not only needed in online learning but also seems essential considering that there are new skills in the contemporary world that teachers should attain urgently and critically such as digital literacy, multicultural and multilingual peculiarities, global representations and the like.…”

“…Effective teaching, including improving student learning, school effectiveness, teacher evaluation, designing and enhancing teacher education programs, and skill and strategy training (Chen et al, 2012;Dome´nech Betoret & Go´mez Artiga, 2004;Kamali, 2023;Owan et al, 2023;Racey et al, 2024), is crucial for attaining educational outcomes. In other words, effective teaching and teachers' understanding of this concept influence the improvement of students' outcomes (Elton, 1998).…”

“…In other words, effective teaching and teachers' understanding of this concept influence the improvement of students' outcomes (Elton, 1998). Different studies have investigated the components of effective teaching and their impact on students' achievements, concluding that effective teachers need to have good subject knowledge (Walshaw, 2012), design well-structured lessons (Iqbal et al, 2021), ask appropriate questions to engage and challenge learners (Walsh, 2006), conduct assessment effectively (Ko et al, 2013), and navigate between various roles adaptively (Kamali, 2014(Kamali, , 2021(Kamali, , 2023. However, the components of effective teaching in different subjects may differ (Ghasemi & Hashemi, 2011).…”