Narratives about Being and Becoming English Language Teachers in an ELT Education Program

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the narratives written by four pre-service English language teachers (PELTs) during the last semester of their undergraduate program. The study aims to understand the constructions related to being and becoming PELTs and the possible contributions that the English language teacher (ELT) education program provided to shape those identities. The narratives were reconstructed from two narrative frames written by the PELTs and their responses to a narrative interview. The results reveal how participants (re)signify their profession from their experiences in the program, the teaching practicum, and other settings. PELTs construct and consolidate their professional identity initially from a technical perspective. However, their experiences and the guidance of some teacher educators transformed their view of education into a more critical and informed perspective. In conclusion, professional identity could potentially be formed and changed based on the experiences provided throughout the PELTs’ education. Considering this, initial English teacher education programs should establish strategies that contribute to this end from the beginning of undergraduate studies.

The Conception of Student-Teachers and the Pedagogical Practicum in the Colombian ELT Field

“…Student-teachers should (already) know about material design and language teaching methods, approaches, theories, techniques, strategies, values, competencies, and assessment Giraldo & Murcia-Quintero, 2018;Lucero & Cortés-Ibañez, 2021;Pinzón-Capador & Guerrero-Nieto, 2018;Suárez-Flórez & Basto-Basto, 2017). Consistent with this line of thought, Castañeda-Trujillo et al (2022) affirm that student-teachers demonstrate their language didactics in preparing themselves or studying to be language teachers and planning and delivering language lessons. Regarding the latter, Castañeda-Trujillo (2021), Sarasa (2017), and Ubaque-Casallas and Aguirre-Garzón (2020) assert that student-teachers demonstrate lesson planning and delivery in their teaching performance in the classroom with elements such as the roles they assume, the methodologies they implement, the materials they design, the classroom atmosphere they create, and the teaching strategies they employ (even for in-situ decisions and problem-solving acts).…”

“…However, the idea of opening even more spaces for reflection and guidance on English education during the practicum can foster other possibilities of thought and autonomy for student-teachers (Castañeda-Trujillo et al, 2022;Garzón-Duarte & Posada-Ortiz, 2020;Quintero-Polo, 2016). Colombian ELT undergraduate programs should then evaluate how they provide student-teachers with professional development, majorly in those topics with a tremendous foundation on foreign macro-narratives, such as multiliteracies, interculturality, language use, theories, and teaching skills.…”

Identidad docente del profesorado de educación primaria: estado del conocimiento en SciELO y DOAJ (2012-2022)

“…Las tres investigaciones (Castañeda-Trujillo et al, 2022, Miranda y Vargas, 2019Stenberg y Maaranen, 2020) que centran su estudio en el proceso de construcción de la identidad docente en diferentes momentos de la formación inicial encuentran que conforme se avanza en los años de estudio de la carrera se construye y fortalece la identidad docente.…”

Probing the Sociocultural Relevance of TESOL in Three Stories of Becoming an English Teacher

“…Very recently, in line with examinations of in‐service English teachers' views (Macalister, 2022), there have been investigations of student teachers' construction of their professional identities in different contexts. A study in Colombia (Castaneda‐Trujillo, Alarcon‐Camacho, & Jaime‐Osorio, 2022) analyzed the written narratives of four pre‐service teachers of English to understand how they construct their professional identity in an undergraduate teacher education program. The participants appeared to rely on past images and future imageries beyond the particular program to construct their emerging teacher identity.…”