Narratives of language teacher educators: Unveiling their professional identities, agency, and pedagogies
Author
Riquelme Sanderson, Michel
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Exploring the professional identities of language teacher educators is necessary to understand their pedagogies, i.e., what they do and say in the preparation of teachers. Chile has a strong English language policy driven by neoliberal policies; at the same time, it has one of the most unequal and segregated educational systems in the world. In light of the current trend in second language teacher education that calls for promoting social responsibility beyond the language, it makes it even more critical to investigate language teacher educators and their pedagogies in the preparation of future language teachers in Chile. The purpose of this study was to explore the professional identities, agency, and pedagogies of language teacher educators in the Chilean context. More specifically, the study examined the trajectories, experiences, and teaching philosophies of language teacher educators, their professional context, and their sense of agency. The study drew from the literature on sociocultural approach to second language teacher education, professional identities, agency, and critical pedagogy to illuminate the development, (re)construction, and (re)negotiation of the educators’ professional identities, agentic factors, and pedagogies employed in the preparation of language teachers. Using a narrative multi-case study, six language teacher educators from a public university in northern Chile participated in interviews, classroom observations, and sharing artifacts. Through narrative analysis, the educators evidenced their motivations to become language teachers and language teacher educators, the impact of their role as K-12 teachers, and low awareness of enacted critical pedagogical practices. Further, the narratives of the participants revealed structural influences of the teacher education program in redefining and understanding the role of a language teacher educator in an English as a foreign language context, the community of the language teacher education program and the leadership of the program, and underscored the role of agency, relational agency, and self-constrained agency as mediators of their professional identities and pedagogies.
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- Education - Seattle [733]