International Reports on Literacy Research

Abstract

Melina Porto reports on a new implementation of a teacher-education program currently underway in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, under the leadership of teacher-researcher Silvana Barboni from the National University of La Plata. The In Service Teacher Education (INSET) program directs the Dirección de Capacitación de la Provincia de Buenos Aires and provides free teacher-education opportunities for all teachers in the province of Buenos Aires. The program, which was implemented in May 2005, is part of a larger change in the curriculum and in school practices. According to Porto, the educational policies of the province of Buenos Aires are being revisited to meet the educational needs of learners in the 21st century. Changes in the formulation of educational aims, the definitions of student profiles when leaving school, and curricular innovations that respond to the development of new social identities and, therefore, new social needs are driving changes in teaching practices. The assumption behind these changes is that schools should provide a common cultural basis to allow for a conscious and critical participation in society; that is, schools should develop a new type of literacy that empowers students for active citizenship so that "education for all is citizenship for all."The mission of the INSET program is to provide language teachers in Argentina with the right and the responsibility to develop the knowledge and skills required to instruct and prepare learners for the demands of the 21st century with regard to language learning. Therefore, professional development is seen as an integral part of current efforts to transform and revitalize education in the province of Buenos Aires. Well-prepared language teachers are essential to successfully develop literacy in a foreign language, and such preparation entails permanent teacher development that is free, of high quality, and provided by the state.The program has been designed using the person-centered paradigm of teacher learning (Roberts, 1998). Its purpose is to work with teachers' personal theories, beliefs, values, understandings, and assumptions about the language-teaching profession. With that purpose in mind, 25 teacher-educators were selected to participate in the program-one for each educational region in the province. Their role was to serve as agents of change within each region, with the aim of responding both to local needs and to national demands, thus establishing a balance between a centralized and decentralized policy of teacher education.The courses developed thus far aim to encourage and develop literacy teaching skills and strategies through oral communication practices. These teacher-education courses are developed as workshops and focus on the following distinct issues: the underlying assumptions of English foreign language teaching (EFLT),