The Socio-Emotional Influence of Past Teachers on Novice English Teachers’ Beliefs

Abstract

Teachers’ past learning experiences, also referred to as “apprenticeship of observation,” can affect their beliefs and, in turn, their teaching practices. This study focused on the apprenticeships of observation of Chilean novice English teachers and sought to identify the possible influence of their past English teachers on their teaching and learning views in an English as a foreign language context. The qualitative multiple case study design gathered the narratives of 18 teachers using an open-ended survey and in-depth interviews. Results showed that the teachers’ apprenticeship of observation influenced their socio-emotional and affective views on teaching with a main concern on teacher-student relationships. From a sociocultural perspective, it was found that feelings associated with these experiences helped them understand their own practice.

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

“…Regarding the process of becoming an English teacher, the tales of different stages of these teachers' language education life may suggest that teachers' perceptions and abilities—particularly including their views of the sociocultural relevance and significance of their roles—are not simply shaped through a teacher education program, let alone a week‐long course as in the case of Iranian language institutes (Ganji et al., 2018; Haghighi & Norton, 2017; Tajik, Mirhosseini, & Ramezani, 2019). Therefore, research focus on apprenticeship of observation alone; pre‐service student teachers' preparation alone; or novice teachers' early career experiences alone (e.g., Rosas‐Maldonado et al., 2021; Trent, 2011; Villegas et al., 2020) may not provide a comprehensive understanding of the breadth and depth of English language teacher practices, perceptions, and identities. This resonates with the discursive view of teachers' lives that Johnston (1997) called for many years ago, and with his argument that we need “to look beyond the classroom for an understanding of how teachers' lives develop” (p. 707).…”

“…Based on the idea of apprenticeship of observation , learning to teach and conceptualizing teacher roles are argued to have roots in memories of “thousands of hours as schoolchildren observing and evaluating professionals in action” (Borg, 2004, p. 274). English teachers' reflection on their language learning experiences has been found to facilitate more profound understanding of their roles as teachers (Rosas‐Maldonado, Durán‐Castro, & Martin, 2021; Vinogradova & Ross, 2019). Apprenticeship of observation, however, has not always been viewed as smoothly feeding the teaching practice, as it might need to be mitigated in the process of teacher preparation (Gray, 2020).…”

Student Teachers’ Perceptions and Application of Questionnaire Survey in an EFL Context

“…However, there is a lack of studies that target how student teachers perceive questionnaire surveys, and how well they apply them in their studies. Even though many studies were clustered around the perceptions or attitudes of student teachers or pre-service teachers (Fernändez-Portero, 2022; Gan et al, 2020; Rafiq et al, 2022; Rosas-Maldonado et al, 2021; Soo & Goh, 2017), there is still an unfilled gap in identifying whether the pre-service teachers are fully equipped with the knowledge and competencies of conducting questionnaire surveys. Hence, this paper responds to this challenge by exploring the status quo of student teachers’ perceptions and the application of a questionnaire survey in foreign language education research.…”

“…Secondly, teacher educators can play a better role in facilitating teacher candidates' acquiring competencies and enabling them as active learners through group work and teaching practices (Shuanghong et al, 2021). Since teachers are key agents and also gatekeepers to determine what enters and gets into the classroom (Lee & Hwang, 2022), they should take the initiative to innovate teaching content and teaching methods, create an interactive and collaborative learning environment, design tasks to encourage theory-practice integration and provide timely feedback to give student teachers positive learning experiences, which in turn can influence how they perceive and conduct foreign language education research in their teaching practice and future classrooms (Rosas-Maldonado et al, 2021).…”