Understanding English language teacher education in Chile : a cultural historical activity theory (chat) perspective

Abstract

Over the last two decades, Chile has been driven by an economic imperative to build the capability of citizens to be competent in the English language, resulting in a demand for teachers of English (Matear, 2008). However, there has been a widely held belief that Chilean teachers of English are inadequately skilled and incapable of effectively teaching English at schools (Ministerio de Educacion, 2009a). This has resulted in an increasing number of studies in teacher education, however, there is still little evidence based research available regarding how teachers learn to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and what the most effective conditions for this learning are (Diaz & Bastias, 2012). This thesis explores EFL teacher education in Chile in order to understand the nature of teacher learning in this specific context. The research uses a qualitative research approach to examine the varying motives, actions and mediating tools that shaped how a cohort of 24 final stage pre-service teachers learnt to teach EFL in Chile. The research question addressed in this thesis was: how do final stage pre-service teachers learn to teach EFL in a Chilean teacher education program? The study was framed by a cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective. CHAT's explanatory potential proved useful in understanding pre-service teachers' engagement in the activity of learning to teach EFL, and the interrelated factors that shaped this learning. CHAT also revealed the differing planes and dimensions that impacted pre-service teachers' beliefs, their academic learning and initial teaching experiences. The major contribution of this thesis lies in its illumination of how a group of pre-service teachers learnt to teach EFL in a Chilean teacher education program. The analysis suggested that pre-service teachers' participation in schools and university coursework settings mediated their ways of thinking, learning, and acting like teachers of English. Pre-service teachers' individual perceptions about learning to teach EFL were examined against the social, cultural and historical context of the activity of learning to teach EFL in Chile. This revealed tensions emerging around differing learning motives, approaches to teaching English, and tools in their negotiation between schools and university environments. The findings of the study support the argument that well designed teacher education which is effectively integrated with practicum experience has an expansive learning potential. This means that pre-service teachers learn to teach EFL as a result of a dialectical relationship of a confluence of factors: their personal experiences as learners, the program's curriculum and pedagogy, teaching experiences and personal commitment. This elucidation can contribute to teacher education policy in Chile and future curriculum design in SLTE. The second contribution of this thesis lies in its methodological strand. CHAT as an analytical framework proved to be helpful in making visible specific factors that afforded and constrained pre-service teachers' learning. It shed light on the dialectic nature of EFL teacher learning and its contradictory dynamics between national educational policies, teacher education programs, between theory and practice, and between pre-service teachers' views and classroom reality. Show more