Teacher personal theories bridge a gap between theory and practice. Teacher training offers an opportunity for the trainee to become aware of their personal theories of practice and for these to be shaped . This article focuses on the role of reflection in the development of teacher personal theories of practice while training teachers of French as a foreign language. An interpretive analysis of messages posted on an Internet discussion forum for teacher trainees reveals how reflective students modify their personal theories on teaching by articulating theory and practice.
Metalinguistic discourse is the most common type of foreign language class-room discourse. It is commonly used by teachers in order to give explana-tions on language use, forms and meanings. While teachers dominate in this kind of discourse, students seem to remain passive. How can we promote students’ communicative and cognitive activity? This article focuses on teach-ers’ and learners’ strategies for negotiation of meaning in the case of written input. An analysis of four lessons of French as a foreign language recorded in a secondary bilingual school in Warsaw was carried out in order to reveal the metalinguistic strategies that enhance the discursive co-operation between the participants and, in this way, co-construction of meaning.
The practicum is an important part of the training of prospective foreign language teachers. The reflections proposed in this article deal with the assumptions of mentoring when confronted with its practical implementation, with a particular focus on learning through mentoring dialogues. The text provides an overview of the main models of mentoring in order to show the complexity of the tasks faced by the mentor teacher. Characteristics of the mentoring dialogue are also presented. This theoretical base is referred to in the study, which consisted of a qualitative analysis of mentoring dialogues and comments made afterwards by prospective teachers of French as a foreign language. The aim of the study was to identify the supervisory style, dialogue activity and mentoring roles performed by the mentor teachers. The analysis was also intended to show what kind of mentoring behavior is expected by the pre-service students. The findings show that the majority of mentor teachers dominate the conversation and prefer a directive supervisory style, which seems to meet the trainees’ expectations and needs. The pre-service students emphasize the importance of mentoring dialogues as a learning opportunity, and appreciate constructive criticism, positive reinforcement and concrete guidance on how to teach. The implication of the findings is discussed at the end.
The aim of the text is to discuss the possibilities of developing professional self-awareness at the stage of initial education of foreign language teachers. The first part of the article presents theoretical considerations on teachers’ professional self-consciousness, distinguishing three areas of it: professional competence as goals to be achieved, self-evaluation and self-regulation, and teachers’ cognitive, emotional and communicative functioning in professional situations. The second part of the text contains an analysis of selected practical tools that serve to develop teachers’ professional self-awareness, such as The European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages, and the European Profiling Grid, tools inspired by E. Berne’s concept of Transactional Analysis, and the author’s reflection grids. The conclusions of the analysis indicate the possibility of the coherent use of available tools and creation of additional tools within the context of education, so that the process of developing teachers’ self-awareness is multifaceted and leads to a sense of professionalism.
Mind mapping is primarily a learning technique based on creating pictorial notes (Buzan 2003). In the present article, mind maps were used as a tool for the study of social representations, so as to investigate a broad spectrum of ideas, beliefs, and values related to multilingualism. The study involved a group of French Philology students training to become teachers of the French language, and its aim was to determine the extent to which their initial representations of multilingualism were consistent with the theoretical assumptions of the Council of Europe’s language policy. This policy encourages teachers of foreign languages to develop multilingual competence among students. The analysis of mind maps and the transcription of the group interview leads to the conclusion that the respondents show some areas of ignorance and stereotypical beliefs that should be reflected upon in the course of their further education preparing them to the teaching profession.
Modern language policy in Europe has put forward the concept of multilingualism,and with this plurilingual competence. The definitions of both phenomenacan be found in numerous documents of the Council of Europe, especiallyin the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.The authors of this document describe multilingual communication in somedetail, where the native speaker user is beyond the scale. A lot of attention iscurrently being given to issues of multilingualism in education, with numerousarticles, suggestions for teaching activities and tools to develop related skills.This article raises the question of the preparation of future teachers of languageswhich will be taught as the second foreign language (L3) and how plurilingualcompetence can be developed in the classroom. The study, conductedamong students of Romance languages answers the following questions.Are students, who are future L3 language teachers, adequately preparedto develop plurilingual competence in their students? Do they have theappropriate knowledge and practical skills to do this? What are their beliefsregarding the role of different languages when teaching the L3 target language?
This article proposes a reflection on the usefulness of the autonarration method for research in language didactics and plurilingualism. Starting from a definition of the autonarration relating to the field of teaching / learning of languages and cultures, we then explain the specificity of the plurilingual competence to justify the choice of the autonarration as a method well adapted to the study of learning to aim at the development of such a competence. We then present the types of autonarration practised and their functions as well as possible difficulties for research. Our words are supported by examples of research whose purpose was to examine the impact of plurilingual competence in the teaching / learning languages.
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