Introduction

Abstract

“I want to learn how to hold the paradoxical poles of my identity together, to embrace the profoundly opposite truths that my sense of self is deeply dependent on others dancing with me and that I still have a sense of self when no one wants to dance.” This desire, expressed by Parker J. Palmer in his book, The Courage to Teach (2007), reflects the enigma of a teacher’s competing self- and social-identities—a tension that is mirrored within and among the chapters of this anthology on language teacher education. When we “dance” alone, we are influenced intra-personally; our ideas bloom outwards and our vitality flows from the internal toward the external. When we “dance” with others, we generate energy inter-personally and it runs in the opposite direction: from the external to the internal—the social dimension impacts the personal. However, the dance does not stop there; our energy and influence ebbs and flows, outward and inward. Even as the tide rushes out the waves keep surging inward toward the shore; so is the energy and influence of teachers and learners on each other, and on the world around them. There are some who unwittingly distinguish the classroom from the “real world.” To teachers and learners, the classroom is a world as real as any other in which they live. The successful classroom will prepare learners for the world even as the world impacts the classroom. In many ways, teachers are mediators between worlds—individuals responsible to direct both the yin and yang of language learning, even while they are embedded in their own dynamic tensions.

Innovative practices in language teacher education: Spanning the Spectrum from Intra- to inter-personal teacher development