Foreign Language Learners as Teachers: Individual Perceptions of a Teaching Process at the Pre-Service Level

Abstract

The article presented in this volume is a part of a research project investigating the reflective practices of pre-service teachers of English who are still learners themselves studying to become fully qualified professionals. It aims at investigating their ability to identify significant events, the so-called critical incidents in their first teaching practice experiences, reflect upon them and self-assess their development over a period of one academic year in the form of a diary study. The part of the project discussed here relates to the trainees’ perceptions of the teaching profession and themselves as teachers. It tries to establish the belief and value systems of the students and to comment on the origin of those beliefs they hold about the teaching profession. On the basis of their narratives presented in the form of an essay, the extent to which the trainees use their own individual preferences as learners in the way they approach teaching will be discussed as well as the extent to which it is influenced by prior learning experiences in the far past at school and at present at the teacher training college. So the focus of the study is the individual variability of trainee-teachers who are still learners themselves.