A Case Study of an Iranian EFL Student Teacher’s Professional Preparation and Development from the Perspective of Social Constructivist Approach

Abstract

Language teacher professional development has recently shifted away from transmissionist approaches based on cascading or transfer of external knowledge toward social constructivist paradigm with a focus on the situationality of learning and teaching as social processes of sharing and (re)constructing personal meanings, understandings, and skills. The social constructivist view of teacher education values teachers’ agency in constructing and shaping personalized knowledge as a socially constructed experiential process in context. So, the researcher as an EFL educator in an Iranian teacher education university investigates the professional development of an EFL teacher during a three-year-time span both as a student and then as a teacher. Teacher journals, observation, and interview as three appropriate data gathering tools were used to obtain triangulated data. Student teacher professional change during the time span, multidimensionality of professional development, and discursively shaped personal beliefs and knowledge and their influence on teaching actions and practices were the emerged themes of data analysis based on Strauss (Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998) constant comparative method, including three steps of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The findings of this research challenge the transmission nature of teacher education which assumes student teachers as the conduits, requiring to be filled with skills, input, and knowledge lectured by educators as authority figures.