Abstract
Research has accumulated important knowledge over recent decades on how licensed language teachers develop and learn from cognitive and socio-cultural stances. Yet, relatively little evidence exists on how non-licensed-in-English language teachers (NLELTs) grow professionally in their communities. Similarly, few studies have yet investigated the concept of “imagined communities” in the language teaching field with these particular types of population. This study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the possible forms of professional knowledge that NLELTs build through participation in the activities of a learning community. Four non-licensed language teachers participated in a nine-month collaborative-reflective process focused on language teaching practices, in a public school in Bogotá (Colombia). In analyzing their interactions and consequent products, we discuss three dimensions of knowledge construction propelled by the individual visions they brought into the community. Furthermore, we analyze how learning in that present community granted the teachers access to envisioned practices in imagined communities for a desirable future. Based on the findings we argue that success or failure in participation in present, real communities determines imagined affiliation to future communities, their practices and even the NLELTs’ preferred future positionings as professionals.
Highlights
1.1 Contextulization of the Problem of StudyIn the language teacher education field, there has been an increasing interest in strengthening the quality of teacher education programs, as well as a focus on furthering the professional development of teachers in Colombia
We present the category that helped to describe the forms of professional knowledge that the four non-licensed-in-English language teachers (NLELTs) engaged with in this community of practice, which is the main inquiry of the study reported in this paper
We suggest that because of participation in knowledge construction in an actual community, the NLELTs could imagine themselves belonging to imagined communities and participating in imagined future practices prompted by the desire to provoke curricular changes, re-positioning themselves as professionals and pedagogical transformations
Summary
1.1 Contextulization of the Problem of StudyIn the language teacher education field, there has been an increasing interest in strengthening the quality of teacher education programs, as well as a focus on furthering the professional development of teachers in Colombia. The dynamics of the language teaching phenomenon in Colombia has diversified this field from a professional point of view, allowing professionals in other areas the entrance to the labor. In this sense, it is pertinent to analyze how English teachers, who have not majored in any of the language teaching-related fields, confront those dynamics by working with peers and learning in their contexts. This article presents the results of a collaborative inquiry process that four non-licensed in English language teachers (NLELTs) engaged in, during a nine-month period in a public school in Bogotá, Colombia. The analysis of the process demonstrated traces of the teachers’ professional learning and their construction of pedagogic knowledge through their engagement in a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) established in the school, and, as participants of their future imagined communities (Kanno & Norton, 2003), they constructed imagined versions of themselves, for a better professional future
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