Abstract

Practicum experiences in pre-service language teacher education programmes may present opportunities for student teachers to promote learner autonomy. For this to happen, they need to develop a critical understanding of educational settings; a sense of what is feasible in those settings; and the ability to design, carry out, and interpret autonomy-oriented experiences. This is where supervised pedagogical inquiry can play a crucial role by promoting reflectivity and agency in a supportive environment. To investigate the value and shortcomings of pedagogical inquiry for promoting autonomy in practicum contexts, a study was conducted within a pre-service teacher education programme whose practicum model seeks to promote reflective teacher development through inquiry. A corpus of student teacher reports of practicum projects was analyzed as regards the visions of language education that underlie teaching practice, the way pedagogic and research purposes are intertwined, the types of professional knowledge entailed in project development, and the impact of projects upon learner and teacher development. Even though the study refers to a particular teacher education programme, it provides an example of how inquiry-based field experiences may enhance a praxeological epistemology that promotes dialogic pedagogies for teacher and learner autonomy.

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