Student-Teachers’ Perceptions of Second Language Teaching in the CBL Program: Identity Construction and Development

Shu-Fen Yeh

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.8n.4p.21

Abstract

In recent times, researchers of second language learning have suggested that second language learning is not simply a cognitive or linguistic issue, but is also a social, political, and cultural one (e.g., Atkinson, 2002; Firth & Wagner, 1997; Larsen-Freeman, 2007). Research on student-teachers’ identity (e.g., Atkinson, 2004; Day & Kington, 2008; Wenger, 1998) also stresses the importance of identity development to help students with setting goals and learning (e.g., Olsen, 2008). Therefore, this qualitative research aimed to investigate STs’ identity development and how identity transfers knowledge to facilitate the learning and teaching processes. This study applied a two-semester community-based learning program involving 40 university students and 50 elementary school students in Taiwan. It was found that negotiating multiple discourses in diverse social contexts is another dimension of learning sources for student-teachers’ understanding of personal values, increasing the awareness of social responsibilities, and fashioning their personal and pedagogical identities.

Highlights

Researchers of second language learning have suggested that L2 learning is not a cognitive or linguistic issue, and a social, political, and cultural one (e.g., Firth & Wagner, 1997; Larsen-Freeman, 2007; Long, 2007; Zuengler & Miller, 2006)
Personal Values of Teacher Identity and Language Teaching. The results of this analysis revealed that when students come to understand the notion of personal values and of self as being a second language teacher, they may see themselves as having all the appropriate personal qualities for effective language teaching and as having pedagogical competence in community-based learning (CBL)
As many researchers have emphasized the importance of identity as being crucial to teacher education and language learning, this study shows that incorporating CBL into a second language teaching program is a great way of teaching practices, and one which offers naturalistic settings of resources for STs engaged in identity negotiation and understanding of personal values, increasing their sense of social responsibility or social justice, and fashioning their personal and pedagogical identities

Summary

Introduction

Researchers of second language learning have suggested that L2 learning is not a cognitive or linguistic issue, and a social, political, and cultural one (e.g., Firth & Wagner, 1997; Larsen-Freeman, 2007; Long, 2007; Zuengler & Miller, 2006). The objective of education is no longer to convey a body of knowledge, but rather to help students with their knowledge to prepare a way to participate in the world and to engage in society. The community-based learning (CBL) approach, an educational learning concept of linking academic work and communities, is used to place an emphasis on the ways of interacting and collaborating with members of the local learning communities and to signify the importance of creating an atmosphere of collaboration, reflection in learning communities, and its impact on the construction of one’s identity (e.g., Farnsworth, 2010; Julier, 2001; Trent, 2010). CBL forms one component of teaching programs of which the aim is preparation for teaching and learning in diverse social contexts; it is another dimension of language learning and a potential new set of sources specific to the field of curriculum and teacher education research

Methods

Results

Conclusion