The preparation of music teachers in Brazil and England: reflections on teaching practice models

Abstract

This paper examines and compares teaching practice models of three music teacher training courses originating from Brazil and England, as well as addressing issues regarding the initial preparation of the music teacher in both countries. Activity theory was employed as a theoretical framework to explain the related factors involved in both models’ implementation. A number of challenges were indentified such as: (i) how to balance the theoretical and practical dimensions of the curriculum; (ii) the quest for mechanisms for the transferral of the pedagogical and musical instrument knowledge acquired by students to music teaching practice contexts; and (iii) the absence of a specialist music teacher as mentors in some educational contexts. Findings showed that there is diversity in teaching practice models due to different educational and technological contexts employed.