The Process of Becoming

Abstract

Second language teacher education (SLTE) involves the process of becoming a professional. This professionalization is presented from a sociocognitive perspective, whereby SLTE is considered part of the innate, human condition of life-long learning and teaching. This adaptive, social process involves learning and socialization during the development of skills, knowledge, identities, norms and values associated with professional communities of practice. The sociocognitive tools of progressive alignment and affiliation are used to identify instances of evaluation that make visible professionalization from student-produced materials and interviews with 13 SLTE students. Results show that participant professionalization differed based on their perceptions and evaluations, often filtered through their real and imagined teaching contexts and past experiences. The context of schools, which is the physical, synchronic context of teaching, appeared more influential than the diachronic contexts of schooling. However, far from uncritical, top-down indoctrination, SLTE students projected their own unique perspectives into the learning environment, in a mutuality of socialization. Professionalization results from an ongoing process, influenced by personal, local, cultural, national, and social demands, along with changing demands for language acquisition.