Learning to be teachers of adult numeracy

Abstract

This paper investigates how teacher education programmes provide adequate preparation for its prospective teachers. It uses adult numeracy teacher education in the post‐compulsory education sector in England as exemplar. Using findings from two research projects on adult numeracy teacher education courses, the article investigates the applications of Bernstein's theories to teacher education, the approaches in which the diversity of prospective teachers is catered for on the course, the ways in which the recontextualization process may be incorporated into the course, the strategies to enable prospective teachers to learn to be teachers and the perception of prospective teachers regarding the weaknesses of their courses. Finally, this article mentions additional areas for research in order to gain further insight into the complex process of learning to be a teacher.

Acknowledgements

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

The research team for Project 1 consisted of Norman Lucas, Helen Casey, Sai Loo, Jeremy McDonald, Olivia Sagan and Maria Koutsoubou. The report ‘Towards a professional workforce: adult literacy, ESOL and numeracy teacher education 2003–2005’, due to be published in 2007, was funded by the National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy (NRDC).

I am grateful to the anonymous referees and the editor for their helpful suggestions and patience.