Three foreign language student teachers’ experiences with content-based instruction: exploring the identity/innovation interface

ABSTRACT

Following Trent, J. [2014. “Innovation as Identity Construction in Language Teaching and Learning: Case Studies from Hong Kong.” Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 8 (1): 56–78], the present study used identity as the unit of analysis for examining three foreign language student teachers’ experiences with content-based instruction (CBI) during their teacher preparation program. With teacher socialization as its primary theoretical lens, it adds to the limited amount that is currently known about traditional foreign language teachers’ identity construction, compared to other second language contexts. Analysis of a variety of data sources (including interviews, digital journals, and post-observation conferences) revealed that participants actively processed what CBI meant to them, were able to implement CBI to varying degrees in their student teaching placements, and expressed a range of aspirations for CBI in their future teaching. These findings confirm Trent, J.'s [2014. “Innovation as Identity Construction in Language Teaching and Learning: Case Studies from Hong Kong.” Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 8 (1): 56–78] claim that student teachers require adequate implementation space for validating change-oriented identity positions if desired innovations are to take hold.

KEYWORDS:

• Content-based instruction
• teacher identity
• teacher socialization
• educational innovation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jason Martel is an Assistant Professor of TESOL/TFL at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, where he teaches courses in language pedagogy and assessment and directs the Institute’s Summer Intensive Language Program (SILP). His research focuses principally on foreign language teacher learning, with an emphasis on identity construction.

Notes

1 Traditional foreign language teachers refers to those who teach in K–16 non-immersion contexts in which the language of instruction is not the dominant societal language. Throughout this article, the terms foreign language and traditional foreign language are interchangeably and synonymously.

2 All identifiers in this report are pseudonyms.

3 Data citing codes include the following: FR (French), GN (German), SP (Spanish), INT (interview), POC (post-observation conference), and DJ (digital journal). Numbers include placement in a series. For example, SP DJ #4 refers to the fourth round of the Spanish candidate's digital journal entries.

4 UbD refers to Wiggins and McTighe’s (2005) Understanding by Design, a curriculum design framework taught in State's second language ILP.