Improving student teachers’ knowledge-base in language education through critical reading

Abstract

The emergence of the digital era is redefining education and the pedagogical processes in an unpredictable manner. In the midst of the increased availability of print and online resources, the twenty-first century language teacher educator expects her (or his) student teachers to be reading beings if they are to improve their knowledge-base in language education. Therefore, the study set out to investigate factors that hinder student teachers’ ability to widen their language education knowledge-base through critical reading, and how digital technology could alleviate the situation. Cultural–historical activity theory was employed in order to understand the student teachers’ socio-cultural practices. Using a research based design approach, design principles emerged which resulted in improved student engagement with content, peers and technology. Consequently, a framework to enable student teachers to improve their knowledge-base in language education was designed.

Keywords:

• Language teacher education
• language education knowledge-base
• Luganda language education
• critical reading
• digital technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the Mellon/Carnegie Scholarship Fund that sponsored the author to pursue a Postgraduate Diploma in Educational Technology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa where the idea of developing a framework for improving student teachers’ knowledge-base in language education was conceived.