Abstract:

Since 2009, the training for pre-service secondary school teachers of English consists of a 60 ECTS Master’s course that prepares them to teach within their specialisation. This Master’s course differs from other academic programmes in its emphasis on developing students’ professional competences as teachers rather than on preparing them to conduct research as in most PhD and Master’s programmes. The materials we hereby present were designed for the programme jointly delivered by Universitat Pompeu Fabra and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, a Master’s programme conceived within the framework of realistic teacher education (Esteve 2013, Korthagen 2011, 2001) that provides student teachers with opportunities to reflect on and internalise what they learn in the academic and the school contexts, connecting the two contexts in a meaningful and transformative way through a constructivist approach to discourse. Accordingly, we designed an e-portfolio in which students articulate through a range of video, visual and written genres the ongoing construction of their identity as EAL teachers: Their beliefs about teaching and learning, their acquisition of the teaching competences, their knowledge of the language and culture of the specialisation and the methodological principles associated with it, and their often new experiences participating in professional communities of practice. Through the analysis of sample argumentative and expressive texts written by students from past editions of the Master’s, we will outline the key components of student teachers’ transforming identities, and the conflicts they experience as they move from the student to the teacher community. We will also highlight the essential role discourse plays in student teachers’ epistemological, metacognitive and professional development, often in a language that is not their own.

Keywords:

Portfolio, teacher training, identity, genres, EAL.