Preparing for the Complexities of Teaching: Modeling Conceptual Thinking in Post-Observation Conferences

In order for teacher educators to prepare teachers for complexities of language teaching, their nature needs to be understood. Vygotskian sociocultural theory ofers a useful framework for construing such complexities. Vygotsky distinguished between everyday and scientiic concepts, and saw the intera...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jane K. Harvey, Camilla Vásquez
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina 2015-06-01
Series:Ilha do Desterro
Subjects:
Online Access:https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/39467
Description
Summary:In order for teacher educators to prepare teachers for complexities of language teaching, their nature needs to be understood. Vygotskian sociocultural theory ofers a useful framework for construing such complexities. Vygotsky distinguished between everyday and scientiic concepts, and saw the interaction of the two as conceptual thinking, the basis for higher order cognitive skills. Johnson (2009) frames learning to teach as the development of conceptual thinking and considers the nature of the dialogue in teacher education activities as crucial to this development. Drawing on longitudinal data from a semester-long case study of the dialogic interactions between a teacher and teacher educator, this study illustrates how the teacher educator modeled conceptual thinking in her language. We propose a taxonomy of conceptualizations about language teaching that may help teacher educators be more purposeful in designing activities for and interacting with novice teachers.
ISSN:0101-4846
2175-8026