Introduction

This issue of RELC Journal is devoted to second language teacher education (SLTE) and contains a range of articles that illustrate some of the issues that are the focus of current approaches to both research and practice in SLTE. This is a timely topic for a special issue of RELC Journal, since in recent years a re-examination of the nature of teacher development has been central to a rethinking of both the content and delivery of SLTE programmes. A focus on SLTE as a field of inquiry has sought to examine the cognitive and affective processes involved in teacher-learning as well as the ‘situated’ and the social nature of learning. From a cognitive perspective a focus has been on how teachers conceptualize their work and the kinds of thinking and decision-making which underlies their practice. Rather than viewing the development of teaching skill as dependent upon the mastery of general principles and theories that have been determined by others, the acquisition of teaching expertise is seen to be a process which involves the teacher in actively constructing a personal and workable theory of teaching. From a socio-cultural perspective, teacher learning is seen to take place in a context and evolves through the interaction and participation of the participants in that context. Teacher development is not viewed as translating knowledge and theories into practice, but as constructing a new identity as well as new knowledge and theory through participating in specific social contexts and engaging in particular types of teaching activities and processes. Both cognitive and sociocultural perspectives are represented in this issue.

In practical terms, an expanded view of teacher development and teacher learning has led to a reconsideration of traditional modes of teaching in SLTE programmes, as well as a focus on how practising teachers can continue their learning through the processes of teaching. Teacher development, from this perspective, is less concerned with finding more effective ways of delivering course content and more concerned with engaging teachers in the processes of understanding their role in the contexts in which they work, in developing a deeper understanding of themselves and their learners and in theorizing from their practice.

The perspectives on SLTE described above are well reflected in this special issue of the RELC Journal, which brings together a wide variety of articles that illustrate current understanding of teacher learning in language teaching. In the first article, Martha Pennington and I explore the role identity plays in teacher development, the factors that influence the development of teacher identity and how identity shapes teacher thinking as well as classroom practice. In the article that follows, Gary Barkhuizen further develops our understanding of the nature and importance of identity in SLTE, focusing on the relationship between language, identity and power. He also demonstrates the role of narrative inquiry in investigating the nature and role of teacher identity.

In the next article Margaret Gleeson examines the role of teacher beliefs and the extent to which beliefs facilitate or hinder the acceptance of change in a setting where content and ELS teachers work together to facilitate content learning. Her study illustrates the difficulty of achieving changes in teacher beliefs when they are the result not of pedagogical content knowledge but are derived primarily from classroom experience. Changes in practices are also discussed in the two articles that follow, particularly the extent to which teachers’ practices change as the result of teacher education courses. John Macalister describes the impact of studying outside of one’s home country on teachers’ beliefs and practices, particularly time spent abroad as part of a pre-service teacher education course. He concludes that context plays a primary role in shaping teachers’ beliefs and practices. His article also demonstrates the difficulty of researching issues of this kind. In the following article by Rita Silver and Jesse Png, a collaborative project between university teachers and primary school teachers is the focus, and highlights the fact that if an innovation is to succeed at the school level (in this case the adoption of new strategies for teaching reading) professional support is needed by both university mentors, colleagues at the school level, as well as time for the innovation to be adopted.

The following article explores an issue that to date has been little discussed in the SLTE literature – the notion of authentic leadership. Vincent Greenier and George Whitehead elucidate the nature and characteristics of authentic leadership and argue that preparation of teachers for this role in the classroom is seldom addressed, although it is likely to considerably enhance a teacher’s effectiveness. In the final article, Mahmood Reza Atai explores the use of critical incident analysis in an in-service course for teachers. He demonstrates how it can be used as a way of engaging teachers in reflective review of their own beliefs and practices, making use of blogs as a way of sharing reactions to critical incidents and their meaning for the participating teachers.

This issue also includes a new feature that we hope will appear regularly in RELC Journal, one that allows the reader to engage with a prominent TESOL specialist through the form of a conversation. In this case Flora Debora interviews master storyteller and pedagogue Andrew Wright, during which Andrew discusses the power of story telling in the classroom and shares his experiences in using storytelling in teaching.

Readers will also find reviews of three recent books in the field of SLTE in this issue.

The articles in this issue thus provide a valuable account of current approaches to research and practice in SLTE. They illustrate both the complex nature of the issues involved as well as the need for research methods that can be used to explore the cognitive, affective, personal, contextual and social nature of the factors that are involved in teaching and in teacher learning.