Abstract
Reflecting the development of nearly 40 years of Freeman’s thinking about a profession he ‘fell into’, this volume centres around the question of ‘how people who teach second languages use what they know to do what they do in the classroom’ (p. 9). Threading through the chapters is the argument that language teacher education or ‘teaching language teaching’ differs from educating teachers in other subject areas because language is both the content and the medium of instruction.
While the book would be most suitable for teacher educators and researchers working in second language teacher education (SLTE), those from other fields would also benefit from the discussions, particularly in Parts III and IV. Graduate students might also value the definitions of key terminology and the summaries of theoretical positions succinctly presented in the diagrams and tables.
The book is divided into four main parts with a total of 13 chapters and three very useful appendices. To help readers make sense of the massive amount of content, each part begins with an introduction and explanation of how the part is organized. In addition, each chapter starts with a paragraph explaining the main argument and ends by revisiting it. Chapters should be read sequentially as preceding arguments inform the development of ideas in later chapters, culminating in a ‘design’ theory in the final part.
It is difficult to do justice when reviewing such a substantial academic project. For this reason, I have chosen to go through the parts sequentially, summarizing key ideas and highlighting those that relate to my interests as a teacher educator.
In Chapter 1, Freeman posits that current SLTE programmes are based on prescriptive understandings of what we think teachers should know and be able to do and how we think they should go about learning this. As this is the opening chapter, Freeman is meticulous in laying his ‘terminological cards on the table’, clarifying distinctions among terms that are often used interchangeably, e.g. ‘teacher training’, ‘professional development’ and ‘continuous professional development’. Two unusual terms, ‘teach teaching to teachers’ and ‘ToTing’ (Teaching teachers) caught my eye because they capture the roles, levels of involvement, and different processes that are part of SLTE. Key concepts that are the basis for further chapters are defined and explained in great depth. These include the ‘inside-out, pronominal’ and the ‘outside-in, nominal views’, ‘isomorphism’, ‘social facts’, ‘thought collectives’, and ‘discourse communities’. I found Chapter 1 challenging as it was, of necessity, terminologically and conceptually heavy. Yet, Freeman’s personal narratives woven amidst robust theoretical positions aroused my interest in delving deeper into the theories and arguments.
Chapter 2 looks at how we define language as content, how social structures and processes alter the content, and how people learn to teach this content. In discussing teacher identity, Freeman describes hybrid socializations rooted in professional and language socialization. Professional socialization, or ‘the apprenticeship of observation’, is also referred to as ‘studenting’: the idea that many teachers learn to teach based on how they themselves were taught. Although the view that most students do not understand the reasoning behind the actions of their teachers is evident, I was reminded that we as teacher educators must be more transparent in telling our trainee teachers why we do what we do.
Chapter 3 looks at how people learn to be language teachers and the role of SLTE. Are teachers born or are they made over time? Freeman provides an insightful and honest commentary on the first position, which pits ‘nativeness’ – having ‘the right genes’ and being raised in ‘the right household’ – against having ‘particular knowledge, skills and dispositions’ (p. 53). At SEAMEO RELC, we work primarily with teachers of English who use English as their second/foreign language, so ‘nativeness’ is a concept that is much discussed and debated. In fact, recent articles published in the RELC Journal, notably Farrell (2015) and Richards (2010), as well as this issue’s lead article by Pennington and Richards (2016) lend support to the latter position.
Chapters 4 and 5 examine the disciplinary hybrids of SLTE, models of SLTE, and theories of learning. Freeman raises the dilemmas of situatedness, which can be addressed through practice teaching. By showing the parallels between practice teaching and situated learning theory, Freeman provides a theoretical peg onto which we can hang teaching practice, justifying the inclusion of activities such as microteaching and internships (or student teaching). The final chapter of Part II looks at sense making and the distinction between transfer and travelling of ideas. Socio-cultural theory, social practice theory, and cultural-history activity theory are applied to teacher education in support of a shift in focus ‘from people to what they are doing in the situation’ (p. 112).
Part III examines core ideas of thinking and knowing from internal and external perspectives. Ways of thinking are addressed in Chapters 7 and 8, while ways of knowing are the subjects of Chapters 9 and 10. Of particular interest was Chapter 7, which summarizes major ‘generations’ in language teaching, discusses ‘the post-method’ condition and teacher agency, and traces teacher thinking by role and generation. The external perspectives offered in Chapters 8 and 10 show how research in mainstream education has reshaped our ideas about language teaching knowledge, leading to possibilities of diverse pathways for teacher preparation.
The final Part unifies arguments presented in earlier chapters around the crucial question of how people learn to be second language teachers, generally, and how SLTE can contribute to this process. Freeman proposes a design theory based on descriptive understanding of what teachers think and do. The exploration of the ways ‘communities of activity’ (C/a) and ‘communities of explanation’ (C/e) define social facts, participate in, and gain membership to the group extends the idea from Part II, that in addition to a set of ‘knowledge, skills and dispositions’, teachers need a common set of social facts in the way they talk about, think about, and carry out teaching. Finally, the three Appendices show how design theory can be operationalized through teacher education activities, programmes, and assessment.
A unique feature of this book is Freeman’s first person narratives of his experience as someone who ‘fell into’ language teaching. This is presented alongside robust academic discussions on philosophical and theoretical positions. These narratives served as a kind of scaffolding, allowing the reader to move from the familiar to the highly conceptual. I felt that the book could have benefitted from more of these since personal narratives have come to be recognized as a legitimate tool for transformation in teacher education (Chan, 2012; Floyd, 2012).
According to Freeman, Educating Language Teachers brings together his ideas from the last 25 years. The depth and breadth of Freeman’s knowledge and thinking coupled with personal accounts of ‘growing up as a language teacher’ have resulted in a book that will deepen our thinking about how and why we think and how we apply our thinking in designing teacher education programmes. The book prompts us to re-examine commonly held conceptualizations, practices, and policies in SLTE, especially those which ‘wall in’ and ‘wall out’, hopefully leading to better and fairer practice based on a theory grounded in descriptive rather than prescriptive understandings of educating language teachers.