1.
Introduction
EFL teachers must know
how to face several challenges such as improving their language proficiency, teaching
in diverse contexts, implementing classroom-based research, having access to
professional development and networking (González, 2000). Such challenges ask them
to be able to integrate knowledge about language, pedagogical practices,
learning theories, and educational contexts. Besides,
as a consequence of accreditation, globalization, and standardization, most
Colombian EFL TEPs have undergone major curricular and pedagogical changes in
the last years. These changes have mostly been the result
of imported discourses and models, which not only have caused curricular and
pedagogical changes in teacher education programs, but also have affected the
language, the actions, the attitudes, and the conceptions of teachers
themselves (Muñoz, Quintero & Munevar, 2002). As a consequence, ...
In the 21st
century, Colombian pre-service EFL TEPs should study what constitutes the core
knowledge base of the language teaching profession so that language teachers
can be effective and critical practitioners. As Shulman (1986) states, EFL TEPs
should avoid considering teacher education from the perspective of content or
pedagogy as mutually exclusive domains. Instead, efforts should be made to
conceptualize what Colombian language teachers need to know about teaching and
learning, and how their knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes inform their
practices. Within the framework of knowledge base,
this article discusses some of the issues that Colombian EFL TEPs need to
incorporate in order to prepare pre-service teachers to acknowledge and examine
the underlying premises that form and guide their professional performance.
Some of these issues are: knowledge base, content knowledge, pedagogical
knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and pedagogical reasoning and action.
See section below.
2.1 Knowledge base
For a long time,
explains Pineda (2002), the conceptualization of knowledge base was restricted
to the attainment of the basic skills required for teaching, the competency of
educators in their subject matter area, and the use of pedagogical strategies.
However, there are other variables that are critical in the teaching profession:
the classroom context, the physical and psychological characteristics of the
learners, the personal and practical experiences of teachers, their reflective
practices and research skills. Such a wider consideration of what constitutes
the teaching profession can...
A starting point for
conceptualizing how knowledge base evolves in the minds of language teachers
consists of understanding the “variety” of proposals that have been generated
through the years in the field. An overview of the literature, maintain Kaur,
Yuen and Kaur (2011), reveals that an effective teacher needs to master, at
least, two types of basic knowledge: content
knowledge and pedagogical knowledge...
More concretely, Shulman
(1987) states that teachers’ knowledge base must not simply be regarded as a
set of professional and experiential skills to be built up. Instead, he argues
for a framework that includes and combines content, pedagogy, curriculum and
context. To him, teachers’ knowledge base consists of different categories of
knowledge which are needed for effective teaching. In his framework, Shulman
differentiates three types of content knowledge...
When talking about
teacher’s knowledge, Fenstermacher (1994) makes a distinction between formal knowledge and practical knowledge. For him, formal
knowledge is based on literature deriving from research about effective
teaching. On the other hand, practical knowledge is generated by teachers as a
result of their every day experimentation and reflection within the classroom
context and as such it is personal, situational and tacit. When discussing
Shulman and Fenstermacher’s proposal, Polyzou and Postlethwaite (2000) suggest
that teachers’ subject knowledge and curriculum knowledge are...
The above theoretical
perspectives imply that it is important to identify and understand any general,
specific, formal, or practical type of knowledge teachers need to acquire and
develop. It is essential, then, to establish what the basic elements or
dimensions that EFL TEPs should provide EFL pre-service teachers for their work
life. Also, it is important to approach the situation of Colombian EFL TEPs in
regards to teacher knowledge in order to suggest a set of alternatives and
strategies that allow the formation of more effective and critical EFL professionals.
Accordingly, the main features of L2 teachers’ knowledge base are presented next.
2.2 Knowledge base of L2 teachers
In the
field of second language teacher, a wide variety of proposals about what
constitutes knowledge base has been proposed. Different scholars have strived
to offer a systematic and comprehensive view of how teachers construct and
develop knowledge from the interplay of content, pedagogy, context and
curriculum. Due to space constraints, the following literature review focuses
mainly on presenting a brief historical overview of the past two decades of theory
about knowledge base in L2...
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