Trinity College London Cert TESOL impact study (TCTIS): final report

accepted and full article invited for special issue (Ed. T.S.C. Farrell) of TESOL Q Furnished imagination: the impact of pre-service teacher training on early career work in TESOL Richard Kiely & Jim Askham This paper presents the findings of an impact study of a short teacher training course in TESOL. Impact is conceptualised as teacher learning, particularly perceived achievements in learning, and professional identity formation, evidenced in the ways teachers talk about their approaches to work in classrooms and courses. The theoretical framework for the research draws on sociocultural theories of learning, particularly the situated learning theory of Lave and Wenger (1991) and identity formation within communities of practice (Wenger 1998). In making these links and linking them to a specific programme for teachers in TESOL, a programme which has traditionally drawn on trainee evaluations reported during and at the end of courses, this paper furthers our understanding of how teachers learn in a pre-service course in ways which translate to competence, confidence and readiness for ongoing learning in work contexts. The programme is a short intensive course in TESOL, normally taught over four weeks. The curriculum has five separate assessed components: a practicum which includes classroom and video observation, a course in pedagogical language analysis, mainly grammar and phonology, a study of an individual learner which includes assessment activities, teaching a one-to-one lesson and planning for ten hours of further lessons, a new foreign language learning experience, and a materials development project. We tracked 27 successful graduates of this programme during the early stages of work in six countries in Europe and Asia. We interviewed each teacher in the first 3 months of work and again during months 4-6. The focus of the semi-structured interviews was the learning experience of the teacher training course, and the experience of working as a new teacher in TESOL. The analysis of the interview data reflects a positive and intense learning experience on the course, which establishes both confidence and a clear idea of what the TESOL task involves. The new teachers had a capacity to relate specific learning experience in the course components to often different contexts of work. The assessment of learning achievement is strongest where they consider the component as well organised and taught. We relate these findings in the data to two specific aspects of socio-cultural theories of situated learning. First, they recognise the value of the tutors on the course – the trainers who support the practicum, provide input on language systems and teach the new foreign language module are also teachers observed in language classrooms. As ‘significant others’ they guide, provide feedback and demonstrate the practices which are at the heart of the curriculum. This in turn establishes a rich, integrated learning experience. Second, the impact of this experience is a furnished imagination: the teachers know what is possible and what is required in TESOL. The skills to realise these practices in TESOL may not be in place, or be tentative and insecure, but they have the imagination to guide their work as teachers and ongoing learning. These two focal points illustrate how the teacher learning evidenced in this study corresponds to a process of professional identity formation, with the new teachers relating strategically to the personal intellectual and social dimensions of TESOL.