Second Language Teacher Education

Johnson Karen E.. New York, NY: Routledge, 2009. Pp. ix + 148. Second language teacher education (SLTE) witnessed a call for a paradigm shift from positivism to constructivism. Having pervaded much of the SLTE research for the past half-century, the positivistic view postulated that what effective teachers needed was “discrete amounts of knowledge, usually in the form of general theories and methods that were assumed to be applicable to any teaching context” (Freeman & Johnson, 1998, p. 399). The constructivist paradigm finds the positivistic stance “insufficient for explaining the complexities of teachers’ mental lives and the teaching processes that occur in classrooms” (Johnson, 2006, p. 236). As an alternative, it accentuates the situated (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and social nature of teacher learning and promotes scrutiny of the mental processes involved. It asserts that teacher learning should be viewed “as constructing new knowledge and theory through participating in specific social contexts and engaging in particular types of activities and processes” (Richards, 2008, p. 164). Since the 1990s, which were marked by a growth in the number of studies articulating the need for a coherent and commonly recognized theoretical framework for SLTE, Karen Johnson has been instrumental in the above-mentioned shift. Aligned with the reconceptualization she advocated in her previous work, her latest book, Second Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective, fills a critical gap by presenting the application of sociocultural learning theory to the process of learning to teach. This application repudiates “the cognitive learning theories of the positivistic paradigm that defined learning as an internal psychological process isolated in the mind of the learner and largely free from the social and physical contexts within which it occurs” (Johnson, 2006, p. 238). Instead, it conceives “human learning as a dynamic social activity situated in physical and social contexts, and distributed across persons, tools, and activities” (p. 1). In chapter 1, Johnson provides a comprehensive definition of sociocultural learning theory by referring to seminal work by Vygotsky, Leont'ev, Luria, Wertsch, Kozulin, and Lantolf. Next, she explicates her contention that sociocultural stance brings about five changing points of view in the way SLTE has been conceptualized thus far: teachers as learners of teaching, language as social practice, teaching as dialogic mediation, macro structures and second language (L2) teaching, and inquiry-based approaches to professional development. Chapter 2 describes the shift from positivist to interpretive epistemological perspective in SLTE. Johnson elucidates the reason why the field of SLTE has commenced criticizing positivist epistemological tenets and attempting to replace it with an interpretive stance. In relation to this shift, she touches upon teacher cognition as an emerging body of research and underscores the need for reconceptualizing the knowledge base of SLTE. Then, considering these dynamics in the field, she explicates how SLTE is informed by the sociocultural perspective. In chapter 3, Johnson delineates the first changing point of view: teachers as learners of teaching. Relying on Vygotskian terminology, she focuses on such sociocultural concepts as internalization, mediation, transformation, and zone of proximal development, which are employed by socioculturally oriented second language teacher educators to explain teacher learning. She clarifies these concepts using excerpts from teacher narratives. Through these accounts, she demonstrates how such instruments as cultural artifacts and activities, scientific concepts, and social relationships mediate teacher learning by helping teachers obtain internal control over their cognitions and emotions through external social activity. Chapter 4 presents a discussion of language as social practice. Resting upon the sociocultural approach, Johnson answers the question: What constitutes the knowledge of language that L2 teachers are supposed to attain? Describing the relationship between the knowledge base of SLTE and the disciplinary knowledge in SLA and linguistics, Johnson explains the reason why the traditional definition of language in SLTE does not suffice to meet the needs of L2 teachers. Then she offers Wright's (2002) three domains (user, analyst, and teaching) to develop L2 teachers’ awareness of language as social practice. In chapter 5, Johnson explores the view of teaching as dialogic mediation in L2 instruction. This view highlights the character and quality of interaction in terms of its communicative functions, the consequences for the social construction of meaning, and cognitive development, all of which, Johnson suggests, should be reflected in SLTE activities. Besides, resting upon Vygotskian notions, she argues that SLTE should provide teachers with relevant scientific concepts and help them make everyday concepts explicit in order to employ them as a way of internalizing these scientific concepts. She examines this argument in several segments from actual classroom settings. Chapter 6 shows how the sociocultural perspective encourages the consideration of social, cultural, and historical macro structures surrounding L2 teachers’ professional world. In particular, Johnson discusses the application of activity theory in order to explore the relationship between L2 teaching and such macro factors as educational reform policies, curricular mandates, high-stakes tests, and norms of schooling. After providing an overview of the theory, she illustrates its application to specific cases in South Korea and Finland. Chapter 7 concentrates on the reflection of the sociocultural view in the professional development of L2 teachers. Johnson argues that inquiry-based approaches to professional development are compatible with a sociocultural perspective. To elucidate this argument, she reviews several models of inquiry-based professional development by asking the question: Do these approaches create a mediational space where dialogic mediation, scaffolded learning, and assisted performance support teachers’ conceptual development and lead to more productive instructional practices? The book closes with a chapter presenting major future challenges in SLTE concerning L2 teaching settings, the complicated relationship between teacher learning and student learning, and appropriate intellectual tools of inquiry for teachers. Identifying teacher educators and graduate students researching SLTE as the book's target audience, Johnson presents a novel direction that is both theoretical and practical at the nexus of SLTE and L2 teaching. The book makes an enormous contribution to SLTE literature as an outcome of the search for a coherent and commonly recognized framework informed by sociocultural theory. This is the first book presenting a sociocultural understanding of L2 teacher learning that attempts to draw out its meaning as thoroughly as possible. The application of activity theory makes a great contribution to this attempt. Additionally, because of its contextualized examples, the book does not suffocate the reader with lengthy core theoretical explanations. Along with the explication of socioculturally informed SLTE, Johnson presents its practical implications by scrutinizing relevant examples. However, because the book presupposes some a priori knowledge of sociocultural theory, the reader might need to do some preliminary reading in order to better understand the theoretical explanations that Johnson presents in summary fashion

Art · Linguistics · Pedagogy · Perspective (graphical) · Sociocultural evolution · Sociocultural perspective · Sociology · Anthropology · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Innovative Education and Learning Practices · Philosophy · Psychology · Second Language Learning and Teaching

• Reconceptualizing the Knowledge-Base of Language Teacher Education

  Donald Freeman, Karen E Johnson•TESOL Quarterly•1998

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• The Sociocultural Turn and Its Challenges for Second Language Teacher Education

  Karen E Johnson•TESOL Quarterly•2006

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• Situated Learning

  Open Access•Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger•Situated Learning•1991

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