چکیده:
Different from one-way provision of knowledge in transmission-based
approaches, recent approaches to teacher education consider learning as a
consequence of teachers‟ active engagement in social practices. Prior studies have
provided important insights into how sociocultural theory (SCT) works in L2
teacher education. However, issues remain about the content and effectiveness of
teacher education programs informed by the tenets of SCT on novice teachers‟
learning. Addressing this gap, the present study set out to investigate the
microgentic development of four novice EFL teachers during dialogic mediations
with a teacher educator in some one-to-one development sessions based on
samples of their actual teaching practices. Mediations were dialogic, graduated,
and tailored to the needs of the teachers (i.e., from implicit to explicit) within each
individual‟s zone of proximal teacher development (ZPTD). A total of four hours
of video-recorded teacher-teacher educator post-observation talk was analyzed.
Results proposed a highly dialogic interaction with an approximately equal
participatory role. Findings demonstrated that novice teachers‟ agency and
externalization of their thoughts in a supportive and interactive environment can
result in their development. Finally, teacher educators were asked to include
strategic mediation in teacher education programs and provide teachers with
graduated assistance within their ZPTD.
Key words:
خلاصه ماشینی:
Addressing this gap, the present study set out to investigate the microgentic development of four novice EFL teachers during dialogic mediations with a teacher educator in some one-to-one development sessions based on samples of their actual teaching practices.
Key words: Strategic mediation; principled grammar teaching; novice EFL teacher; microgenetic analysis; zone of proximal teacher development * Associate Professor, English Department, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran -Received on:29/05/2017 Accepted on: 10/09/2017 Email: shkaivan@ut.
Therefore, learning opportunities are created for teachers to help the movement toward internally controlled activities through strategic mediation (SM) which is a need-based cognitive assistance, moving from the most implicit to the most explicit (Wertsch, 1985) provided in an interactive, gradual and supportive manner.
Pedagogical knowledge is the knowledge of effective instruction (König, Blömeke, Klein, Suhl, Busse & Kaiser, 2014); what novice language teachers need.
One of the key concepts of SCT is the zone of proximal development which has been applied in teacher education by Warford (2011) as the zone of proximal teacher development (ZPTD) which is "the distance between what teaching candidates can do on their own without assistance and a proximal level they might attain through strategically mediated support from more capable others (i.
The implication is that, through „properly organized instruction‟, providing teachers space for participating in activities associated with their actual teaching and, as Johnson and Golombek (2016) mentioned, by explicit presentation of psychological tools, teacher educator can set the ground for a strategically designed type of mediation aligned with teachers‟ needs and wants.