Approaches to Second/Foreign Language Teacher Education

Abstract

In education and lifelong learning, there are a number of schools of thought providing grounds to how learning occurs. In this paper, the author examines the ways in which different views of learning have influenced and informed approaches to second/foreign language teacher education. Three useful references which inform the author’s discussion and to which the author refers extensively are Roberts (1998), Wallace (1991) as well as Williams and Burden (1997). All in all, knowledge-centred and person-centred approaches serve as the fundamentals to the understanding of such stances. The former focuses on modelling and the external factors as a drive that explains how language teachers construct their knowledge about language teaching and learning. Being humanistic and socially individual in nature, the latter is internally formed and reflected, subject to each teacher development perspective and reflection on personal models and experience. Towards the end, the author’s choice of approach of learning for language teaching is also put forward.