Developing the language awareness of novice teachers of L2 English: the issue of knowledge transfer

Abstract

A major challenge for teacher-educators working in the area of Teacher language awareness (TLA) is to develop courses and pedagogical approaches that will go beyond merely enhancing L2 teachers’ subject-matter knowledge by enabling them to make the bridge between the declarative and procedural dimensions of TLA. In this paper, we discuss on-going efforts at the University of Hong Kong to design a course that seeks to help knowledge about language to become ‘enabling knowledge’ (Wright, 1991:63). The course in question is a new 36-hour module entitled ‘Pedagogical Content Knowledge’ (PCK), which is taken by undergraduates in the final semester of a four-year BA & BEd degree in English Language Education. The paper sets out to examine issues relating to the design of the programme, focusing specifically on the strategies adopted in an attempt to address the ‘knowledge transfer’ challenge. These strategies include: the timing of the course, which takes place immediately before and immediately after a nine-week block of teaching practice; the specific connections between theory and practice that students make throughout the course and the practicum as well as in their portfolio assessment; and the planning of the cycles of activities within and across teaching sessions. The paper will provide a critical evaluation of the extent to which the course has succeeded in addressing the knowledge transfer challenge. In doing so, it will draw on a range of data, including the students’ on-line contributions during the course, their end-of-course evaluations, their portfolio assessments, and also the reflections of the authors, who have developed and taught the course.