Preparing to teach languages in public schools: A case study of influences on pre-service teachers’ thinking

Doris Heisig Christopher, College of Education, Institute for Teacher Education

Developing a philosophy of how you will teach your subject is a common assignment in pre-service teacher education courses.  Participants in this case study are future teachers of German, Japanese, French, Hawaiian, and ESL.  The intent of the study is to determine what factors or influences are more prominent in the thinking of pre-service language teachers.  In individual interviews, participants were first asked to orally describe their own classroom language learning experience in detail.  Next, participants examined their written philosophies of language teaching as they orally responded to 7 questions.  These questions named different influences on language teaching, including such factors as teaching the way one is taught, or personal experience with native speakers and/or target culture.  Participants discovered, giving examples from their own writing, whether a particular factor was prominent or not in their conception of what it means to teach languages in schools.  Individual interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.  How we teach greatly impacts how students learn, and our thinking is what guides instruction.  As pre-service teachers discover the factors that most influence their thinking, they can examine the ways that these factors help or hinder the language learning of students.