Language students as potential change agents in language pedagogy - professional vision in emergence

In the modern world, our daily practices of interaction, collaboration, learning and work have been said to be changing due to new affordances provided by the development of technology. Critical perspectives have also been presented as research has pointed towards the slow pace and complexity of change as well as the persistence of tradition in pedagogic practices. Language teachers in the field are important change agents as they also portray as role models for preservice teachers. Our study focuses on the threshold of language students starting to envision and move closer to their professional career as language teachers. The context of the study arises from Master’s-level courses where the language students have planned, designed and put into practice online learning projects on English as a foreign language for children in compulsory basic education in Finland. The project has served as a boundary object for the participants to rethink their understandings of language, language learning and language pedagogy in the technology-rich world to align with sociocultural and ecological perspectives promoted in the new curriculum. The research approach draws on nexus analysis, which looks at social action in situ but at the same time bound to more distant time-spaces in the past, present and future. The research materials include video recordings, reflection papers, design drafts as well as observation notes. The analysis sheds light on how the language students’ identities and agency are negotiated during the work strengthening the participants' professional vision. The study provides implications for theoretical and methodological discussion but also for the (re)design of language teacher education.