This study reports on the outcomes of a professional development program designed for reflecting about those discrepancies resulting from instructional choices in communicative L2 Spanish classrooms. Results showed that language teachers cannot act as technicians and implement a set of behaviors in the L2 Spanish classroom.
Relevant literature on foreign/second language (L2) teacher cognition and empirical studies conducted in educational psychology have shown that teacher knowledge may be influenced by teachers’ personal experience; experience with formal and pedagogic knowledge; and experience with schooling and instruction (Connelly et al. 1997; Borg 1999; 2003, 2011; Breen et al.2001). Teacher cognition is also affected by the relationship between the assumptions, goals, and values that teachers have about the development of teaching, content, and their understanding of the cultural, social, and institutional context where teaching takes place (Richards 1998; Allen 2002; Breen 2002). As a result, language teachers make instructional choices that frequently modify the ‘official theory’ or do not necessarily reflect the official approach adopted by their institutions. This is particularly true for those instructional contexts that are not completely defined or are in the process of being reformed. How to reconcile one with the other? This study reports on the outcomes of a professional development program especially designed for considering and reflecting about those discrepancies resulting from instructional choices in communicative L2 Spanish classrooms. Through the lenses of instructors, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and L2 learners, results show that engaging external expertise, collaboration, and extended opportunities to discuss L2 classroom issues can have a substantial impact on student learning. However, the presence of external experts and possibilities for collaborating and discussing L2 teaching issues, did not guarantee success. Beyond the expertise and open spaces to participate, language instructors need to be engaged in content meaningful to them and manageable within the context of teaching practice. In this sense, this study shows that language teachers cannot act as technicians and implement a set of behaviors in the L2 Spanish classroom. The embeddedness of individual acts of both teaching and reflection about it are fundamental to transform their teaching practices.
