We present the characteristics and outcomes of a teacher training course designed for Italian volunteer teachers according to a sociocultural and reflective perspective. 10 teachers were enrolled in the study and, via a questionnaire and classroom observation, positive effects of the training course both on beliefs and practices were detected.
As previous studies (e.g. Naeb & Young-Scholten 2017) about L2 teaching by volunteer teachers (VTs) have shown, access to teacher training courses is one of the main needs of VTs, who often operate in complex contexts, e.g. with illiterate migrants. VTs are non-trained individuals whose beliefs about language teaching are exclusively rooted in their school years. In Italy, this means exposition to formal, teacher-centered and form-oriented lessons (Balboni 2008). The lack of focussed training, experience and time to critically reflect on past experiences and practices brings about five critical points in Italian VTs’ teaching (Author 2019; Minuz & Pugliese 2012): 1) the primacy of grammar over communication; 2) the use of a syllabus made up of discrete, mainly grammatical entities; 3) the lack of awareness that a language can be learned even incidentally; 4) the conviction that, in cases of (semi)illiteracy, learning cannot take place without alphabetization; 5) a strongly directive role of the teacher. We present the characteristics and outcomes of a training course designed according to a sociocultural and reflective perspective (Johnson & Golombek 2018; Ur 2019) and dedicated to L2 Italian VTs. Its aims are: 1) help VTs reflect upon their beliefs and past learning/teaching experience; 2) propose and actively work on new teaching activities; 3) report to and analyze with the trainer and other teachers feelings, proposals and new pedagogical practices originated thanks to the course. The outcomes of the training course were tested on 10 participants, whose psychological disposition towards the new proposals were assessed with an abridged version of Guskey's (2000) Teacher Training Evaluation Questionnaire. Classroom observation conducted via a simplified version of the COLT scheme (Allen, Fröhlich & Spada 1984) allowed to detect and analyze teaching practice change. Results show improvements in at least 3 out of the 5 critical points summarized above.
