This presentation explores student language teachers' conceptualizations of language and language teaching as they surface in the introductory course "An appetite for language" in a specialized language teacher profile as part of the teacher education programme in a university college in Denmark. The primary empirical basis is reflective memos from a total of 99 student teachers. The presentation lays forward a preliminary analysis of the conceptualizations of language and language teaching among the student teachers in the reflective memos and discusses the consequences for further research as well as for language pedagogical practice in school and in teacher education.
This presentation explores student language teachers' conceptualizations of language and language teaching as they surface in the introductory course "An appetite for languge" in a specialized language teacher profile as part of the teacher education programme in a university college in Denmark.
In recent years, Denmark has experienced a so-called 'language crisis'. There is a significant decrease in the number of students choosing to study languages, and language and language-oriented study programmes struggle across the educational system from primary to tertiary education. Fewer primary schools outside of the capital area offer French alongside German; fewer students opt for language-intense study profiles in secondary education; and study programmes in several languages have been shut down in tertiary education. In an effort to remedy this situation, a national strategy for strengthening of foreign language teaching across the educational system was adopted in 2017, and the language teacher profile in focus in this presentation was introduced in 2018 as a local response to the national challenge.
The language teacher profile targets student teachers of English, German, French and Danish in primary and lower secondary schooling in Denmark, and the curriculum in the language teacher profile was designed with inspiration from research in teacher cognition and beliefs (Borg 2006, Fernandez 2019, Kalaja & Barcelos 2003). In "An appetite for language", there is a strong focus on development of language teacher identity which is stimulated through a wide range of creative and reflective activities. The student teachers keep an individual written reflection log throughout the course and produce a final reflective memo at the end of the course. The primary empirical basis for this presentation is reflective memos from a total of 99 student teachers in the language teacher profile, taken from the introductory course "An appetite for language" in 2018, 2019 and 2020.
The presentation lays forward a preliminary analysis of the conceptualizations of language and language teaching among the student teachers in the reflective memos and discusses the consequences for further research as well as for language pedagogical practice in school and in teacher education.
