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Novice Language Teachers

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The first year of teaching has been characterized as a type of “reality shock” for many language teachers. This may be because the ideals that novice teachers formed during teacher training/education are often replaced by the reality of school life where much of their energy has shifted to learning how to adapt and survive in a new school culture. Although the first year of teaching has been well documented in general education research, not many detailed studies outlining the experiences of language teachers in their first year of teaching have been documented in the language education literature. This is surprising because as some scholars have suggested, in order to establish an effective knowledge-base for second/foreign language teacher education, language teacher educators must have some understanding of schools and schooling and the social and cultural contexts in which learning how to teach takes place. The purpose of this collection is to discuss the challenges and influences novice language teachers face when teaching in their first years. The volume outlines several detailed case studies of the experiences second/foreign language teachers during their first year of teaching in such diverse contexts as the USA, Canada, Singapore, Cambodia, the UK, Italy, southern Europe, Hong Kong, and Japan.

Published: Jan 1, 2009

Section Chapter Authors
Preliminaries
Contributors Thomas Farrell
Chapter 1
Insights and perspectives for the first year of language teaching Thomas Farrell
Chapter 2
Teachers' use of metaphor in making sense of the first year of teaching Steve Mann
Chapter 3
Trained for teaching high school, poached for teacher training: A case study of a Cambodian English teacher's first year of teaching in Cambodia Stephen Moore
Chapter 4
Learning to teach in the first year: a Singapore case study Thomas Farrell
Chapter 5
Occupational socialization in the first year of teaching: perspectives from Thailand David Hayes
Chapter 6
The transition from teacher education to ESL/EFL teaching in the first year for non-native English speaking teachers in Canada Clea Schmidt
Chapter 7
The beliefs and practices of novice teachers in Hong Kong: change and resistance to change in an Asian teaching context Alan Urmston, Martha Pennington
Chapter 8
Teaching post-CELTA: the interplay of novice teacher, course and context Michaela Borg
Chapter 9
Ghosts on the cupboard: discursive hauntings during the first year of French Immersion teaching in Canada Lace Brogden, Becky Page
Chapter 10
From rats to language learners: The transition from the biochemistry laboratory to the language classroom in the first year of teaching Yen-Ling Ting, Michael Watts
Chapter 11
Formation of ESL teacher identity during the first year: an introspective study Alix Furness
Chapter 12
My first year of language teaching in Japan Yuki Iwamura
End Matter
Index Thomas Farrell

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Reviews

'The book is well organized, has a standardized format for each chapter ... and is reader-friendly. It should be of use to curriculum developers in English language teacher education programs to tailor those programs to fit the needs of their students. Teacher educators and their students can examine the problems and solutions described by the teachers in this book and engage in what Farrell calls “anticipatory reflection” (p. 53). This book may also be useful for experienced teachers to help guide new teachers through the socialization process in their schools... Further research in this area will augment what Farrell and his colleagues have established with this fascinating volume.'
TESOL Quarterly, Vol 46, issue 3, September 2012