English Language Teacher Education in Chile

Over the last two decades, Chile has been driven by an economic imperative to build the capability of citizens to be competent in the English language, resulting in a high demand for teachers of English. As a consequence, teacher education programs have modified their curricula to meet the challenges of educating teachers of English as a global language. This book explores EFL teacher education in order to further understand the nature of teacher learning in second language education environments, examining the varying motives, actions and mediating tools that shaped how a cohort of pre-service teachers learnt to teach EFL in Chile. Framed by a cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective, chapters use key qualitative research to determine how specific factors can help and hinder the effective preparation of teachers, illuminating contradictory dynamics between local and national policies, teacher education programs, and pre-service views and classroom realities. The book makes an important contribution to the growing debate surrounding the design of EFL teacher education policy, curriculum and learning strategies, emphasising the importance of engaging pre-service teachers in learning to teach EFL, and the interrelated factors that shape this learning. English Language Teacher Education in Chile will be of key interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of teacher education, curriculum studies, and English language teaching (ESL/EFL), as well as policy makers, TESOL organisations, and those interested in applying a CHAT perspective to language teaching and learning.

Malba Barahona is an educational researcher and language educator with vast experience teaching Spanish and English as foreign languages. She has been a second-language teacher educator in Chile and Australia. Malba currently researches new collaborative approaches to more effectively support the development and capabilities of EFL pre-service teachers at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. She is the beneficiary of a research grant from the Chilean government's Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONICYT).

1: English language education in Chile and the southern cone: An Introduction 2: English language teaching and teacher education in Chile 3: Issues in Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) Chapter 4: A CHAT perspective to learning to teach EFL Chapter 5: The curriculum as a mediating tool in the activity of learning to teach EFL 6: The conflicting identity of the practising EFL student/teacher in Chile 7: Learning to be a teacher of EFL in Chile in the boundaries 8: English is not enough to become competent teachers of English in Chile