Resumen de Modeling the social construction of knowledge in ELT teacher education
The view that classroom knowledge is socially constructed rather than being merely transmitted from teacher to student has made a significant impact in English language teaching, as it has in other subject areas. Increasingly, English language teaching teacher education programs and Master's degrees are anchored in a strong constructivist stance. However, constructivism is not always well integrated within the training programs themselves, leaving teachers with a strongly embedded, unconscious, and unchallenged transmission model. Drawing on Vygotsky's concept of relational imitation, and Dewey's notion of learning through direct experience, this paper suggests ways of challenging the transmission paradigm and incorporating constructivism within ELT teacher education in teaching literacy, portfolio assessment, cooperative learning, and lecture classes.
