Reflective Journals in Preservice Language Teacher Education: A Discursive Psychology Approach to Analysis

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  In Poster Session: The Lives of Teachers: Poster Session

Abstract

This paper reports on a discursive analysis of the ways in which preservice world languages teachers display knowledge about course content within a semester-long journaling assignment. While reflection in teacher education is typically understood as a cognitive task in which students’ words represent their thinking, findings show that students orient to the task within the institutional setting of a university course, displaying learning and knowledge in particular ways and through identifiable patterns of talk. Further, claims to learning were frequently modified or qualified in ways that attempted to normalize the act of learning. These findings suggest that a Discursive Psychology (DP) approach offers nuanced analysis of the ways in which students’ displays of learning are constructed within a university setting.

Authors

• Amber N. Warren, University of Nevada - Reno

• Beth L. Samuelson, Indiana University - Bloomington