Mejorar el conocimiento de los profesores sobre lenguaje y pedagogía a través de entradas en espiral

Abstract

Introduction. Language teacher education has been both a concern and priority for the Ecuadorian Government for the past decade. One of the initiatives implemented was the Go Teacher programmed, an intervention aimed at helping teachers improve their language – command of – and teaching skills. However, there is a gap between what was expected from selected candidates before and after their immersion programmed. Results were varied, and there is still a complication when it comes to determining if such initiatives have been effective. Objective. To design a set of teacher training sessions based on Kolb’s Experiential Learning (1984) and Woodward’s loop-input (2003), considering a component of pedagogical content. Methodology. A literature review was performed, considering works on experiential learning, loop-input, and teachers’ perceptions on their own level of language proficiency. Results. A set of workshops based on loop-input for teacher development is proposed; experiential learning is a key component of each workshop. Conclusions. Interventions designed for teachers to improve both their knowledge of and about a language, as well as their pedagogical knowledge, should include experience-based activities given the fact that this would allow them to gain more insights about their area of practice and, at the same time, their level of competence in the language.