Initial Teacher Education

In Colombia, Decree 1278 of 2002, Estatuto de Profesionalización Docente (Teacher Professionalization Guidelines), establishes that curricula of initial teacher education (ITE) programs must sustain pedagogy, evaluation, and research as the pillars to articulate disciplinary and academic contents with teaching contexts, realities, and learners’ needs for education (Ministerio de Educación Nacional [MEN], 2014; ^{Restrepo-Gómez, 1994}; ^{Rincón-Zabala, 2016}). This articulation in turn allows the diversification of practicum and its guidelines into methodological, institutional, and instructional notions (^{Gelvez-Suarez, 2007}; ^{Ríos-Beltrán, 2018}). By considering these principles, Colombian education faculties prompt understanding ITE as the curricular implementation for student-teachers’ pedagogical, academic, and socio-affective developments. This implementation is later consolidated in the spaces of practicum (^{Resolution 2041 of 2016}; ^{Londoño-Orozco, 2009}; MEN, n.d., 2014; ^{Ríos-Beltrán, 2018}). Thus, practicum, as a subject of professional training, helps to a great extent to educate, construct, and constitute student-teachers as teachers in the ITE programs.

In the ELT field, specifically, ITE is part of the undergraduate programs in this matter. Since 1994, with the passing of National Law of Education 115, MEN mandated an emphasis on professional development to achieve the specifics of the National Law which encompass the establishment of foreign language teaching methods and approaches and the fostering of teachers’ exercise of autonomy with those teaching methods (^{González-Moncada, 2010}). Colombian education faculties then began adopting these aspects for their ELT-program curricula; aspects that the MEN has reinforced with the National Bilingual Program since 2004 (^{Colombia Aprende, n.d}.). Therefore, in these programs ITE seeks to foster student-teachers’ pedagogical and content knowledge, the learning of English to improve life quality, the development of consistent standards for ELT, and the enhancement of ongoing professional development (^{González-Moncada, 2010}; ^{Guerrero-Nieto & Quintero-Polo, 2009}; ^{Mora et al., 2019}; ^{Usma-Wilches, 2009}).

Pedagogical Practicum

In consonance with ^{Zuluaga (1979}, 1999), ^{de Tezanos (2007)}, ^{Fandiño-Parra and Bermúdez-Jiménez (2015)}, ^{Londoño-Orozco (2009)}, ^{Moreno-Fernández (2015a)}, ^{Ortega-Valencia et al. (2013)}, practicum refers to situated experiences of teaching that are verbalized through pedagogical discourse. Besides, practicum may also occur outside classrooms since it is also a complex historical event that prompts a pedagogical analysis of context-situated knowledges. The authors explain that practicum should go beyond transmission or explanation of contents and skill sets; practitioners should be more active to confront the long-term educational issues of contexts and communities for their transformation.

In the Colombian ELT field, practicum is a professional and academic space in which student-teachers, from their experiences and knowledges, are expected to give their first classes as language teachers (^{Esteve, 1998}; ^{Posada-Ortiz & Garzón-Duarte, 2013}). Student-teachers, on the one hand, put in practice and try out the compendium of knowledge learned throughout their major during practicum (^{Aguirre-Sánchez, 2014}; ^{Chaves-Varón, 2008}). On the other hand, in this space, student-teachers internalize and construct pedagogical knowledge through being the mediators of their students’ English learning process (^{Castañeda-Trujillo, 2019}; ^{Castellanos-Jaimes, 2013}; ^{Suárez-Flórez & Basto-Basto, 2017}; ^{Quintero-Polo, 2019}).

In brief, practicum is concerned with knowing, doing, and relating (^{de Tezanos, 2007}; ^{Lucero & Roncancio-Castellanos, 2019}; ^{Zuluaga, 1999}). While student-teachers give their lessons and construct themselves as language teachers, they put in practice and build their disciplinary, professional, pedagogical, content, and experiential knowledges.² Student-teachers do this by receiving the support, accompaniment, and advice of their practicum advisors, cooperating teachers, and peers. A functional relationship should be created between student-teachers and their practicum advisors, as well as with the practicum context, so that student-teachers’ knowledges, skills, and attitudes about ELT are potentiated (^{Samacá-Bohorquez, 2018}).

For most student-teachers in practicum, this is the time to have real experiences of teaching English. The role that different types of knowledge, but particularly experiential and pedagogical knowledge, have in student-teachers during practicum scaffolds their figures as mediators of English teaching, learning, and assessment (^{Aguirre-Sánchez, 2014}; ^{Castellanos-Jaimes, 2013}; ^{Suárez-Flórez & Basto-Basto, 2017}). Reflection for awareness of how student-teachers construct their pedagogical knowledge and their figures as language teachers collaboratively are also part of the experiences to live during the practicum (^{Castañeda-Trujillo, 2019}; ^{Samacá-Bohorquez, 2008}, 2012; ^{Quintero-Polo, 2019}; ^{Ubaque-Casallas & Aguirre-Garzón, 2020}).

Student-Teachers

Commonly known as preservice teachers, student-teachers are those individuals majoring in education to be teachers. ELT student-teachers in Colombia are referred to as skilled practitioners with knowledge, wisdom, beliefs, emotions, attitudes, interests, and roles towards teaching (^{Aguirre-Sanchez, 2014}; ^{Castañeda-Trujillo & Aguirre-Hernández, 2018}; ^{Castellanos-Jaimes, 2013}; ^{Lucero & Roncancio-Castellanos, 2019}; ^{Olaya & Gómez-Rodríguez, 2013}; ^{Suárez-Flórez & Basto-Basto, 2017}).

Student-teachers are object and subject of the relationship among knowledge, teaching, and policing. They are expected to show accepted or pre-established practices of teaching and to accumulate knowledge of language education in those practices under the light of curricula. They may assume themselves as figures of knowledge and power from those practices and from the roles and tasks that appear in language education discourses. This recently-advocated issue states that ELT student-teachers in Colombia become subjects throughout the historical modes of what it is to be an English teacher, socially, academically, and politically (^{Davila, 2018}; ^{Gómez-Vásquez & Guerrero-Nieto, 2018}; ^{Méndez-Rivera, 2018}; Méndez et al., 2019). From this perspective, student-teachers may be subjectified and objectified in the ELT field by dividing practices, expecting/expected behaviors and attitudes, and desired discourses and modes. In brief, these discourses and modes of subjectification and objectification are connected to the conceptualizations of who an English teacher should be and do in varied contexts and according to curricula. In this way, English (student) teachers are turned into subjects; this transformation defines how they relate to themselves and to teaching knowledge, practices, and discourses.

When English student-teachers constitute themselves, or are constituted by ELT knowledge, practices, and discourses, practicum is constituted too. Therefore, a reciprocity appears, student-teachers constitute practicum as this space constitutes them. ^{Naranjo (2010)} exposes the need to go beyond established knowledge, practices, and discourses to allow (student) teachers to discover themselves. ITE programs and their spaces of practicum should generate processes that lead student-teachers to be aware of themselves and their own teacher knowledge, practices, and voices (^{Castañeda-Trujillo & Aguirre-Hernández, 2018}; ^{Lucero & Roncancio-Castellanos, 2019}; ^{Ubaque-Casallas & Aguirre-Garzón, 2020}).

Discourse(s)

As a first statement, following ^{van Dijk (1997)}, we understand discourses as specific forms of social interaction, forms that stand for a complete communicative event in a social situation. Thus, discourses are social practices that occur in multiple social events (^{Saville-Troike, 2003}; ^{Rampton et al., 2015}). As a second statement, pursuant to ^{Gee (2005)}, discourses are multifaceted and complex social acts in which meaning is emitted, gathered, and appropriated. In these two statements, in consonance with ^{Díaz-Villa (2001)}, we see that a piece of discourse can be constituted by other discourses and, at the same time, be the source for constructing other discourses (we perceive that this happens during practicum).

Discourses are therefore the result of social dynamics, of interactions among its participants, and of relations between texts and contexts. By considering all this, we understand that discourses open spaces for the (re)production of coexisting and competing discursive conventions and frameworks that (re)construct and transform realities and subjects in each context (^{Méndez-Rivera, 2012}).

We acknowledge the fact that discourses are the result of socio-historic conditions of production, are potentially ideological (Fairclough, 2006, as cited in ^{Chacón-Chacón & Chapetón-Castro, 2018}, p. 4), exert power and maintain control (Bernstein, 1998, as cited in ^{Escobar-Alméciga, 2013}, p. 50), and are not neutral since their participants and texts play a role in their distribution and circulation (^{Guerrero-Nieto, 2010}).

In the Colombian ELT field, discourse has been studied from different angles (see a profiling done by ^{Castañeda-Peña, 2012}). Specifically, with respect to practicum, scholars as ^{Guerrero-Nieto (2010)} and ^{Camargo-Cely (2018)} have demonstrated that discourses from the Colombian language policies point towards what English (student) teachers must be and know about didactics and learning theories and the way this must be known. These discourses serve as foundations to construct teachers as subjects during practicum. Apart from these two studies, little has been explored about how other discourses happen or are produced in the contexts of practicum, or in ITE, of ELT undergraduate programs in Colombia. These other discourses may also reveal further discursive conventions, frameworks, ideologies, and practices occurring throughout time in these contexts.

How Is Practicum Conceived?

In the discourses, practicum is conceived as a space that takes place only when its participants gather to do what they are expected to do in it. The general elements of educational guidance imply that student-teachers are the school’s instructors and advisors. The student-teachers become responsible for their students’ education concerning English teaching, learning, and assessment; they do so by the execution of the corresponding curriculum of this language and the school rules in general. The relevant elements of English teaching, learning, and assessment refer to preparing, conducting, and collaborating with the school and the cooperating teachers in the planning, development, and evaluation of English classes, activities, and examinations.

Practicum is not plainly a content subject, neither is it an academic space per se that holds a set of pre-established and sequenced contents. Instead, it is a space in which general elements of educational guidance and relevant elements of English teaching, learning, and assessment converge for practicum advisors and student-teachers to work with. We present examples of these elements in Excerpt Set 1.⁷

We highlight the fact that these discourses overlook the contexts where the practicum is going to take place. Along the same lines, we knew that the student-teachers and practicum advisors were given minimal elements to understand the overall content of the practicum documents.

The discourses about practicum also indicate that student-teachers can only start it when they have completed a set of subjects and requisites within the undergraduate program. These subjects can be about English, pedagogy, (language) didactics, history of education, and (language) teaching methods, among others. The requisites can cover a standardized-exam score of at least a B1-level of English proficiency, the completion of required subjects, language or content examinations, and a certification of health insurance.

In the analyzed discourses, academic, professional, and experiential aspects for practicum are also prominent. We present examples of these aspects in the following Excerpt Set 2.

As follows, we show each prominent aspect from these examples. Academic aspects include elements as contents, means, processes, and actions that the ELT undergraduate program has offered to student-teachers in its curricula before starting the practicum. The program expects that student-teachers can put into practice, during practicum, all that has been taught thus far in the major. These academic aspects are closely connected to disciplinary, professional, and research knowledges in the general field of education and in the specific areas of English teaching, learning, and assessment.

Professional aspects are about what a language teacher is and how teaching a language should occur. During practicum, student-teachers are expected to start their experiences of teaching English. In all those experiences, student-teachers should consolidate their knowledges and practices related to English teaching, learning, and assessment, as well as their understandings about how to plan lessons, manage classrooms, and be a language teacher. These professional aspects turn into the realization of the academic aspects during practicum.

Equally, these professional aspects are closely connected to experiential aspects, since knowledge and experience are mutually constructed during practicum. Practicum advisors and cooperating teachers demand varied tasks in this space, such as lesson planning and delivery, materials design, grade reports, reading assignments, progress documenting, and so on. Consequently, experiential aspects refer to the individuals, situations, and artifacts with which student-teachers live their experiences as teachers during practicum. All these elements interact and interrelate one to another as well as with the socio-cultural aspects, discursive practices, and beliefs about education in the practicum context.

All of these discourses make it clear how practicum is conceived. As this is not a content-subject as such, student-teachers are not expected to consider it as lesson deliveries. Instead, this is a space in which student-teachers enter after completing a set of requirements in order to put into practice what has before been taught and learned about education in general and English teaching, learning, and assessment in particular. Practicum is also a space for the student-teachers to consolidate those learnings and to construct themselves as English teachers, both from selected texts and experiences in context as well as from practicum advisors’ or cooperating teachers’ guidance about their performance as (language) teachers. This is particularly a contributory conception of practicum.

We discuss the fact that this conception little accounts for inspecting how student-teachers come into practicum; for example, what their feelings, emotions, attitudes, fears, expectations, and beliefs are about education, language teaching, and socio-cultural aspects of practicum contexts, as well as what being a language teacher is and what it represents. This contributory conception of practicum largely assumes that student-teachers are already charged with and prepared to receive contents, knowledges, and ways of teaching, all of which must be put in practice within the practicum tasks for constant reformulation and broadening. This contributory conception also presumes that practicum advisors and cooperating teachers should be there to guarantee this widening and experience. We advocate for more awareness of how student-teachers can start consolidating their knowledges and selves as language teachers collaboratively in close consideration with their personal and contextual characteristics, educational backgrounds, experiences, skills, and dispositions.

It is in the convergence of all these aspects and elements that student-teachers are conceived as English teachers. As practicum is a space to perform what was taught and learned about language education, and to broaden this knowledge, student-teachers are conceived of as performers or implementers of practicum tasks. This opens our next insights.

How Do Student-Teachers Start Being Constructed as Language Teachers?

In the initial meetings of practicum and in the official documents of the program for practicum, in plain words, student-teachers are conceived of, firstly, as individuals who carry an institutional image and a teacher’s figure; secondly, and consequently, they are conceived of as student-teachers who must play a series of roles and do a series of tasks during practicum.

Carrying an institutional image demands of student-teachers to be the image of the university at the school where practicum takes place, and, at the same time, the image of the school in the English classes they give over there. In the analyzed discourses, these institutional images require that student-teachers embody the knowledges, behaviors, attitudes, discourses, and practices representative of the undergraduate program and of the school. The knowledges cover topics related to methods, approaches, strategies, and techniques of language teaching. The expected behaviors and attitudes should reflect qualities imparted in the program about what a competent teacher is, such as how to mediate, give advice, receive support, and manage students and classes. The discourses and practices should follow what a professional teacher from the university is when delivering lessons, motivating students to learn and do their assignments, and talking about lesson planning and delivery.

The analyzed discourses also affirm that representing the figure of a teacher demands from student-teachers to know, act, and do what is expected from a teacher at school, as well as from a language teacher and a language user or speaker in the classroom. This figure requires that student-teachers know processes and protocols (including the normativity, curricula, syllabi, etc.) for situations that may happen during practicum. It also requires that they perform as (language) teachers do in class; for instance, managing classrooms, knowing how to learn the language, and how to plan, explain, practice, assess, and give language contents; and knowing how to listen, guide, and give advice to educate students. This teacher’s figure also demands that student-teachers perform well in practicum by giving reasons of lesson planning and by taking part in reflections; student-teachers must also perform well around the school by supervising during breaks, reporting grades, and helping during school events. The teacher’s figure as a language user or speaker demands that student-teachers be skilled and proficient speakers of the language they teach, know lots of vocabulary and cultural issues of that language, and prove their mastery of language abilities.

We present some examples of these discourses in the following Excerpt Set 3.

This conception of student-teachers carrying an institutional image and a teacher’s figure overshadows them as thinkers of themselves about what type of (language) teachers they expect to be. The discourses that we encountered in the data indicate that the undergraduate program, the practicum and school coordinators, as well as the practicum advisors are the ones who more prominently define what images and figures student-teachers must represent during practicum. A great number of demands and requirements to sustain the established images and figures are loaded onto the student-teachers’ shoulders. Thus, they must simply assume these demands and requirements and look for performing and broadening the established images and figures already mentioned.

As a result of this conception, they are also conceived as student-teachers who must play a series of roles and do a series of tasks during practicum. Mentioned roles as educators, researchers, advisors, concealers, mediators, and language knowers are noticeable in the analyzed discourses. Tasks as lesson planning and delivery, reporting students’ performance, observing and reflecting are also salient. Together, ELT student-teachers are the ones who know about the language and how to teach it, with everything that this fact implies, simply because this is what the program has taught them to do. The analyzed discourses insinuate that student-teachers must be conscious of everything that they are at the point of starting practicum: a language teacher who is in the final stage of his/her process of ITE, who starts his/her (language) teaching experiences and practices, and who is not yet a school teacher (or an in-service teacher), but is expected to be and act as one. Notwithstanding this premise, the analyzed discourses state that the way student-teachers are expected to be and act may vary in line with the particularities and requirements of the practicum contexts.

Giving more detail to these roles and tasks, we classified them into five types of must-be and must-do, which may converge or diverge indistinctively according to each practicum context:

In the analyzed discourses, discontinuities about language education and (language) teacher construction from self-awareness and self-reflection are little considered. As we have exposed thus far, the encountered discourses are majorly composed of large sets of statements about what practicum is and what a student-teacher must be and do in it. In our point of view, these statements standardize, on the one hand, a series of actions and skills necessary for performing during practicum. On the other hand, these statements look to reach the compliance of roles and tasks that student-teachers must play and do in this space and in the practicum contexts. Along the same line of thought, these statements becloud the discourse about knowing-to-be and knowing-to-do and impose a discourse of must-be and must-do. The rational construction of teacher educators is mostly transformed into an instituted, demanded, and even inflicted way of being and doing at the start of practicum.

All in all, in the analyzed discourses, we can say that student-teachers are initially constructed as subjects with an idealized profile of a series of expected roles and pre-established tasks for practicum. Equally, we can say that the analyzed discourses point to an efficient subject able and ready to perform well the expected roles and pre-established tasks as a student-teacher at the start of practicum. These insights leave us with several uncertainties, to wit: (a) How do student-teachers receive these discourses and assume these roles and tasks when they start practicum? (b) How do they really assume, re-configure, or (re)create these roles and tasks throughout practicum? (c) What type of student-teacher subjects do they construct from the assumed roles and tasks during practicum? Why? These are questions we hope to answer in a subsequent study with other ELT undergraduate programs in Colombia.