English (pdf)
Article in xml format
Article references
Automatic translation
Send this article by e-mail
Cited by SciELO 
Cited by Google 
Similars in
SciELO 
Similars in Google 
Permalink
Introduction
Teachers’ conceptions and beliefs regarding what teaching and learning entails is influenced by their own past learning experiences, which serve as an “induction to the methods, norms, and discourse of an education system” (Moodie, 2016, p. 29). This influence has been found to affect the views and practices of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) teachers throughout their careers (Barahona, 2014; S. Borg, 2003; Kuzhabekova & Zhaparova, 2016). In fact, it has been found to be even more influential than teacher education programmes, which may explain the “weak effect” that ESL/EFL teacher education has been found to have on student teachers (M. Borg, 2005; Johnson, 1994; Korthagen, 2010; Zeichner & Tabachnick, 1981). Preservice teachers’ mental images and memories of how they learned as students have been shown to impact their own visions of teaching. They tend to replicate similar strategies and activities that proved effective or enjoyable as students, or to reject negative teaching models, seeking to provide better teaching than they received. Past teachers’ personalities and affective characteristics are also influential, inspiring imitation or rejection of similar dispositions and behaviours in their own classrooms (Miller & Shifflet, 2016; Moodie, 2016).
Exploration of ESL/EFL teachers’ prior language learning experiences (PLLE), or what has been referred to as an “apprenticeship of observation” (AoO; Lortie, 1975), is crucial in understanding teacher beliefs, practices, and development, as it is one of the main reasons for teachers’ inability to modify their views or practices (Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992; Vélez-Rendón, 2002). Studies of teacher cognition have found that what teachers think, know, and believe greatly impacts their decisions inside the classroom (Barnard & Burns, 2012; S. Borg, 2003). However, the impact of PLLE on teachers’ beliefs and the pedagogical decisions they make in the classroom has not been thoroughly studied, particularly in EFL settings (S. Borg, 2006). Additionally, because the focus has been mostly on preservice teachers, analysis of AoO has been restricted to early teacher education (Kuzhabekova & Zhaparova, 2016). This highlights the need for broader research, particularly regarding the teaching and learning beliefs of novice in-service teachers in an EFL setting (S. Borg, 2009; Kubanyiova, 2014).
In this context, this paper seeks to understand and analyse the phenomenon of AoO by focusing on the impact that past school and university teachers of English have on novice EFL teachers’ views about teaching and learning. By doing so, we hope to help English teachers appreciate the importance of reflecting on their pre-existing knowledge of teaching and learning and how it may affect their own practice. Additionally, by analysing novice teachers’ beliefs regarding teaching and learning, we seek to encourage EFL teacher education programmes to rethink how future English teachers are learning to teach.
Literature Review
Sociocultural Perspective
This study is framed within a sociocultural perspective of teacher learning and professional development. As with other research in these areas (Golombek & Johnson, 2019; Johnson & Golombek, 2016; Kubanyiova, 2012), we adhere to a more inclusive view of teacher cognition, which highlights what teachers think, know, and believe (S. Borg, 2003), but also encompasses the socio-emotional and affective aspects of teaching (Johnson & Golombek, 2011, 2016; Kubanyiova, 2012; Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015). This broader view of teachers’ mental lives recognises, as Vygotsky (1981) argues, that cognition is socially mediated. In other words, higher or complex mental functions originate on the interpsychological plane as people participate in social activities. Through these interactions, knowledge is gained and gradually “internalised” through a transformative process that occurs via “mediation” (Golombek & Johnson, 2019).
This process of mediation in teacher learning is “shaped in and through their experiences as learners, the cultural practices of teacher education, and the particulars of their teaching context, all embedded within larger sociocultural histories yet appropriated in individual ways” (Johnson & Golombek, 2016, p. 4). This implies that the pedagogical knowledge, acquired both before and during teacher preparation, is mediated by interactions with others (e.g., teacher educators, tools) in a social environment. Thus, training teachers, according to a Vygotskian perspective, involves engaging in “a three-way conversation that places teachers’ prior experiences as learners and often tacit beliefs about pedagogy into conversation with pedagogical content of the teacher education program and observations of teaching and learning in field placements” (Warford, 2011, p. 252). This suggests that teachers need to negotiate their past experiences, their pedagogical beliefs, and the knowledge received from their language teaching education programme. Given the interplay of aspects that form part of the learning to teach process under a Vygotskian perspective, the phenomenon of AoO is relevant.
Apprenticeship of Observation
Teacher cognition research from a sociocultural perspective has highlighted a gap in our understanding of teachers’ lives. Cognition not only encompasses what teachers believe, think, and know, but also connects to their passions and their “emotional journeys,” and how these influence their teaching practices (Kubanyiova, 2012, p. 23). Cognition and emotion form a complex interplay within the process of learning to teach, during which teachers associate emotions with their own learning experiences, which help them to understand their teaching practice (Johnson & Worden, 2014). Teachers’ emotional experiences are triggered by their past experiences and are unique to each individual (Johnson & Golombek, 2016). Teachers’ past experiences influence their views on teaching and learning in that they become default options to which they can revert at crucial moments in their teaching practice (Gray, 2019; Lortie, 1975; Tomlinson, 1999).
Lortie’s (1975) seminal work on what he referred to as “apprenticeship of observation” explained how past experiences provided future teachers with a “frontstage” panorama of what teaching involves. However, this view does not grant the “backstage” perspective, which includes teachers’ private intentions, decision-making process, and personal reflections before, during, and after their classroom performance.
From a sociocultural perspective, parallels can be drawn between Lortie’s concept of AoO in regard to teachers’ lived experiences as learners and Vygostky’s term perezhivanie, which refers to “teachers’ emotional experiences grounded in their schooling histories” (Johnson & Golombek, 2016, p. 43). As these scholars explain “[teachers’] mediation is shaped by the complex interplay of cognition and emotion, originating in and reshaped through [teachers’] own perezhivanie” (Johnson & Golombek, 2016, p. 43).
This may explain why the models or anti-models (Moodie, 2016) imitated or rejected by teachers have been found to be related to emotionally relevant experiences. This was evidenced by Miller and Shifflet (2016), whose participants referred to past teachers-both friendly and unpleasant-as “ghost” teachers, given the persistence of these figures in their memories. In addition to positive models, they found that several participants had had unpleasant learner experiences and referred to some educators as “anti-models” due to the negative attitudes they displayed. The impact of such experiences affected these novice teachers throughout their careers, preventing them from using strategies implemented by these teachers.
Ruohotie-Lyhty and Kaikkonen (2009) also found evidence of the impact of past school teachers on novice language teachers. In their study, images of former teachers who were liked and admired were used as models of “good” teachers, while those they disliked were considered “failure” models. They wanted to emulate positive characteristics, such as being competent, pleasant yet strict, approachable, fair, and assertive, and to reject interactions characterised by unfairness or miscommunication.
Gray (2019) also evidenced the emotional impact of teachers’ PLLE related to former teachers and their classroom management. The novice teachers Gray worked with recalled negative learning experiences, former teachers who made them feel threatened, insecure, and even broken. However, despite these negative memories, eight of the ten participants used similar classroom management systems in their own practices, illustrating the relevance of their AoO on their approach. Moodie (2016) also found negative PLLE, but these novice EFL teachers decided not to replicate what they had experienced as learners. Indeed, AoO as related to former teachers can be so influentialas to provide a source of positive or negative motivation in the kind of educator teachers aspire to become (Furlong, 2013).
Chilean Context
English teaching in Chile, as in other EFL contexts, has undergone curricular changes in an attempt to improve proficiency outcomes. However, low levels of English learning achievement persist as evidenced by the results of standardised English tests (Agencia de Calidad de la Educación, 2015). This may be due to the difficult working conditions of teachers, enduring low salaries, long working hours, and little time for other important teaching-related activities, such as class preparation (Ávalos, 2013).
English teachers experience even greater difficulties than educators in other disciplines as concerns motivating students (Glas, 2013) to participate, interact, and use the language in the classroom (Rojas et al., 2013). This makes it harder to comply with Ministry requirements and meet learners’ diverse needs, driving many teachers to resort to traditional teaching practices (Yilorm-Barrientos & Acosta-Morales, 2016), more grammar than communication oriented (Barahona, 2015; Sato & Oyanedel, 2019).
Furthermore, there are few instances of systematic reflection and self-inquiry provided by second language teaching education programmes in Chile (Martin, 2016). Given the importance of guided reflection in changing preservice teacher belief systems, this absence may create a greater challenge for future teachers.
Novice English teachers are further hindered by the different types of educational contexts where they work. Public schools are State funded and operated, private-subsidised schools are privately operated but receive both private and State funding, and private schools are privately funded and operated. These contexts differ in available teaching resources, number of students per classroom, number of hours of English instruction, salary and contractual conditions, and curricular requirements.
The Present Study
Considering the interplay of aspects involved in learning to teach and the somewhat adverse teaching scenarios, the core goal of this study is to explore the influence of past school and university teachers of English on novice English teachers’ views on teaching and learning in an EFL context.
Method
Design
A qualitative multiple case study (Stake, 2005) was conducted as part of a larger research project that aimed to explore the phenomenon of AoO and its influence on novice English teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding language teaching and learning. The main research project approach was to study a number of cases jointly to investigate teachers’ mental lives and the emotions and feelings (Kubanyiova, 2012) they experienced as learners. The nature of this phenomenon was well-suited for this research design allowing an in-depth analysis of novice English teachers’ personal accounts from working in three different educational settings.
Participants
Using purposive sampling, the larger study involved 18 novice English teachers (NETs henceforth; 14 women, 4 men) aged from 23 to 35 and working in different educational contexts in the Santiago Metropolitan Region of Chile. The study focused on novice teachers, expecting that memories of their PLLE would be fresher than those of more experienced teachers who have had more opportunities for reflection (Kuzhabekova & Zhaparova, 2016). Teachers from the three types of schools (public, private-subsidised, and private) were included to provide a more complete view of the influence of past experiences on different teaching contexts. All participants graduated from education programmes within the region and were undertaking their first three years of teaching. The paper focuses on the participants’ in-depth accounts of how their own teachers influenced their current beliefs regarding teaching and learning English. Pseudonyms have been used for all participants.
Data Collection
The data for the larger study were collected by means of an online questionnaire and subsequent face-to-face in-depth interviews. The questionnaire was sent to novice English teachers within the Metropolitan Region via social networks and emails directed at teaching programmes, which helped us reach ex-students now working as teachers. The software used for this initial instrument was SurveyGizmo. Once teachers had completed the survey and agreed to participate in the follow-up stages (18 participants in total), they were contacted via email to schedule interviews covering their perceptions and narratives as expressed in the questionnaire. In-depth interviews were conducted individually within a month of questionnaire completion. The whole process took around six months. Both data enquiry instruments complied with ethical requirements. The design of the instruments is detailed below.
Questionnaire
For the larger project, an initial questionnaire was designed to include a closed-ended section that elicited teachers’ general beliefs on teaching and learning English (adapted from A. V. Brown, 2009) and an open-ended section using narrative frames that gathered a brief account of teachers’ PLLE in school and university settings (taken from Moodie, 2016). This survey format allowed collection of uniform data in terms of type and degree of specificity and provided an initial encounter with teaching and learning beliefs and PLLE upon which to base the interviews. For the purpose of this paper, only data from the open-ended section of the questionnaire involving teachers’ recollections of their PLLE were considered.
Narrative frames are similar to open-response questionnaires (J. D. Brown, 2001) because they elicit detailed data and can guide the respondent towards particular events, such as their experiences as learners (Barkhuizen, 2011). This instrument includes an important “temporal aspect that allows participants to relate past experiences with current or future actions” (Moodie, 2016, p. 32). This instrument also makes it possible to connect diachronic experiences with participants’ perspectives (Mackey & Gass, 2005), and functions as a mediational tool by helping teachers to “make their tacit thoughts, beliefs, knowledge, fears, and hopes explicit” (Johnson & Golombek, 2011, p. 491). The instrument used seven frames adapted from Moodie (2016) that participants completed online via the SurveyGizmo software platform. Prompts (see Appendix) were adapted to the Chilean context and translated into Spanish, the participants’ mother tongue, to favour rich, descriptive responses and piloted with novice English teachers and English teacher-researchers. A response of between 50 and 100 words was required for each prompt in order to provide sufficient data.
Interviews
In-depth interviews were conducted with the 18 teachers who had completed the questionnaire and expressed willingness to continue in the study. Preliminary data from the questionnaire were used to design interviews unique to each teacher. This face-to-face encounter made it possible to clarify information expressed in the questionnaire, enquire further into participants’ PLLE, and confirm preliminary connections between PLLE and beliefs regarding teaching and learning. Each interview lasted one hour and was audio recorded and subsequently transcribed for analytical purposes.
Data Analysis
The data gathered from the interviews were examined using theme analysis. Each researcher conducted a preliminary reading of the interviews to familiarise themselves with the content and apply coding to key ideas. The researchers then discussed their coding before classifying the information into broader themes (Creswell & Poth, 2018). A codebook was created from the data and uploaded into the online analytical application Dedoose for final codification.
For the purposes of this paper, the evidence presented here focused on one main theme, that of “teacher-student relationships,” which emerged from working with holistic coding of entire excerpts (Saldaña, 2016). This theme was one of the most frequently appearing, referenced in 66% (12 of the 18 NETs) of the interviews conducted. Within this theme, the most representative aspects that teachers mentioned are presented in the findings. In the following section, the ideas of this theme are illustrated and analysed in selected excerpts (authors’ own translations) from participant accounts. Following qualitative procedures, the ideas presented in the findings were not quantified.
It should be noted that, for the present paper, only four of the narrative frames (Items 1-4, see Appendix) used in the second section of the questionnaire were analysed in conjunction with the interviews as they specifically concerned recollections of English lessons and/or teachers from school and university. As mentioned, the interviews allowed teachers to add depth to those initial narratives. Study trustworthiness was confirmed through data triangulation and peer examination (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), the former using the two data sources gathered and the latter through the discussion of key elements during analysis.
Findings
The teachers’ reflections on their particular learning experiences, both positive and negative, that will be presented below in the findings have influenced their views on teaching and learning English. As will be shown, their reflections illustrate the impact of their PLLE on their appreciation and concern regarding the importance of building a positive teacher-student relationship.
Socio-Emotional Connection and Support
The participating teachers were primarily concerned with providing socio-emotional support to their students to help them connect to English. They expressed a desire to be close to their students, to support them emotionally and connect individually with them, and show interest and affection for them as human beings. Some also expressed the intention of emphasising students’ individual strengths, thus motivating them to learn English. These ideas are reflected in the following excerpt from Lorena, a teacher from a private-subsidised school:
I try to be close to my students, just like my teachers at university were with me; I try to connect with them . . . I don’t befriend my students, but [I want] them to see me as somebody they can ask questions, somebody they can trust. You also have to be more affectionate with the younger ones than with the older students because . . . they look to you for emotional support.
Lorena reflected on what is important for her as a teacher, referring to a past experience in which she felt close to her university teachers. Her concern for closeness and emotional support is particularly important within her current school context. Accounts provided by other teachers working in similarly vulnerable contexts suggest that these schools are particularly challenging because teachers often find themselves providing emotional support. Lorena elaborated, recalling a teacher who helped her through personal difficulties while at university:
I experienced all of this at university . . . I was going through a vocational crisis and my Linguistics teacher took me aside because he realised I wasn’t OK and we had a long talk . . . In fact, I think it was because of him that I stayed at university, because I was about to walk out . . . It’s about more than teaching methodologies.
Lorena connected a particular experience as a university student to her main concern as a teacher today. She recalled a teacher whose approachability, assertiveness, and kindness helped her through a difficult time, and the emotions she felt then still seem to resonate today; she perceived her own teaching as an affective/emotional activity, which she considered just as relevant as classroom teaching strategies.
This theme of connecting with students is further developed by Karina, a teacher working in a private school, who recalled one teacher who established a connection by empathising with students. Karina highlighted how her teacher got to know her students and their interests to motivate them to learn:
I particularly remember this primary school teacher . . . She tried to involve herself in what you liked, to motivate you, because only three hours of English classes a week isn’t much time to connect with the students . . . One has to bear in mind that we’re working with human beings; it’s not like you’re working with computers that turn on, store information, and then leave. She was able to achieve that connection. I think she influenced me in that way. (Interview)
Karina recalled and appreciated her teacher’s effort (still to this day) and the impact gave rise to the efforts she made to connect with her own students during their few hours of English instruction-three hours per week is typical in many Chilean schools. For Karina, connecting with her students is fundamental, as she views teaching from a socio-humanistic perspective, not merely as content delivery.
Our participants’ best memories were of empathetic and trustworthy teachers who were emotionally supportive and involved in their students’ interests, motivating them to learn. These learning experiences are now having a positive influence on how these novice teachers relate to their own students (Miller & Shifflet, 2016; Moodie, 2016). In both cases above, the teachers related positive feelings that they had experienced as students-emotions that have helped them understand and think about their own teaching (Johnson & Golombek, 2016; Johnson & Worden, 2014) as a humanistic and active endeavour, not only a cognitive one. As such, it is connected to the feelings and actions they experienced as students: “As an emotional practice, teaching activates, colors, and expresses teachers’ own feelings, and the actions in which those feelings are embedded (i.e., teachers’ inner streams of experience)” (Hargreaves, 1998, p. 838).
Similar to Lorena and Karina’s experiences, Daniela, who works in a subsidised-inclusive type of school, commented on the importance of possessing the socio-emotional competencies necessary to establish positive connections with students. She observed that these skills are overlooked or ignored in most teaching programmes; teacher-student closeness is often viewed negatively given the potential problems it could provoke. However, she disagreed with this view, considering emotional support to be of great importance to English teaching.
I think that it has to do with the social skills of each person, because not all teachers have the ability to calm their students down and you don’t learn that at university. They teach you methodology, perhaps didactics, but they don’t teach you how to connect with students. In fact, the more distant you are from the student, the better, because that way you’re less likely to have problems. I don’t share that [view] myself. . . . I think that emotions are a central factor in learning any content or language.
Daniela further elaborated on why she considered teachers’ socio-emotional skills as crucial to the learning process. If students are not emotionally well in the classroom, they are less likely to be interested and motivated to learn. This seems to be of particular concern in certain school contexts where it is more difficult to engage and motivate adolescents:
If you’re not in a positive frame of mind or you don’t feel well, you’re not going to learn anything. If you have problems at home and you’re sad or frustrated or fed up, especially in high school . . . when you teach in high school, teenagers, even in 8th grade, they’re just not interested . . . and there are a lot of personal problems and negative emotions.
Daniela related this view to her time as a student, connecting positive feelings to her learning experiences in which former teachers provided emotional support, helping her overcome teenage motivational issues.
Also, many teachers helped me when I was a teenager and I didn’t want anything to do with anything or anybody, . . . I never said that to them, but through their motivation, care…“you can do it”…a hand on your shoulder…“It’s OK, if you’re not learning, it doesn’t matter, it’s not the end of the world.” It’s that calmness, and you say, “they’re right”; I think that as a teacher, you have to cross that human-to-human barrier.
Daniela still recalled her former teachers’ ability to calm their students, to care for their well-being at a particularly difficult age. These abilities and attitudes still resonate with her today and affect the way she perceives her own teaching. It is clear that this experience has mediated her own learning as a teacher and helped mould her understanding and approach to teaching, focusing more on her students’ well-being than on their academic success (Gkonou & Mercer, 2017).
Building Positive Horizontal Relationships
Related to connection and support, the participating teachers expressed a keen interest in building horizontal relationships, unlike some of the traditional, hierarchical teacher-student relationships they had experienced. Felipe, another teacher in a private-subsidised school, emphasised the importance of horizontal, non-directive teacher-student relationships:
I believe in the social development of the human being; for me, that’s the aim, especially in the classroom . . . If we could make students understand that they are important people in a small society and soon in a big society, that would be ideal. I think that comes from my experience at university. Sometimes you perform better when you feel that the teacher’s more human, not so distant; that also gives you more confidence to ask them questions, because they’re not seen as a distant authority with whom you can’t even talk. I think that’s why I’m like that.
Connected to his own experience as a university student and the associated positive emotions, Felipe understood teaching as a social activity whose focus should be on equal partnerships between teacher and students. Felipe believed that a classroom environment should be based on non-directive communication (Joyce et al., 2004), which is crucial to students’ learning and performance in class and to their future insertion into society.
Felipe mentioned a particular teacher from the university whose way of relating to students made an impact on him.
She is absolutely the best of all the teachers at my university. She really knows her stuff, but she’s also the most modest. You can tell that she values all of the students’ efforts and relates to them horizontally. You don’t end up seeing her as some distant idol or anything like that, although that happens a lot at university.
Here, Felipe recalled a past teacher who acknowledged and valued the efforts of all students, regardless of status, based on relationships of equality. The positive feelings experienced by Felipe as a student were clearly reflected in the way he thinks about his teaching practice today:
This helps me to appreciate that I am no better than my pupils, that, really, we are all learning. I’m only in my second year of teaching and I’m also learning with them, so I can’t feel superior if we’re all learning together. I feel that without those role models I might not see it like that.
Felipe’s views on equal relationships were shaped by his own learning experiences as he observed and experienced how a particular teacher related to her students (Johnson, 2009). As in the previous cases, Felipe’s positive emotions triggered by this lived learning experience clearly influenced his humanistic perspective on teaching, where all students are viewed as equals (Furlong, 2013).
Anti-Model
A less pleasant PLLE was lived by Amanda, a teacher in a private-subsidised school, who recalled one particular past teacher who served as an anti-model that she was determined not to follow.
I remember that she presented this image of a teacher who just doesn’t want to teach. I don’t know whether that was the reason, or perhaps she was just totally exhausted . . . She did it without any enthusiasm. She would just sit behind her desk all day. The only time she would move would be to write on the board occasionally . . . To me that was precisely what not to do . . . I remember that her voice was, like, flat. That semester was terrible for me; I hated it.
Amanda began her reflection on this past teacher and her learning experience with a strong statement: “She presented this image of a teacher who just doesn’t want to teach.” Although she tried to identify the reason for this teacher’s behaviour, she firmly believed that it was not an acceptable way of teaching.
From further recollection, it is clear that this past teacher’s attitude generated a lack of interest and motivation on the part of her students, and her failure to build a teacher-student relationship was likely mirrored by them.
[The teacher’s attitude] takes away all interest, all motivation, seeing the teacher just sitting there, giving her class, and leaving . . . there’s no time to get to know each other. I don’t even remember her asking me my name or having to introduce ourselves during the first lesson. I remember that at the end of the semester she told us that she was bad at remembering names, but there were only nine of us! (Amanda)
Amanda described what she considered a negative attitude from her former teacher: “seeing the teacher just sitting there, giving her class, and leaving . . . there’s no time to get to know each other.” Above, Karina referred to an anti-model, which she rejected in her own teaching, and this perspective was evidently shared by Amanda. Amanda connected negative emotions to this past interaction, which helped her form an opposing view of teaching, with an affective/emotional focus:
To be honest, for me it’s everything; my relationship with my students is everything. This connection, it’s…the way I stand in front [of the class], my attitude in school, outside school. Sometimes I’ll be waiting for the bus and talking with five 9th grade kids.
Amanda further reflected on how important she now thinks it is to build a teacher-student relationship. She added that such a connection requires a nurturing attitude in all aspects of school life, and that teachers should try to relate to students both in and beyond the classroom.
Amanda’s recollections illustrate how negative learning experiences can motivate teachers to turn them into something positive for their own students (Moodie, 2016). Amanda was able to leave behind a “feared vision” of a teacher she did not aspire to imitate and turned it into a “desired vision” of the teacher she is today (Furlong, 2013; Miller & Shifflet, 2016). This further confirms the impact of AoO in shaping teachers’ thinking regarding their own practice and how by enquiring further into their PLLE, teacher educators are more likely to understand and help future teachers reshape their attitudes. In Amanda’s case, this mediational process occurred through personal reflection on an unpleasant learning experience and the associated negative emotions (Johnson, 2009; Johnson & Golombek, 2016).
Discussion
The novice teachers who participated in the study showed strong positive and negative emotions associated with experiences lived as students. In the cases analysed here, these experiences reflected the way past English teachers related to them as students. Although a positive teacher-student relationship can be important in any content area, in these specific cases analysed and because they are EFL teachers, they specifically recalled how those relationships impacted their feelings about learning English. These learning experiences helped shape participants’ views on teaching and prioritise affective/emotional aspects (i.e., positive teacher-student relationships) in their own practice. This suggests that interactions with former teachers have mediated their process of learning to teach in favour of their own professional development (Johnson & Golombek, 2016; Johnson & Worden, 2014). It is clear from their reflections that the teachers understand teaching as primarily an emotional activity in which the teacher-student relationship is central (Hagenauer et al., 2015; He & Cooper, 2011). They are concerned about connecting with their students through approachability and kindness, providing emotional support, and engaging in horizontal relationships. These elements are central to nurturing quality teacher-student relationships that prioritise student well-being over academic performance (Gkonou & Mercer, 2017).
Closer inspection of this shared concern reveals that it has indeed been shaped by interactions with former teachers (Gray, 2019; Miller & Shifflet, 2016; Moodie, 2016; Ruohotie-Lyhty & Kaikkonen, 2009) whose attitudes and behaviours in the classroom inspired these novice teachers to conceive their own teaching practice as humanistic and affect-oriented (Furlong, 2013). Most of what they remember from these former teachers has to do with kindness, creating pleasant learning environments through emotional support and connection, and getting to know their students (Miller & Shifflet, 2016). As in Miller and Shifflet’s study, our novice teachers highlight the positive and negative feelings associated with these learning experiences. Similar to the notion of “ghost teachers,” they remember specific teachers themselves more clearly than the teaching strategies used. In Amanda’s case, the influence of these past teachers was so strong that the associated negative feelings led her to reject the teacher model she observed, transforming it into an anti-model, and a desire to be a different kind of teacher: One who has succeeded in shedding that “ghost” teacher (Miller & Shifflet, 2016) or “failure” model (Ruohotie-Lyhty & Kaikkonen, 2009).
This suggests that teacher models-informed by teachers’ AoO-can influence novice teachers’ views of their practice, especially those former teachers who are emotionally meaningful to them, either positively or negatively (Davin et al., 2018; Gray, 2019; Miller & Schifflet, 2016). In fact, prior teacher models can act as a “frame of reference” for novice teachers’ understanding of teaching and of themselves as teachers (Flores & Day, 2006, p. 224).
It is worth considering that the impact of teachers’ AoO on their beliefs may be perceived more clearly in novice teachers who may have yet to analyse their prior views of teaching and learning (S. Borg, 2006; Freeman, 2002; Lortie, 1975). However, other factors may also influence these teachers’ perspectives. The position of a novice teacher is challenging given the unfamiliar reality and struggles they face (Farrell, 2012; He & Cooper, 2011; Korthagen, 2010). The novice teachers analysed here show a desire to get to know their students and to understand their learning and emotional needs as a means to connect with them and engage them in the learning process (Curry et al., 2016; He & Cooper, 2011).
Finally, the school context also plays a role in the humanistic and affective teaching perspective of these novices. In two of the cases presented here, Lorena and Daniela make it clear that the teacher-student relationship was fundamental in their specific educational contexts and teaching levels. Lorena felt that she must support her students emotionally based on the vulnerability of their context. For Daniela, working with teenagers meant that she had to connect with them in order to motivate them to learn. They were each influenced by their specific teaching contexts (Flores & Day, 2006; He & Cooper, 2011) and the additional challenges associated with teaching English in Chile, particularly in terms of motivation when compared to other disciplines (Glas, 2013).
Conclusion
Although each of the participating teachers experienced different past learning situations in different contexts, one resulting belief was shared by all of them: the importance of building and nurturing a positive teacher-student relationship. Learning experiences involving certain past teachers appeared to be strong enough to impact their current views on teaching and their understanding of how to be a “good” teacher. These novice teachers’ humanistic and affective perspective on teaching is important, as it confirms that they view teaching not only as a cognitive activity, but also as an emotional process (Hargreaves, 1998). This in turn confirms what the sociocultural perspective proposes in relation to the learning to teach process: “It is not merely what teachers saw and did as learners that influences their thinking about teaching and learning, it is the emotional experiences [perezhivanie] associated with their schooling histories that play a central role in understanding teaching activity” (Johnson & Worden, 2014, p. 128).
The present study calls on EFL teacher education programmes to rethink how future English teachers learn to teach. We believe that preservice teachers’ impressions of teaching-derived from their AoO-should be acknowledged, as these inform interpretations that they believe to be true (Calderhead & Robson, 1991). Such impressions must be analysed reflectively and critically as part of the process of learning to teach within the second language teacher education agenda (Wright, 2010). As Johnson and Golombek (2018) propose:
Establishing a sense of teachers’ perezhivanie can help teacher educators understand teachers’ past (e.g., apprenticeship of observation) and present (e.g., how they are experiencing the practices of teacher education) and engage in mediation that is responsive to teachers’ future (the teacher they envision being). (p. 6)
In view of our participant teachers’ main concern, we consider that socio-emotional skills should be addressed in teacher education programmes. This recommendation is supported by studies within language learning psychology that have shown the relevance of students’ well-being (Gkonou & Mercer, 2017; Mercer & Gkonou, 2020) and teachers’ emotional well-being (Hagenauer et al., 2015) above measurable learning outcomes.
The main limitation of this study concerned the number of teachers that volunteered to participate, which may reflect an element of self-selection; the access to a wider network of possible participants, rather than relying on social media; and the fact that all of the teachers were from the populated metropolitan region of the country. Future studies would benefit from reaching a wider base of teachers and including novice teachers from other areas of the country. Further research could be extended to explore the ways in which EFL teacher education programmes guide future teachers in negotiating their current views on teaching relative to their PLLE as part of their identity formation process (Johnson & Golombek, 2016).
