Innovation in Language Learning

The identity formation process within the professional field, specifically in the educational, reveals that the teachers’ identity is nurtured, formed, developed and reconstructed continuously (Le Ha, 2008) as a result of the experiences obtained from observing and interacting with others  (Castañeda,2014). Authors such as Castañeda (2014), Kalaja, Barcelos, Aro, and Ruohotie-Lyhty (2015) and Rodriguez (2013) state that emotions, beliefs and knowledge, which emerge from being part of a community, are important factors in this process.

Nevertheless, this research emphasizes only on beliefs. What pre-service or in-service teachers do is a reflection of what they believe in (Richards & Lockhart, 1996). This narrative research intends to analyze the beliefs pre-service teachers have and how those define the type of teacher they will be. Graves (2000) also affirms, beliefs arise from previous experiences as a learner and present experiences as a teacher, for this reason the construction of the professional identity of the pre-service teachers based on their beliefs will be analyzed before, during and after their teaching practicum.

Earlier studies have focused on analyzing a variety of beliefs e.g. roles (Bachmann, Osses & Fuenzalida, 2012), culture (Diaz, Alarcon & Ortiz, 2015; Kalaja, et.al,2015) and technology (Chamorro & Rey, 2013). However, this research focuses on analyzing three of the beliefs proposed by Richards and Lockhart (1996) for language teachers: English, learning and teaching.

Observations tasks done by pre-service teachers before they started their teaching practicum were used and, concurrently, autobiographical narratives where they could express previous experiences and emotions they have lived as students at school and university were the instruments established to collect the data.

Up to this moment, the observations tasks and autobiographical narratives have revealed pre service-teachers’ identity is built based on their positive and negative experiences at school and university; positive experiences might be replicated in their classes because they contribute to learning a foreign language. Moreover, they expect to be innovative in terms of resources, materials and approaches to language teaching. It is needed to analyze the whole information collected.