Training young language teachers to become autonomous: from reflective practice to action research

Résumé 0

Teacher trainees in France have very little time to master a minimum of competences which will enable them to teach their first classes without too much damage to themselves or to the learners. As a result, they may resort to imitating their mentors, which may serve them at times but does not prepare them to an ever-evolving career. This paper presents an action research project (Nunan, 1992) which started in September 2008 in a French teacher training college and which will continue next year with the amendments suggested by the trainers' experience and the trainees' responses to a feedback questionnaire. The research concerns English and Spanish teacher-trainers and trainees. Initially, the reasons for this were that these two languages draw the most trainees in the language department and the trainers share the same views on the value of action research, collaborative work and plurilingualism. The aim of the research is to find how introducing trainees to action research may help them become reflective (Schôn, 1983) and autonomous (Newby, 2003) practitioners. This year's experience has enabled us to compare our findings with those of researchers and trainers that have had experience in action research projects (Deum, 2004; Laidlow, 2007).