Reflecting on metaphors and the possibilities of language change in teaching and teacher education (original) (raw)
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Minding Our Metaphors In Education
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This study analyses the metaphorical conceptions of learning based on the reflections of 50 experienced teachers in an evening course on instructional psychology. The metaphors were achieved by collaboration in small groups. ''Coreflection'' of group members was well suited to promote metaphorical reconstructions of teachers' tacit theories about learning. The results show that the majority of these teachers shares traditional metaphors depicting teaching and learning as transmission of knowledge, followed by a smaller group of teachers expressing constructivist metaphors. Only a minority seems to conceive of teaching and learning as a social process. These results are compared with metaphors formulated by 38 prospective teachers without classroom experience participating in a course on curriculum design. In further collaborations these metaphors should serve as stepping stones to broader and more profound conceptions of the nature of teaching and learning.
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The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the metaphors a foreign language teacher used to describe her teaching experience and the role she adopted. The study tries to follow the conceptualizations of an experienced EFL teacher in regard to her teaching experience and the role she adopted. The data for the present study were collected by means of metaphor elicitation sheet, interview, and diary. The data were collected every month over a period of 24 months. The results revealed that during the first period of data collection (12 months), the participant teacher developed 10 different metaphors with regard to the concept of “teacher”. The number of new metaphors developed in the second period of data collection (the second 12 months) was 7, most of which implied the democratic teacher. Even though the same metaphor was used at different times, the rationale behind using the same metaphor always yielded differences. Keywords Teacher beliefs; Teacher perceptions; Metaphor; ...
Teacher Thinking about Knowledge, Learning and Learners: A Metaphor Analysis
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2012
Metaphors reflect the insight about teacher knowledge and its execution when teachers teach. Metaphors are acknowledged as elemental constituents of human cognitive processing that have a useful place in teacher thinking and beliefs research today. Metaphors manifest teacher's beliefs and 'Beliefs reflect their perceptions. Though it is true that a Metaphor analysis may not be able to completely interpret or uncover teachers' veritable beliefs as uncovering beliefs or personal theories requires a detailed qualitative analysis, it certainly helps us to gain deeper insight into teacher's thinking and our understanding of teacher's beliefs, behaviours and actions. The objectives of the study are: 1. What metaphorical images do preservice teachers use to describe Knowledge, learning and learners? 2. What typologies or categories can be evolved from these metaphors? 3. What images can be derived from preservice teachers' metaphors about knowledge, learning and learners? 4. What implications can be drawn from the Metaphor analysis for teacher education programmes? This research is the part of a larger study that comprised a sample of 637 preservice and in-service teachers in India with the objective of analysing their beliefs or personal theories about knowledge, learning and learners. The findings indicated that the participants unconsciously constructed and used their own metaphors that became the basis of their conceptualization about the three aspects-knowledge, learning and learners.
Metaphor in the study of teachers’ professional knowledge
Theory Into Practice, 1990
This paper suggests that it ,aay be productive for all teachers to become students of metaphor, as least of their own metaphors. Careful attention of how one describes the world appears) give clues as to how one constructs it. Such constructions can-_me under scrutiny only when one speaks or writes, and then attends to the language one has used. A brief description is presented of a research program into the character and development of professional knowledge. It is demonstrated how looking for one's own metaphors can be expected to reveal something of one's professional knowledge. This is a necessary part of productive reflection upon teaching practice. In considering "reflection-in action" it is pointed out that this is occasioned by the puzzles of practice, and an important part of the process is known as "refraining." Reframing describes the familiar part of the process in which an event over which someone has puzzled for some time suddenly is "seen" differently and in a way that suggests new approaches to the puzzle. An analysis is presented of interviews with two teachers in which their use of metaphors provided clues as to how they think about teaching. (JD)
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New Trends and Issues Proceedings on Humanities and Social Sciences , 2016
The aim of this study is to analyse metaphors of power present in the educational discourse, with specific emphasis on the Romanian educational landscape. The research involved questionnaires and interviews with students preparing to become teachers, teacher trainees enrolled on the teacher education module at the University of Alba Iulia, Romania, with students of other disciplines and with beginning teachers. The insights into the educational discourse and the way in which different metaphors, used almost unawares by the different discourse participants have provided us with a deeper understanding of how our future, our career path, attitudes and ideals are shaped by the way in which teachers talk to us.
The Changing Metaphors of Education
Text of a presentation that I gave at a cognitive linguistics colloquium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1999. The particular examples used herein are pretty dated at this point, but I leave it up to the reader to decide whether the ideas expressed therein are still pertinent.
What matters: teaching and metaphor
2012
This work outlines an ecology of meaning in which metaphor plays a central role. Its purpose is to suggest how teachers, through ongoing reflection of meaningmaking in the classroom, might come to a new understanding of a Freirean dialogical praxis. To support such reflection, the thesis develops a phenomenological theory of meaning that characterizes the various agents of meaning-making as interdependent. It is especially concerned with the following elements: being, meaning, subjectivity, language, and metaphor, where the latter is understood not as a literary trope but a fundamental mode of communication among entities of all kinds. Formally, the argument is developed using the tools of Lyric Philosophy, in which the writer's own voice is juxtaposed with others in such a way that meaning emerges through the tension between the two. A narrative literature review provides an alternative access route to some key concepts.
Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 2014
Background: Pre-service teachers (PSTs) typically do not change their beliefs about teaching and learning during teacher education unless they are confronted with, and challenged about, their held beliefs through powerful and meaningful experiences that cause them to recognise and value the change process and its consequences for themselves and their learners. It has been suggested that examining teaching narratives and metaphors might be one way for teacher education to help PSTs in recognising their pre-existing beliefs about teaching and learning. Such practices assist PSTs to reflect on and examine these beliefs and how they impact both their teaching and the learning of their students. Purpose: To understand how the process of examining metaphors influences PSTs' development of beliefs about teaching and learning. Data collection: Sixteen PSTs' initial metaphors and their revised metaphor with narrative of how and why their metaphor did or did not change. The metaphors were collected at the beginning and end of a 1-year Graduate Diploma in Physical Education Programme, respectively. Data analysis: In-depth analysis of the teaching metaphors and narratives utilised a naturalistic inquiry approach of repeated reading of the data identifying themes and patterns identified by the PSTs' responses. Findings: As PSTs analysed their developing beliefs about teaching and learning as articulated through their metaphors, they identified issues, events, experiences, people and context as influencing their changing metaphors. There were instances where PSTs had chosen to change or further extend their metaphor influenced by circumstances that arose in the course of their programme. Such circumstances led to the realisation that (1) teachers are only part of the teaching and learning process (along with students) and are not solely responsible for all learning that occurs in schools, (2) the reality of teaching allows one to refine what is feasible to accomplish as a teacher and (3) there is a necessity to address students' individual needs and acknowledge and accommodate different ways in which they learn. Conclusions: Several PSTs initially viewed themselves as transmitters of knowledge yet, as a result of experience, coursework and peer discussion, moved towards a more constructivist notion of teaching and learning. This was conveyed by the shifting of the learning process from being teacher-led to being student-centred and individually focused. Metaphors are a strong starting point in teacher education programmes. They encourage the PSTs to first acknowledge their experiences and held beliefs. They can then be provided with learning experiences and a community within which they might analyse, explore and modify their beliefs through ISSN 1740-8989 print/ISSN 1742-5786 online # 2012 Association for Physical Education http://dx.