TO THE STUDENT TEACHER

This book is designed to provide support and guidance for student teachers who are practice teaching as a component of a teacher education course, either at diploma, undergraduate, or graduate level. Throughout the book we invite you to examine your beliefs and understandings of language teaching and your knowledge and skills as a learner of language teaching as you plan, teach, and reflect on lessons you teach during your teaching practice, as well as those you observe taught by other teachers. The book sets out to help you better understand what to expect from your teaching practice, how to prepare for it, how to work with those who will be arranging and supervising your teaching practice, and how to plan, teach, and learn from your teaching practice experiences. Throughout the book we present accounts by student teachers, cooperating teachers, and supervisors that will enable you to compare your experiences with others involved in practice teaching.

TO THE SUPERVISOR AND COOPERATING TEACHER

In this book we adopt a “reflective approach” to teaching practice. By this we mean one in which student teachers are shown how to explore and reflect on the nature of language teaching and their own approaches to teaching through their experience of practice teaching. Rather than presenting prescriptions on how to teach, the book is built around core chapters that describe a contemporary perspective on the nature of second language teaching and teacher learning; other chapters examine the issues involved in working in a cooperating teacher's classroom and developing teaching skills through observation and supervised practice.