Conclusion: New Metaphors for Researching and Educating for Teacher Change

Abstract

We have now arrived at the end of our exploration of language teachers’ conceptual change and yet one of the key findings emerging from this journey is that we can hardly talk of end points in development. The research described in this book has allowed us glimpses into the complex dynamics of teacher change characterised by intricate, evolving and often entangled relationships among teachers’ multiple visions, passions, dissonances, beliefs, knowledge and motivations as they engage in everyday practices of educating diverse students of a second language in specific educational, sociocultural and historical contexts. Although focusing on isolated constructs in language teacher cognition research, such as teachers’ beliefs, has been critical to our increased appreciation of the role teachers’ inner lives play in the educational process, this book has shown that even deeper insights can be gained by embracing a more holistic picture of teachers’ activity and opening up the conceptual boundaries of the discipline. Drawing on a newly developed model of Language Teacher Conceptual Change (LTCC), each empirically based chapter in this book has highlighted a particular facet of change which played a critical role in the eight teachers’ coming to terms with the teacher development course which was at the heart of this study. Instead of reiterating the conclusions reached in those chapters, therefore, let me conclude this book with a few reflections on what these findings may mean for researching and promoting teacher change.