Analysis of Pre-service Teachers’ Personal Metaphors about Foreign Language Teaching

Abstract

This study analyses the characterisation and evolution of the personal metaphors of a sample of 34 trainee foreign language teachers, through a questionnaire of open-ended questions that included asking the participants to make drawings representing the roles of the teacher. Four categories of metaphors were considered for the analysis: behaviourist/transmissive, cognitivist/constructivist, situated, and self-referential. The results indicate that most participants were able to conceptualise their image of the teacher in the form of metaphors. The pre-service teachers’ metaphors represented are mainly cognitivist/constructivist and behaviourist/transmissive. When comparing them before and after the internship in the primary schools, most of them did not change their metaphors or their associated models about foreign language teaching; only two participants experienced a progressive change in their metaphors and three experienced a regressive change in their metaphors. The validity of metaphors as a tool for increasing the self-reflection and critical awareness of trainee teachers is confirmed.