New competencies in a new era? Examining the impact of a teacher training project

Abstract

AbstractThis article describes follow-up research aimed at exploring the long-term impact on participants of a teacher training course that integrated a variety of projects focusing on ICT use in language teaching. Internet in education is often promoted for its features that allow for new opportunities for constructivist approaches in the classroom. Nevertheless, this will not simply happen on its own. Teacher education must help shift students teachers’ pedagogical premise toward approaches that promote autonomous learning and collaborative problem-solving. Teacher training can highlight how this can be supported through ICT.The article chronicles the first year following the closure of a teacher-training project, paying particular attention to current practices and perspectives of the primary and secondary education teachers involved. Data were gathered through questionnaires and semi-structured e-mail interviews, along with field notes and ongoing observation of participants’ current teaching environments in order to generate material for triangulation and contextual understanding of the data. The analysis of whether the project described herein has contributed to reducing the gap between the theoretical framework of teaching competences in telecollaboration and its transferral to teaching praxis is significant for future input on other training programmes.