Learning to Teach

Abstract

Microteaching is a learning activity from which preservice teachers (PSTs) learn to teach either individually, in pairs or in groups. Thanks to its merits, it has been widely used in teacher education. The paper investigates a specific case of four PSTs conducting microteaching in groups of three as an obligatory component of an English language teacher education programme in a leading higher education institution in Vietnam. Informed by activity theory within the sociocultural perspective, the paper elucidates the learning process of these four PSTs through reflection on their microteaching sessions in their third year to shed light on the application and development of teaching knowledge and skills, peer scaffolding, contradictions within the activity system of the PSTs and their teacher identity construction. The last aspect is considered the contribution of the current study to fulfill a research gap since identity construction through microteaching has rarely been studied before.