The Role of Reflective Conversations and Feedback in Helping Preservice Teachers Learn to Use Cooperative Activities in their Second Language Classrooms

Abstract

The object of this qualitative study was to examine how preservice second language teachers navigate through the difficulties of introducing cooperative learning into their classrooms during student teaching, despite the fact that this approach differs from their cooperating teachers' customary teaching strategy. We sought to determine what helps or inhibits the student teachers' progress. Although convictions about the usefulness of the cooperative approach and other personal motivation provided the springboard for experimentation, it became evident from the analysis of supervisory conversations that expert coaching and continuous moral support are essential to foster the development of the preservice teachers' ability to innovate in their teaching approach. In the absence of informed in-school support, expert help is needed from outside the school. Under these conditions, the university supervisor becomes a central player in the preservice teacher's construction of knowledge about cooperative learning.