Positioning Theory in Language Teacher Education

Abstract

This chapter depicts the link between positioning theory and second/foreign language teacher education. The increasing focus on “social contextsocial context” has resulted in a shift in language teaching; that is, the main goal of language teacher education (LTE) has shifted from equipping language teachers with the best practices and expecting them to be the transmitters of knowledge to preparing and understanding language teachers in their social contexts and histories. These recent understandings of language teaching and teachers have led to three major areas of research: learning to teachlearning to teach; the identities and agencyagency of language teachers; and the sociocultural nature of language teaching practices. This chapter explains how positioning theory can be utilized in some of these areas.