Student teachers of Modern Foreign Languages and use of the target language in classrooms in English secondary schools: Barriers, agency and possibilities

The barriers to teacher use of the target language are well-documented (Chambers, 2013, Christie, 2016) and reasons for this are extensive and complex. My classroom observations of student teachers’ lessons have often evidenced a lack of, or minimal use of target language, even for basic instructions, praise and simple classroom management. University subject training sessions include input on teacher target language use, and most student teachers evidently acknowledge the benefits to learners. Target language may enable incidental language learning and provide an increase in challenge, as well as a rich, immersive, authentic language-learning experience in the classroom (Macaro, 2001; Bateman, 2008; Chambers, 2013). Analysis of the participants’ early teaching experiences identifies that the school environments in which they are working whilst on placement influence the development of pedagogical practices and that the role of the school subject mentor is vital. The findings of this study show that some student teachers adapt to, absorb and adopt externally imposed practices, losing some of their initial convictions. Others navigate a path through the barriers and are able to maintain their deeply held convictions, enabling them to develop their target language pedagogical practice, constructing a ‘Target Language Lifestyle’ (Christie, 2016) in their classrooms and invoking in their pupils an ‘Ideal Second Language Self’ (Dörnyei, 2003), positively impacting on pupils’ engagement with the target language and overall language learning experience. Newly developing teacher identity is viewed through a Lacanian lens; individual identities are configured by the Other, in the form of mentors who may impose their own expectations of how Modern Foreign Languages should be taught, and pupils who have their own expectations of how languages lessons should be, potentially causing a split in the student teacher’s evolving teacher identity. Lacanian psychological theory proposes that the individual is, however, not completely directed by external social forces beyond their control, and that there remains an opportunity for agency, but the individual is ‘the source of her or his own limitations’ (Clarke, 2019, p. 4). Foucault’s theory of ‘docile subjects’ (1977) serves to illuminate the underlying neo-liberal forces which are at play in education and which affect the way in which teachers teach; these pressures result in a hijacking of authentic language learning, which has the ultimate purpose of personal development of the individual, in favour of ‘School Modern Foreign Languages’, part of the Symbolic Order (Lacan, 1966/2006) in which a performativity culture prevails. For Foucault, the possibility of subverting the external imposition of power exists, to ‘refuse what we are’ (Foucault, 1982, p. 216). Student teachers demonstrate various levels of agency and, even where autonomy is currently being stifled by external forces, the potential for action remains.

Citation

Bryson, R. A. (2025). Student teachers of Modern Foreign Languages and use of the target language in classrooms in English secondary schools: Barriers, agency and possibilities [Unpublished doctoral thesis]. University of Chester.

Publisher

University of Chester

URI

https://chesterrep.openrepository.com/handle/10034/630021

Type

Thesis or dissertation