A Constructivist Perspective to Language Teacher Development in Kenya

Abstract

The field of language teaching has over the years been expanded to accommodate more modern and flexible approaches examining the entire process of language learning and teaching. This we believe is able to provide knowledge into a new orientation in the manner in which the modern language teacher should be educated and taken through the process of teacher development. Based on this orientation of thought to the process of language instruction, in this paper, we do envisage a language teacher who is dynamic and versatile, one who is able to reconstruct their cognitions to language teaching and learning to accommodate unique and varying instructional environments in order to experience productive language learning. Such a teacher in our view is one who is not only grounded in theory of language, language learning and acquisition and pedagogical knowledge but is also, guided by constructivist approaches to teaching and learning. This is a teacher who is able to constructively manipulate their teaching and learning environment to attain the best possible results through the nature of instructional process. Such a teacher is able to ingeniously handle challenges that they face or are likely to face. The perspectives within the constructivist approaches provide the teacher with resourceful and practical avenues of expression and practice. The teacher‟s role modifies to that of helping learners to construct knowledge rather than to reproduce a sequence of facts. This is a teacher who is oriented in such a manner that they handle the entire language instructional process with an understanding of the distinctive features of the instructional environment academically, socially and culturally. In this paper, we thus endeavour to create a link between theory, research and practice from the backdrop of the constructivist teacher education and the practice of the English language teacher in Kenyan.