Exploring English Teachers’ Perceptions About Peer-Coaching as a Professional Development Activity of Knowledge Construction
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Abstract
Teachers’ knowledge and how they construct it is an area that deserves attention when it comes to producing fruitful professional development practices. This small-scale action research aims at identifying the perceptions of three teachers in a private language center about peer-coaching and their actual construction of knowledge in a peer-coaching activity. Data were collected through two narratives and the transcription of recorded conversations among participants after the observation of their classes. The results suggest that before peer-coaching teachers held three types of perceptions towards observation and feedback: a cautious approach, an identity tension approach, and a celebratory approach. After peer-coaching one sees that two perceptions emerged: observation and feedback entail, on the one hand, high anxiety about teachers’ self-image; and on the other, observation and feedback show a deep sense of their selves.
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