Teacher Development or Training?: Recent Developments in Second / Foreign Language Teacher Education

The research focus in second language teacher education for the lastdecade has undergone a shift from searching for better ways to trainteachers to trying to describe and understand the process of howteachers learn to teach through their self-awareness or reflection. Inline with this recent shift of emphasis from the notion of training tothat of development, the idea of teacher exploration or an exploratoryapproach has often been discussed as a sort of “liberating tool” forteachers from the pressure of identifying a best or better way ofteaching (Gebhard & Oprandy, 1999). This paper, thus, outlines anddiscusses recent developments in the field by addressing a) how isteacher development different from teacher training? b) what is teacherexploration in relation to teacher development? and c) what areactivities that teachers can use to work on their development and toexplore their teaching? While illustrating some of the key assumptionsthat underlie the idea of teacher development/exploration in contrast totraditional views of teacher training, this paper also emphasizes thepotential benefits of an exploratory approach as part of our ownlearning processes as language teachers and educators