Introduction

One important goal for student teachers to achieve in ITE is to develop

their teacher autonomy (discussed in section 2.2.1 of this chapter) so they are ready to manage and lead a class from their first day as a professional

teacher. At the same time, student teachers are learners themselves who still need to learn to take control of their own learning, continuously monitoring

their progress in the process of learning to teach. Similar to the process of learner autonomy, which is defined as “the capacity to take control of one’s own learning” according to Benson (2001, p. 47), student teachers also ought

to develop metacognitive strategies that enable them to control, evaluate and

be more actively engaged in their own learning, although what kind of learner training, as Sinclair (1996) would call, is more effective in ITE has not been

fully established yet. The process of learning to teach is so far understood as a long-term process in which teachers struggle throughout their career to

become intellectually independent, meaning that they will learn to have the capacity to take control over their teaching, make professional decisions, and

adapt to new changes flexibly and effectively as needs arise (Benson, 2001; Little, 1995). In other words, ITE is only the initiation stage of their lifelong

career. Furthermore, as many researchers in teacher education have argued,

learning to teach in order to develop teacher autonomy is a dialogical process that integrates abstract conceptualization, experience and action with the help

of reflection (Kolb, 1984; Korthagen, Kessels, Koster, Lagerwerf, & Wubbels, 2001; Schön, 1983; Tsui, 2003). In teacher education, reflective practices, in

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other words a set of specific activities that student teachers employ for reflection, have been advocated as one solution to bridge the gap between

theory learned at HEIs and practice at schools (McIntyre, 1993; Schön, 1983), via theorising declarative knowledge and adjusting it to a specific teaching

context by reflecting while teaching; in other words, through “reflection-in-action” (Schön, 1983, p. 49). With regard to reflective practices

in ITE, see section 2.2.5 later in this chapter. In ITE, student teachers are also expected to develop teacher expertise by constructing, linking and

reconstructing its various elements with the help of reflective practices (see section 2.2.4 in this chapter for the further discussion on the dialogical

process of professional development).

However, as Borg (2006) argues, the process of learning to teach is often

depicted as a cognitive process within an individual teacher. It is a self-contemplating and internal process by which a teacher deepens and

reconstructs their knowledge base through reflection. The process focuses to a considerable extent on the teacher. Such a process is suitable for

describing more experienced teachers with much theoretical knowledge and classroom experience, but not so much for novice teachers, and thus, more

research should be conducted to elucidate the process of student teachers who have recently joined a community of practitioners (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

These teachers will have to learn to fully participate in the community

practices through the interplay between them and cohort student teachers, their supervising teachers and students with whom they interact. This is

especially true in the case of ITE in Japan where there is little opportunity for actual teaching experiences or appropriate training for reflection is usually not

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provided much during their training (see section 1.3.5 in Chapter 1 on the challenges that ITE in Japan faces).

This study examines and tracks how secondary-school EFL student teachers in Japan with such challenges struggle to develop their teacher

expertise and what aspects may help, or constrain, the process of developing teacher autonomy. As Lamb (2011) notes, when learners develop autonomy,

they are likely to be fragile and vulnerable; thus, the learning environment that nurtures and protects them ought to be ensured. Similarly, in the process of

teacher autonomy, the learning environment in which student teachers operate takes on great significance. In order to more deeply understand the process and the learning environment of student teachers’ professional

development, the current chapter presents the theoretical foundation drawn

upon for this particular research. Since becoming a more autonomous teacher is an ultimate goal in teacher education, this chapter first explores the

various dimensions of teacher expertise. In addition, the dimensions of expertise peculiar to English language teachers will be explored, since being

a good teacher slightly differs from being a good language teacher, although the two do share many things in common. Then, current approaches to

teacher expertise development, especially the role of theoretical learning at HEIs and the role of reflective practices, will be investigated. The final section

will elucidate a sociocultural perspective on teacher professional development in order to argue how individual and internal process of student teachers’

professional development can be mediated by external and social interactions

with other members of the learning community. As Lantolf and Johnson (2007) contend, human cognition is formed and developed through social

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activities, and thus student teachers’ cognitive development can be

understood as a dialogical process, mediated by context and social

interaction. The current chapter also explores how participating in social activities such as emulating and interacting with others(e.g. other pre-service

teachers, more experienced teachers) benefits, or becomes detrimental to, student teachers in developing their professional expertise and becoming

more autonomous.