Community of Practice: Supporting EFL Pre-Service Teachers in Conflict Resolution

Yıl 2019, Cilt: 5 Sayı: 12, 976 - 991, 29.10.2019

Paula Andrea Roa Gomez

Öz

This
study was carried out to explore and describe the results of building a
community of practice with a group of English pre-service teachers aiming to
boost new educators’ professional development by addressing conflicts among
students, a frequent issue in public schools. On the other hand, technology was
integrated into the process not only as an instrument to build the community,
but also as an instrument to gather information throughout this study. In this
regard, a blog was created, taking advantage of characteristics that online
communities of practice have over traditional face-to-face communities. This
study takes a descriptive-interpretative qualitative research method in order
to analyze and describe data obtained from the members. The community members
were seventeen pre-service English teachers from a public University in Bogota,
Colombia, who were working on their pedagogical practicum in a public school in
the same city. Findings suggest that building a community of practice with the
PSTs improved their abilities to identify issues in their classroom resulting
in an improvement in their profession. Moreover, it was observed that building
an online community created a comfortable environment that enhanced members’
confidence when sharing anecdotes, experiences, and knowledge with others.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Community of Practice, Online Communities of Practice, Conflicts among Students, ; EFL Pre-service Teachers

Kaynakça

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