Learning to Teach English and the Language Arts

Peter Smagorinsky is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, USA, and serves as Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Guadalajara, Mexico. He has won a number of internationally recognised awards, including, the National Council of Teachers of English Distinguished Service Award in 2017, the International Federation for the Teaching of English Award in 2018, Distinguished Scholar at the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy in 2018 and the Horace Mann League Outstanding Public Educator Award in 2020.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction1. Vygotsky and Concept Development2. Methodological Implications of Taking a Vygotskian Approach to Teacher Development3. An Updated Perspective on the Apprenticeship of Observation4. Concept Development in Teacher Education Coursework and Practica5. Cultures of Color and the Deep Structure of Schools6. Fuzzy Concepts in Teacher Education and their Consequences in the Classroom7. Policy, Practice, and Disruptions in Concept Development8. School Settings and Course Assignments in Shaping Conceptions of Curriculum and Instruction9. Competing Centers of Gravity within Settings of Learning to Teach10. Learning to Teach Grammar at the Intersection of Formalism and Flexibility11. Community Contexts and their Societal Settings, and How They Shape PracticeConclusionReferencesIndex

Smagorinsky takes the well-worn battle between theory and practice in teacher education and blurs the distinctions. His case studies provide a rich source of evidence of how people learn to teach under the notion of concept development.