An Integrated Approach to EFL Teacher Education : Learning through Tasks, Reflection, and Cooperation

Abstract

The present paper reports an EFL (English as a foreign language) teacher education course that attempts to integrate communicative language learning/teaching into pre-service EFL teacher education. The course is especially designed for non-English-major college students as part of the requirements for the certificate of teaching English at secondary schools in Japan. During the one-year course, the students study not only the theories and practices of language learning/teaching but also improve their own linguistic skills by experiencing a variety of activities of using the language communicatively. Among their requirements of the course are in-class oral presentation, journal keeping, essay writing, textbook evaluation, and creating their own lesson plans. Most of the assignments and many other activities are performed in pairs or in small groups as well as individually. At the end of the year, the course evaluation by the students is conducted in written form.