A study on foreign language teachers’ cognition in Argentina

Abstract

In this article we discuss how the field of research called Teacher Cognition can contribute to our understanding of the role of the language teacher in the classroom and at the same time help to qualify teacher training, providing reflection tools. We present some results taken from a case study based on a one-day seminar in which a group of Argentine foreign language teachers, both in service and in training, had the opportunity to get in touch with this area of study and reflect and discuss your knowledge, beliefs and feelings from a series of individual and group exercises. Our analysis gives an account of the opinions and reflections that arose in the answers to the exercises and in the group discussions that were generated during the day, since these reflect the aspects of foreign language teaching that are most crucial for the referred teachers. In addition, we present in some detail the structure of the seminar, since our intention is to propose the benefits of including a focus on teacher cognition in training and improvement courses for language teachers.