A pre-service teacher training course for Portuguese as a foreign language teachers: learning to be a collaborative professional

Abstract

This article aims at presenting some of the results from my research which investigated a Teaching Training Course for pre-service teachers of Portuguese as a Foreign Language that emphasized a reflexive-collaborative posture among its participants (Schön , 1983; Griffiths  and Tann , 1992; Zeichner  and Liston , 1996; among others). The methodology used in this research involved shooting of classes, collaborative sections, and the use of diaries with four pre-service teachers from the Centro de Extensão da Faculdade de Letras da UFMG. The results of the research show that a pre-service training course for teachers of Portuguese as a foreign language involving a reflexive-collaborative process causes changes in the beliefs and in the pedagogical practices of the teachers.