"Winging a Lesson Plan"

Novice teachers graduating from teacher education institutions often feel that the knowledge they have acquired during their pre-service training does not prove to be useful when they start teaching, is not practical enough and is removed from the reality of teaching. Thus, there is need for research which will examine the knowledge pre-service teachers acquire in the teacher education institution, and its relation to the process of the formulation of teachers'' knowledge. This book, therefore, examines the process through which pre-service teachers acquire their professional knowledge throughout their lives, with a special emphasis on the pre-service education stage. The study described in the book was conducted through narrative research, and is based on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin on discourse. The lives and work of two high school English teachers are examined in depth, resulting in a description of discourse development throughout their lives. The relevancy of all this for teacher education is discussed, including suggested changes, which might be of interest to both teacher educators and academics interested in the domain of teachers'' knowledge.