Abstract:

It is well documented in the literature of teacher training that working in collaborative groups enable teachers to reconstruct their professional knowledge e g Hung Der Thanq 2001 Such a process assists pre and in service teachers to take on partial but meaningful roles on the way to becoming full participants in a teacher community while constructing knowledgeable skills through reflection on action The notion underlying this type of professional learning is grounded on the theory of Communities of Practice CoP where student teachers try to solve problems through interactions with others in the community and through conceptualizing and re conceptualizing Wenger 1998 In this respect the aim of this study is to identify the impact of adopting a CoP approach to pre service English Language Teaching ELT students’ personal and professional development The data for the study were obtained from 18 ELT students’ weekly journals they kept for three months and semi structured interviews Findings reveal that applying CoP approach to pre service ELT teacher education has multidimensional impacts on students’ personal and professional development Keywords: communities of practice pre service teacher education personal and professional development

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