Learning to teach: A case study of kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong (China)

Current research on teacher knowledge has broadened the conception to include a teacher's personal knowledge about teaching. Untrained kindergarten teachers attending an in-service teacher education program are going through a critical stage of teacher development. Their personal knowledge interfaces with a body of formal knowledge of superior epistemological status. Would they switch to the body of formal knowledge that signifies teacher professionalism? What changes and transformations would there be over time in their stock of knowledge? What knowledge do they use and how does this knowledge find expression in their teaching practice?; The aim of this research was to study how untrained teachers learn to teach, first as an untrained novice teacher serving in a kindergarten and later as an experienced teacher studying in an in-service teacher education program. The case study approach was adopted. Two untrained kindergarten teachers reflected on what/how they learned to teach in the past and studied what they now learn in teacher education. Data collection commenced to study their teacher knowledge before they would receive teacher education.; The “learning-to-teach” process of the two teachers revealed four elements (the teacher as a person, the school context, the teacher education program, and the socio-cultural context) that interacted with one another to shape their teacher knowledge. They began to learn about teaching long before receiving teacher education. On-the-job learning enabled them to reproduce a teaching practice. Teacher education propelled them into a critical phase of the learning-to-teach process. They emerged with a sense of teacher professionalism, coupled with substantial changes in their stock of teacher knowledge and a new conviction in life-long professional learning. Teacher education had made a significant contribution to their teacher development process. Differences between the two teachers in what they learned and the pace of learning revealed the social nature of learning to teach. Teacher education should be situated in teachers' learning-to-teach process. Professionalizing kindergarten teachers through sustained support of the learning-to-teach process is a way to ensure a high quality education for preschool children in Hong Kong.