Argumentation Versus Narrative: A Critical Inquiry Into Two In-service Teacher Education Programs

The slogan "Teachers as Curriculum" has become popular nowadays. Despite the policy discourse which claims more professional autonomy for teachers, knowledge-and-skills-based approach to teacher education is still favored. By drawing on Cochran-Smith & Lytle's (1999) three concepts of teacher knowledge, this thesis tries to elucidate three related modes of teacher education, and argues for the inquiry community pattern of teacher education which may truly bestow complete professional autonomy on teachers.This study investigates two in-service teacher education programs. One is a two-day short term training course for primary school English teachers, and the other is a one-semester course of Master Degree Program in Education1 for middle school English teachers (Ed. M in English teaching). I focus on the discourse aspect of each course. The former is taken in the form of lecture, and the latter seminar. In the lecture, the teacher educator works through a pre-set agenda or routine, and takes strict control over turn-taking, topic, exchange structure, etc. The main element of the genre is argument whose purpose is persuasion and conviction. The teacher knowledge transmitted in this kind of program is systematic, objective and propositional. It endows the teacher educator with the role of the knowledge-transmitter, and the trainee teachers the knowledge-receivers. On the other hand, in the seminar kind of Ed. M course, the teacher educator doesn't have tight control over her agenda or routine. The main element of the genre is narrative where the agenda, the content, etc. are all realized in the form of story-telling. The teacher knowledge being shaped in it is subjective, local, and critical. Therefore, the teacher educator becomes a facilitator, organizer and co-learner, and the Ed. M students fully involve themselves in independent thinking, enquiring and learning.Further identification of the characteristics of pedagogical discourse of two teacher educators also demonstrates their different identities and understandings as teacher trainers. In the first one, the language of the teacher educator reveals the characteristics of the management argument which is executive in nature. Therefore, the teacher educator appears herself as a curriculum designer and thus enforces a role of curriculum implementers on trainee teachers. While in the second one, the language of the teacher educator also contains an element of argument, but the argument is made in the form of story-telling, which reveals the characteristics of the argument in arts, inviting open discussion, reflection and multiple understandings. In this way, the teacher educator appears herself as a co-learner of the Ed. M students, encouraging initiatives and independent, critical thinking among them.In the end, the paper discusses the issue of teacher education from the perspective of language philosophy, and concludes by pointing out the limitations of the thesis and the direction of further research in this area.