Becoming an English teacher: an arts-informed and inquiry-based model of initial teacher education

This chapter explores one such model of Initial Teacher Education – the “Arts-informed Inquiry-based” model – for pre-service secondary English teachers at the University of Sydney. The model takes as its starting point Bullough’s premise that:teacher identity – what beginning teachers believe about teaching and learning and self-as-a-teacher – is of vital concern to teacher education; it is the basis for meaning making and decision making. The chapter provides an overview of the Master of Teaching (Secondary) degree and follow this with a close analysis of extracts from an English pre-service teachers’ reflective narratives. Teacher professional identity is broadly understood as being influenced by multiple personal and contextual factors that interact in a reciprocal way “so identity is continually reshaped over the life of an individual”. Critical reflective practice involves both the capacity for critical inquiry and self-reflection to facilitate a holistic, “intertwined” process of identity development.