| This dissertation reports on an ethnography of a student teaching practicum in a university-based certificate program in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). First, the study presents the practicum as the point at which prospective teachers cross the professional boundary into the profession in that successful completion of the course affords individuals the status of legitimate peripheral participants in the field of TESOL. That is, practicum teachers become fully authorized members of the TESOL profession. After the practicum hiring and retention practices may make ultimate determinations as to acceptable teacher practice. Second, this study attempts to account for why the overwhelming majority of practicum teachers pass this course. It demonstrates that the practicum is a jointly constructed event which secures participants' status in the practicum. In this context, participants "pass" as teachers by engaging in certain core jointly constructed rituals which ensure their status. However, the data show that achieving and maintaining this status as sanctioned, legitimate ESOL teachers had little to do with teacher knowledge or skill. This dissertation draws attention to the need for TESOL teacher education to look more closely at the possible gap between what TESOL programs say they do and what they may in fact be doing in training teachers. TESOL programs need to look at their practicum courses and the component parts---the seminar, observations, feedback, and assignments along with the actions and beliefs of the participants---in order to better understand what it means to "do" a practicum or to "pass" one. |
