Language action, awareness, and teacher's professional development in continued education

Abstract:

This article discusses the relationship between the text genre concept and teacher's professional development in continued education. This study examined how the text genre concept, taken as a psychological tool, was assembled in interviews with a teacher in continued education in order to show "clues" given by the language action about his/her (possible) professional development, evoking a process of awareness about teaching work with didactic genre projects. The conducted research, of qualitative-interpretative nature and enlightened by the principles of Sociodiscursive Interacionism, seeks to highlight the link between episteme and practice in teachers' work in continued education. Results suggest that the social debate initiated in the training process has positive effects on teacher development by providing them with a reflection on their work and an appropriation of new ways of acting, guided by the text genre concept.

Keywords:
Text genres; didactic genre projects; continued education; professional development; sociodiscursive interactionism