Language Teacher Noticing in Tasks

Book excerpt: This book provides an accessible, evidence-based account of how teacher noticing, the process of attending to, interpreting and acting on events which occur during engagement with learners, can be examined in contexts of language teacher education and highlights the importance of reflective practice for professional development. Central to the work is an innovative mixed-methods study of task-based interaction which was undertaken with pre-service English language teachers in Japan. Through close analyses of task interaction coupled with recall data, it illustrates the ways in which pre-service teachers noticed their student partners’ use of embodied and linguistic resources. This focus on what teachers attend to, how they interpret it, and their subsequent decisions has multiple implications for language learning and teacher development. It demonstrates the value of teacher noticing for developing rapport, supporting pupils’ language acquisition, enhancing participation, fostering reflection and guiding observation, a central feature of language teachers’ career advancement.