The Douglas Fir Group Framework as a Resource Map for Language Teacher Education

THE PUBLICATION OF THE DOUGLAS FIR Group's (DFG, 2016) article reminded me of recurring paradigm debates in our field over the last 3 decades (e.g., Firth Zuengler Tseng, Dörnyei, Harvey, 2017; Lanvers, 2018). As I stated at the outset, discussions of paradigm shifts are hardly new in the language studies field. Even so, I welcome the DFG framework with its 10 research themes as a key intellectual resource underlying transdisciplinary, innovative research that can generate critical insights for language learners and teachers to improve their well-being. That positive assessment may, in part, stem from the fact that the DFG framework directly connects my work to some of the central debates in our field, rather than relegating it to the periphery. Far more important, however, is my belief that the DFG framework can serve as a pedagogical resource for language teachers thatenables them to position their teaching within the big picture of learning and teaching and, thereby, encourage them to re-commit themselves to supporting their own language learners by any means whatsoever. It also provides a guide for language teacher educators to help language teachers maneuver strategically in pursuit of professional development. In other words, the framework not only presents a research resource map that underpins holistic inquiries into “language learning and teaching” by “taking into account forces beyond individual learners” (DFG, 2016, p. 20); it also maps out the complexity of the learning and teaching that language teacher educators need to impart to language teachers for their professional development. The collection of studies in this issue can be approached from different perspectives, but as a language teacher educator I believe that they highlight at least four challenges for teacher educators in the preparation of language teachers: (a) the deficit discourses about language learners associated with the monolingualism bias in SLA research (Ortega, 2019, this issue), (b) integrating a broadened theorization of cognition in teaching (Ellis, 2019, this issue), (c) taking a usage-based approach to linguistics to inform pedagogical decisions (Hall, 2019, this issue; LaScotte original italic). However, language teachers “need to make language and language learning a reality for learners” (Widdowson, 1998, p. 715), a demand that draws attention to theorization about language cognition in context. By focusing on language learning within micro and macro contexts, the DFG framework presents a theorization of cognition as socially distributed and as taking place within a human body that connects cognition and the world. Individual learners’ language cognition is dependent on context and is enacted through learner action upon the context (e.g., Atkinson et al., 2018; Zuengler see also Ahearn, 2001). Such a consideration acknowledges social contributions to the development and exercise of agency, but it may not be well suited to helping us to “identify agentic actions,” as agency and structure are mutually constitutive in this conceptualization (Hitlin they should also explore ways to create and sustain the contextual conditions that are conducive to changes in their learning and professional practice. Publication of the DFG (2016) article may be regarded as a in the development of what counts as SLA research. The framework can be seen as a point for a group of SLA researchers who on related to language teaching In my it also language teacher educators like me to how the framework can be used to inform the development of language teacher education programs by why we teach what we teach, and how we teach Language teacher education programs should on language teachers who are to social justice and equity in teaching, who are critically aware of the significant impact that contextual conditions may have on language learners’ learning, and who can help language learners develop semiotic resources to assert themselves in contexts. central tenets of dynamic complex system theory with a rich understanding of teacher agency may prepare language teacher educators and language teachers for a understanding of their own professional The DFG framework can also as a map to guide language teachers’ efforts to prepare themselves for the task of learning to create a more equitable world through language teaching. of us a difficult process of in which agency will a critical role in transforming our understanding and our pursuit of professional For the of a more equitable we must and