Julian Edge. The Reflexive Teacher Educator in TESOL: Roots and Wings. Routledge: New York-London 2011,196 S

Abstract

Although primarily intended for language teacher educators, this latest book by Julian Edge, offers an unforgettable and profound read for anybody interested in education.The author's aim is to explore "what a reflexive teacher educator might be" (p.8) when reflexivity in teacher education is distinguished from yet still embedded in reflective practice.The structure of the book is very clear.It comprises a preface followed by ten chapters.Throughout the book Edge refers to two Greek myths (the Icarus myth and the Narcissus myth) and insights from two American pragmatist philosophers, John Dewey and Richard Rorty.Constituting a very original introduction, chapter 1 familiarizes the reader with the dialogically philosophical climate of the book.Here the author explains his understanding of terms encompassing dimensions of being in teacher education -Copying, Applying, Theorizing, Reflecting, and Acting (CATRA) -as well as dimensions of doing in teacher education -methodological, technical, theoretical, intellectual, and pragmatic, drawing on Rorty's metaphor of "final vocabulary" and assigning his own meaning to it.At the same time he explains the subtitle of the book -the imagery of "roots" and "wings" that regularly recurs in later chapters of the book.In chapter 2, "In Praise of Reflective Practice," Edge relies heavily on Schon's conception of "reflective practitioner" and presentation of three teacher education models.In this chapter, inspired by Boxer's categories of "framing" and "interpretation," he explains a teacher educator's styles of working: instructional, revelatory, emancipatory, and conjectural, along with the potential risks involved.Chapter 3, "In Search of Reflexivity," further explains the dimensions of reflexivity, expanding on its linguistic, psychological, philosophical, and ecological aspects, as well as elucidating four useful aspects of teacher education: internal relations, consistency, coherence, and continuity.A thought-provoking question in this chapter for a teacher educator might be not what knowledge people have acquired as a result of learning, but what they have become "in the sense that the person entering the next experience is no longer the one who entered the last" (p.42).Likewise, the questions "What difference does it make to the teacher education that I offer that it is I who offer it?"and "What difference does offering this teacher education make to me as a teacher educator?" (p.46)