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How ‘sign meaning develops’: Strategic mediation in learning to teach

A fundamental goal of any L2 teacher education program is to move novice teachers toward greater levels of professional expertise, both in terms of what they know and what they can do with what they know. Yet, it is less clear how the activities embedded in teacher education programs actually assist novice teachers as they move toward greater levels of expertise. Informed by a sociocultural theoretical perspective on teacher learning (Johnson, 2009) this study examines the practices of a teacher educator as she works with a team of three novice teachers of English as a second language (ESL) who are exposed to and attempt to take up and use a set of pedagogical tools designed to assist them in garnering greater levels of student participation and engagement in their L2 instruction. Specifically, this study traces how the meaning and functional uses of this set of pedagogical tools develops and the critical role that strategic mediation must play in order to assist novice teachers in becoming fluent users of these pedagogical tools in their L2 instruction.