Second language, literacy and teaching: teacher development to support the needs of low educated learners

This paper draws on a qualitative research project to discuss the situated development of novice language and literacy teachers’ practices. Narratives of language and literacy teachers’ early development suggest that the development of their professional skills reflect the conditions in which training talks place. We discuss this link initially with reference to Pierre Bourdieu’s critique of learned ignorance, according to which conditions of early practice can be expected to fuse with occupational habitus to produce ad hoc coping strategies and a rationale which makes them seem effective. Interview data is presented and analysed in this light, as we examine the extent to which certain aspects of situated practice, while an indispensable part of novice literacy teachers’ development, also create significant barriers to long-term effective development.