Theories, Actions, Language, Knowledge (in Teacher's Training) (TALK)

The research group Theories, Actions, Language, Knowledge (in Teacher's Training) (TALK) is led by Prof. Sabine Vanhulle.

Research Fields

The research relates to the construction of teachers’ professional knowledge along the following lines:

Experimentation and evaluation of the effects of professionalisation-oriented devices through alternating practice and theory. This first line implies oriented forms of research: development research, collaborative research, action-research, training-action.

The analysis, in terms of basic research, of social and cognitive processes of professional knowledge. More specifically, the research explores:

• on the one hand, different forms of alternation between theory and practice in training programs of teachers, teacher trainers and other actors in the educative area: epistemological foundations, training methods and tools (portfolios, training diaries, diverse reflective procedures), accompanying modes of students and evaluation;
• on the other hand, social and language-reflective mediating processes that occur in the elaboration of professional knowledge and changes of representations in trainees during theory and practice alternation.

These analyses are based on action theories and practice analyses, enlightened by the socio-historical and cultural approach notably descended from Vygotski. They question the link existing between “knowledge” and “practice” in discursive constructions. They question the emergence of these discourses in the midst of training activities determined by contextual elements and socially marked mediation systems. The analysis of the discourse and representations, objects of knowledge and reflected tensions, relies on tools elaborated on the bases of theories of enunciation in relation with sociodiscursive interactionism.

Consequently, the above-mentioned domain is also related to the study of teacher practice as a place of professionalisation, in relation with different logics assigned to it, such as the logic of competencies. This concern notably leads to questioning the relevance and the adequacy of reference lists (professional and of training programs) versus more dynamic methodologies or referencing.

Our research domain also articulates the question of training devices to that of knowledge contents originated from the articulation between theory and practice and their appropriation modalities. In that line, it is linked to the tools useful in this appropriation, which situates it in a “didactic approach of professional knowledge”. This approach implies an analysis of the practices of trainers and a situated approach of the trainer/trainee activity.