The Teacher Is an Octopus': Uncovering Preservice English Language Teachers' Prior Beliefs through Metaphor Analysis

Preservice teachers come to any teacher education course with prior experiences, knowledge and beliefs about learning and teaching. Additionally, the belief systems of preservice teachers often serve as a lens through which they view the content of the teacher education program. Consequently, it is essential that teacher educators take these prior beliefs into account because any new material taught will have to compete with these existing beliefs and theories. However, these beliefs are usually held tacitly. One method of making this prior knowledge explicit is to examine the metaphors preservice teachers use during their practice teaching. This paper outlines a case study of the metaphors three preservice English teachers used before, during and after a six-week practice teaching experience in Singapore. Results showed that metaphors used can be classified within the following three-part typology: social order, cultural transmission and learner-centered growth.