Abstract

The European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) is a document intended for students engaged in initial teacher education. It is, primarily, a tool for reflection focusing on the didactic knowledge and skills necessary to teach languages. It is also designed to help student teachers to assess their own didactic competences, to monitor their progress and to record their experiences of teaching during their teacher education. The EPOSTL has been used in a variety of different ways in the five years since its initial publication in 2007 and in this time has been translated into thirteen European and Asian languages.. The presentation will present examples, discussions and research findings of how the EPOSTL has been used in initial teacher education courses, in bi-lateral teacher-education programmes, in teaching practice, in developing mentor expertise and as a research tool in eight different European countries.

Bio

Barry Jones is Head of Modern Languages/Principal Lecturer at Homerton College, and Lecturer in Education at Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. His primary research and professional interests lie in the application of language learning and teaching theories to teaching modern languages and developing a pan- European competence model for Modern Language student teachers. He has given key note lectures and contributed to many conferences on modern language teacher training in a European context. Recent lectures have been in Siena, Sèvres, and in March, 2012, four lectures in Tokyo and Kyoto. In 2012, he completed a seven year project focusing on modern language student teacher competences for the Council of Europe, based in Graz, Austria. The resulting publication a European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL) has to date been translated into 14 European languages, and a version was published in 2011 in Japanese. More translations are to follow.