Brings together 20 years of research studying beginning teachers in university programs and their early jobs to consider how people learn to teach English and the language arts.

Drawing together Smagorinsky’s extensive research over a 20-year period, Learning to Teach English and the Language Arts explores how beginning teachers’ pedagogical concepts are shaped by a variety of influences. Challenging popular thinking about the binary roles of teacher education programs and school-based experiences in the process of learning to teach, Smagorinsky illustrates, through case studies in the disciplines of English and the Language Arts, that teacher education programs and classroom/school contexts are not discrete contexts for learning about teaching, nor are each of these contexts unified in the messages they offer about teaching. He explores the tensions, not only between these contexts and others, but within them to illustrate the social, cultural, contextual, political and historical complexity of learning to teach. Smagorinsky revisits familiar theoretical understandings, including Vygotsky’s concept development and Lortie’s apprenticeship of observation, to consider their implications for teachers today and to examine what teacher candidates learn during their teacher education experiences and how that learning shapes their development as teachers.

"Smagorinsky takes the well-worn battle between theory and practice in teacher education and blurs the distinctions. His case studies provide a rich source of evidence of how people learn to teach under the notion of concept development." - Bethan Marshall, Senior Lecturer, King’s College London, UK

"Smagorinsky skillfully weaves together Vygotskian theory, case study research and pedagogical implication to offer an engaging, insightful examination of the many factors that shape the teaching of English and the language arts." - Melanie Shoffner, Associate Professor of English Education, James Madison University, USA