Novice Teachers as Learners: Exploring Pedagogical Stories

This paper describes and interprets the design and implementation of a collaborative professional framework conducted with a group of novice teachers of English. During the sessions, the teachers explored their experiences of the first year of teaching by sharing their pedagogical stories and engaging in ‘authentic conversation’. As a result of these sessions, the teachers produced a booklet at the end of the year under the heading: A Friendly Guide to the New Teacher. The study that I conducted explores novices’ experiences of telling pedagogical stories as a way of discovering and acting upon their beliefs concerning teaching and learning. Conceptually, the study focuses on the role of narrative and authentic conversation as a way of reflecting on experience and as a form of action research.