Developing writing concepts for teaching purposes: Preservice L2 writing teachers’ developing conceptual understanding of parallelism

•Teachers’ knowledge of content develops through teaching methods course.•Teachers’ content values impact how they interact with scientific concepts.•Strategic mediation models appropriate content values.

While there has recently been increased attention to L2 writing teacher education in the professional literature, much work remains to be done. In particular, while recent studies have examined the outcomes of L2 writing teacher preparation and professional development courses on teachers’ overall attitudes and conceptions of the teaching of L2 writing, little research has focused on how teachers engage with the specific content and assignments in the moment to moment progression of such courses. This study addresses this need by examining two pre-service ESL writing teachers’ developing understanding of the concept of parallelism within a team microteaching assignment in a TESL methodology course. Using a teacher knowledge framework and Vygotskyan sociocultural theory analytical, this study traces changes in teachers’ understanding of this single concept as they move through the various stages of the assignment, as well as examining how the teachers’ interactions with instructional materials and the teacher educator mediated their developing understanding. The findings demonstrate that even in preparing to teach a relatively simple concept such as parallelism, novice teachers engage in an extended process of learning and that how the two teachers interacted with the available mediation differed based on their underlying conceptions of writing. This analysis can illuminate how L2 writing teachers learn in teacher education coursework and provide insight for L2 writing teacher educators and supervisors as they work to promote L2 writing teachers’ ongoing professional development.