Foreign language teachers: divided between wandering through a strange language and making use of someone else’s language

Abstract

This paper aims at questioning the teacher-foreign language rapport
in the educational scenario. We intend to discuss foreign language construction
as an object of knowledge, and how this construction may influence teachers’
representations of the language they teach, as well as the process of teaching
and learning this language. The presupposition is that the mother tongue, as
well as the foreign language, constitute, primarily, the means by which someone
can be inscribed in the symbolic universe as a subject of language
(BENVENISTE, 1966, 1974; LACAN, 1998). Occupying a teacher’s position
implies that a rapport with the object of knowledge has been at least minimally
established, so that someone can assume the role of a mediator between those
who demand the knowledge and the object of this knowledge itself. It is a
troublesome relationship, since the imaginary ideas about the foreign language
taught by the teachers (and which often haven’t been grasped yet) clashes with
the contingence of the educational scene and with the rapport the teachers
themselves have toward that language. Therefore, we propose to discuss to what
extent the subject-language rapport influences the image teachers have of
themselves and if/how they see themselves invested in this position.