Perspectives on teacher training and initial literacy implicit in the educational programs of normal schools in Mexico.

Abstract

Introduction. The purpose of this research project is to analyze the approaches to teacher training and initial literacy in the current language programs of normal education in Mexico. The central content of the document contains the analysis of the approaches to teacher training and initial literacy that underlie these educational programs. The theoretical approach to teacher training is based on Pérez Gómez (1996) and in the field of psychogenetic literacy in Ferreiro and Teberobsky (2007) and Lerner (2001) in social language practices.

The research methodology is projected within the critical reconstructive paradigm, as a diagnostic part of the future participatory action research that will be carried out in two more remaining phases. The perspective of the analysis is established by the methodological contributions of Habermas (2008), in the hermeneutic reconstruction of the implicit approaches in the analyzed documents.

The results and discussion of the same provide axes of analysis of the educational programs, the relationship that exists between theory and practice in the curricular approaches and a proposal of profile requirements for language subject teachers for teacher training, as well as training suggestions for future restructuring of the study plans for teacher training colleges.

In the conclusions, it is established that the perspective and approach of teacher training identified in the study programs of the Bachelor's Degree in Primary Education (1997 and 2012) and the Bachelor's Degree in Preschool Education (1999 and 2012) is mainly a technical-model decision-making. This explains that in the training processes in the teaching of students in teacher training colleges, there is a tendency to carry out activities that start from theory, carrying out analytical processes that lead to understanding the didactic principles of the teaching approaches of reading and writing, which will be applied in decision-making processes in situ of the specific teaching practice. The initial literacy approaches identified in the curricula of the Bachelor's Degrees in Primary and Pre-school Education of the 1997 and 1999 plans have a very marked tendency towards the foundations of the psychogenetic approach to the teaching and learning of reading and writing, which is based on the knowledge of the individual processes that children follow in an evolutionary manner in understanding the writing system. On the other hand, the 2012 educational programs of both degrees are primarily based on the sociolinguistic approach, based on the social practices of language, also including a fair share of the psychogenetic approach where necessary.