Pre-service Metaphorical Representations on Teacher's Role

Abstract

The aims of this study are to identify and analyze the conceptual metaphors produced by pre-service teachers from Universidad de Concepción (Chile) about a) teachers in Chile, and b) pre-service teachers. The theoretical framework of this research comes from two converging perspectives: teacher cognition and conceptual metaphor. A questionnaire was designed to collect subjects' metaphorical representations. The collected metaphors were analyzed based on Saban's (2004) proposal which distinguishes between teacher-centered and student-centered metaphors. The respondents' metaphors about teachers match with the properties Saban attributed to metaphors. Other metaphors reveal respondents' awareness of the negative loaded value assigned to teachers. Respondents conceptualize pre-service teachers metaphorically as a living being under development and as a hero.