The transition from student to teacher: students’ negotiations in the third space of an early community practicum

Abstract

The article explores the experiences of three third-year Chilean EFL student teachers who took on the role of teachers in a community engagement project based in Santiago during the first semester of 2017. During this early community practicum, the task of the students was to conduct extracurricular English workshops for a group of pupils coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. Using Homi Bhabha’s concept of third space, the article focuses on the impact that this practicum had on the professional trajectory of the students. While on placement, they find themselves in a third space, being neither students, nor teachers, but somewhat in-between. It is argued that this hybrid space entails a partial transition from student to teacher, which manifests itself through a series of tensions that are negotiated during this process. As a result, the article analyses some of their most important beliefs that change as a result of this placement.