Building pre-service teachers’ identity: the value of dialogue within the classroom

Abstract

This article is the result of an investigation whose main objective is to know which the qualities of the teachers from the perspective of the students of Primary Education Teaching are. For that, 73 pupils of the second year of the PE Teaching degree of the University of Alicante collaborated, during the academic year 2009/10. The students wrote two letters to two teachers they had had at any stage of their academic path: one to the one who made a positive impact on them and another one to the one to a teacher who didn’t. In this case, we have focused on the letter written to the teacher who did not leave a positive imprint on the participants. The information has been treated with the AQUAD6 program. The results help us recognise the improper features, more precisely: negative personal traits, low quality of interaction with pupils, didactic incompetence and unfavourable attitudinal consequences towards the students. The results recommend reflection on the initial formation of teachers, orientated to the development of teaching competences of personal and professional type, in a way that they contribute effectively to shape the teaching identity of the future teachers, making enabling them to give a successful answer to the current educative challenges.