ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a particular approach developed in postgraduate language teacher education and analyses teachers' professional narratives of autonomy-oriented practices. It argues that case pedagogy can create an interspace by encouraging the analysis of established practices and the exploration of possibilities for change, thereby enhancing the construction of professional knowledge based on inquiry into experience. The use of cases in teacher education builds upon the idea that professional experience can play a pivotal role in the reconstruction of professional knowledge and action. Teacher education needs to focus on the professional experience of teachers and involve them directly in the construction of educational knowledge. It needs to become an interspace between reality and ideals where the academic and professional worlds intersect, giving rise to hybrid epistemologies, negotiated languages and exploratory practices. The use of metaphorical language is encouraged in an attempt to enhance the construction of a personal 'language of experience'.
