ABSTRACT
Over four years of monthly meetings, I have listened to the talk of pre-service and beginning teachers in Friday evening conversations. As I have analysed my notes from our conversations, I have seen a variety of patterns emerge. The most obvious of these is that there is a qualitative difference in the ways pre-service teachers talk about themselves and the work of teaching compared with the talk of beginning and more experienced teachers, and these differences hold important lessons about learning to teach and about teacher education itself. Less obvious, but equally important for their implications for teachers’ professional development, are the ways in which both pre-service and new teachers’ conversation work as exemplars of autobiographically situated reflection and insight. Finally, consideration of who speaks, when, and about what has provided me with insight about what is important to these new teachers and has helped me to think critically about what works in pre-service and in-service teacher education.
