Abstract:
The field of language teaching has over the years been expanded to accommodate more modern and
flexible approaches examining the entire process of language learning and teaching. This we belie
ve is
able to provide knowledge into a new orientation in the manner in which the modern language teacher
should be educated and taken through the process of teacher development. Based on this orientation of
thought to the process of language instruction,
in this paper, we do envisage a language teacher who is
dynamic and versatile, one who is able to reconstruct their cognitions to language teaching and learning
to accommodate unique and varying instructional environments in order to experience productive
language learning. Such a teacher in our view is one who is not only grounded in theory of language,
language learning and acquisition and pedagogical knowledge but is also, guided by constructivist
approaches to teaching and learning. This is a teacher wh
o is able to constructively manipulate their
teaching and learning environment to attain the best possible results through the nature of instructional
process. Such a teacher is able to ingeniously handle challenges that they face or are likely to face. Th
e
perspectives within the constructivist approaches provide the teacher with resourceful and practical
avenues of expression and practice. The teacher‟s role modifies to that of helping learners to construct
knowledge rather than to reproduce a sequence of
facts. This is a teacher who is oriented in such a
manner that they handle the entire language instructional process with an understanding of the
distinctive features of the instructional environment academically, socially and culturally. In this paper,
w
e thus endeavour to create a link between theory, research and practice from the backdrop of the
constructivist teacher education and the practice of the English language teacher in Kenyan.
