Our ambition is to present research taking place in the field of pre-service teacher education the aim of which it to find out in what ways student teachers’ of English as a foreign language construct their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and whether this process can be facilitated by using suitable reflective techniques. In other words, the main research question is whether a student teacher with a higher reflective competence constructs PCK in a different way from a student whose reflective competence is considerably lower.

There are two key concepts which establish a sound theoretical base for the research project. The first one is the construct of pedagogical content knowledge introduced by Shulman (1986) as part of his broader concept of “knowledge base for teaching” (Ibid.). Shulman’s construct of pedagogical content knowledge aroused a long-lasting interest in the field of empirical research in education, esp. in English speaking countries. The concept refers to a specialised pedagogical knowledge of teachers which clarifies the relation between the subject matter and the knowledge of classroom know-how (Gudmundsdottir et al. 1995; Wilson, Shulman, Richert 1987; Gudmundsdottir 1991; Shulman 1986, 1987).  So far the concept has been exploited within the Anglo-American tradition of curricular research which in some features differs from the tradition of Central European didactics (see  Hopmann, Riquarts 1995). PCK is understood as a unique, highly contextualised type of knowledge which enables teachers to perform so-called onto-didactic and most importantly psycho-didactic transformation of the subject matter. So far, the concept of PCK has mostly been developed and further conceptualised by researchers and teacher educators in the field of sciences (cfr.  Rowan, Ball, Gudmunsdottir) while the field of language education has not been in the limelight of researchers’ interest (cfr. Darling-Hammond). This is where the present research project wants to make a major contribution.

The second key concept is the concept of the teacher as a reflective practitioner, which fully complies with the current view of teacher competencies where teachers’ reflective skills constitute an important part of the teacher professional profile as well as of their effective teaching practices. In this project we adhere to reflection and reflective thinking as conceptualised by Dewey. Alongside with Dewey, we believe that reflection is a specific kind of thought characterised by four decisive attributes where reflection is understood as a meaning-making process, as systematic, disciplined way of thinking which takes place in interaction with other participants who appreciate personal and intellectual development of themselves as well as of the others. (Dewey 1916/1944. In Rodgers, 2002). At the same time we believe that reflection is a mental process that can be developed even though there might be differences in the reflective potential of individual teachers.

Therefore an existing one-term university course in methodology combined with a reflective seminar on students’ teaching practice were used as an intervention during which students carried a number of reflective tasks and through which also data were collected.

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