Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

elation to their school and other communities and the effect this had on their changing
professional identities.
6.4.1 Teachers' changing practices and roles
From Mary's second interview, we see that she spoke of 'increasing confidence' and
having 'more direction'. This observation is significant for Mary who initially expressed
much uncertainty about her role as an EMS teacher. Mary's increased confidence was not
the kind of 'confidence' theorised by Graven (2002), as it did not stem from having
mastered the subject content ofthe learning area, which Mary certainly had not. Mary
was relatively more empowered to teach EMS than she was at the commencement ofthe
project. She was also considering making EMS a larger part ofher teaching load for the
next year. She had begun to identify herself with the learning area and mentioned that she
had started to 'enjoy' it.
Extract offinal interview with Mary
MM: In terms of your own learning, has this EMS project initiated learning for
you?
Mary: Most definitely, like I said the knowledge and I've got more direction in my
teaching being more familiar with the SUbject. I feel more confident now, I
feel like I'll volunteer to do more EMS next year, (laughs) because I enjoy it.
In the next extract, Mary described how she had begun to change the way in which she
taught her pupils. She explained that she 'involved' her learners to a greater extent in the
learning experiences she created and was 'happy' to be able to teach important values
through her EMS lessons. She had also started to plan for EMS activities for the
following year and appeared quite determined to follow through with her plans. Mary did
not have any doubts that she wanted to remain an EMS teacher.
Second extract from Mary's final interview:
Mary: I involve learners much more now than I did when I first started. I think
that that is very important. And the one thing I felt happy about was when I
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