From a Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective (1994), concepts are created to grasp the potential of life and, as such, are foremost practical. Indeed, concepts have to be used and have to work.
Teacher becoming in CALL (TBIC) (Bangou & Vasilopoulos, 2018; Bangou, 2020) is a concept that is put to work within this website to grasp the difference and transformative potential of teacher education in CALL and to re-think language teachers' decision-making and practices when learning to integrate digital technologies into their practice.
Indeed, TBIC challenges the idea that if "the language, structures, organisation and administration of teacher education are established, then the right kind of pedagogical practices and desired forms of learning will somehow emanate from that" (Gale, 2007, p. 472).
Instead, TBIC recognizes that what is happening in teacher education in CALL is not so much the result of one's agency, or sets of standards, but is rather the materialisation of transformations of tangible, intangible, human, non-human, and expressive elements' capacities to act. As such, TBIC focuses on the very act of transformation of elements associated with teaching, learning, research, and CALL and how these transformations occur through multiplicities of rhizomatic connections between tangible, intangible, human, non-human, and expressive elements.
What all this means is that the substance of TBIC is in a constant process of becoming other as TBIC never repeats itself the same way twice. Creativity is immanent to TBIC and is not located either in minds or in things but rather in the multiplicity of connections associated with teaching, learning, research, and CALL.
As such, TBIC cannot be captured, controlled, and solved but only (re)created through experimentations with connected elements of TBIC (e.g., teachers, research methodology, students, language, technology, curriculum, resonances, regulations, methodology, etc.).
A visual expression of Teacher Becoming in CALL (TBIC)
This visual expression of TBIC is a rhizomatic assemblage (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) of expressive, human, material, and technological elements intermingling with the forces of territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization with no beginning and no end but only various points of entry (e.g., human elements, forces of destabilization, etc.).
While the elements of this assemblage are randomly situated, TBIC appears in the middle to express that it is the point of entry into the agencement of students’ experience with(in) the course. Moreover, connecting lines are actualized in various colors and thickness to express that elements of TBIC never connect the same way twice (colors) and with the same intensity (thickness). (Bangou, 2020, p. 193)
While the elements of this assemblage are randomly situated, TBIC appears in the middle to express that it is the point of entry into the agencement of students’ experience with(in) the course. Moreover, connecting lines are actualized in various colors and thickness to express that elements of TBIC never connect the same way twice (colors) and with the same intensity (thickness). (Bangou, 2020, p. 193)
References
Bangou, F. & Vasilopoulos, G. (2018). Disrupting course design in online CALL teacher education: An experimentation. E-learning and Digital Media, 15(3), 146-163.
Bangou, F. (2020). How Might Teacher Education in CALL Exist? Becomings and Experimentations. In F., Bangou, M., Waterhouse, and D., Fleming, (Eds.). Deterritorializing Language, Teaching, and Learning: Deleuzo-Guattarian Perspectives on Second Language Education (pp. 175-199). Leden, The Netherlands: Brill/Sense.
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia partII. London, UK: Athlone Press.
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1994). What is philosophy? New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Gale, K. (2007). Teacher education in the university: working with policy, practice and Deleuze. Teaching in Higher Education, 12(4), 471-483.