Classroom strategies and techniques can help novice teachers break with traditional ways of thinking about teaching English and begin the process of becoming reflective practitioners who see teaching as a complex activity that requires creative solutions to teaching problems. Research on pre- and inservice teachers on their metaphors for teaching indicate that teacher educators need to help pre- and inservice teachers change their metaphors for teaching and develop strategies that will enable them to enact their new metaphors for teaching. A language arts methods course instructor uses an "opinionnaire" activity that is designed to get prospective English teachers thinking critically about their own metaphors for teaching. Another activity involves having the students write a short paper on how they would teach the first day of class given a particular roster of students. Essays are discussed in class to bring out things they missed in their essays. A third activity illustrates a way to hold students' interest and involves a questionnaire of 10 to 20 items that focus on a single major character in literature but put that character in new situations. After working through the activity, the students create their own "what if?" activities. Learning these different strategies seems to help preservice teachers begin to break away from traditional views of instruction and develop new metaphors. (Contains 34 references. Appendixes contain a teaching and learning in English opinionnaire, a parent-child relationships questionnaire and associated writing assignments, a description of the "how would you teach this class?" activity, and two "what if?" questionnaires.) (RS)