Exploratory practice (EP) is a form of practitioner research that has made inroads in second language learning and teaching since the special issue of Language Teaching Research (2003) in which Allwright et al. proposed its reconceptualization in language teaching. Two decades later, this article reports on the influence that EP has accomplished by having its principled framework integrated in the pre-service language teacher education (LTE) programmes of two Brazilian Universities. A British Council funded project (2018–19) enabled a group of Brazilian teacher educators to carry out a qualitative investigation to identify how 44 of their former teacher-learners who undertook these programmes between 2008 and 2018 perceive the value of EP in their professional lives. The thematic analysis of the discourse generated through face-to-face exploratory conversations (ECs) yielded three major themes: (I) how the teachers understand and integrate EP into their working lives; (II) how they overcome institutional pressures through EP engagement; and (III) how they view EP as a way of humanizing students. These themes are pivotal to the processes of understanding EP’s sustainability through the teachers’ perspectives. Having been socialized into EP, these practitioners assert to have found in EP a sustainable source of professional survival and resistance. That is, years after the completion of their LTE programme, the EP principles have helped these teachers to enhance their awareness of classroom challenges by humanizing their students and adopting a way of ‘being’, in reference to Heidegger’s term Dasein, for human being (1962) in the classroom.
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