CALL Teacher Education for Young Learner Classrooms

Abstract

One of the most important aims of CALL teacher education programs is guiding and helping pre-service teachers with the effective integration of technology into language teaching. An increasing number of studies focus on this issue by investigating attitudes and perspectives of CALL. This study goes beyond and examines actual practices regarding the strategies to promote the use of CALL in the ELT department at a state university in Turkey. More specifically, it scrutinizes how pre-service teachers’ CALL competencies are developed in teaching English to young learners (TEYL) module. It also comprises the voices of 20 pre-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ accounts about CALL-integrated ways of teaching English to young learners (YLs) through focus group interviews. The study employed semi-structured interviews, including a series of questions regarding competency in technology, module contents with specific reference to CALL, and the use of CALL in practicum. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. The results revealed interesting findings in terms of awareness of and competency in the implementation of CALL in practicum as well as the sufficiency of the TEYL module. Although participants all agreed on the importance of the use of technology due to learners’ young age and hence used their technological knowledge in practicum, some believed that teacher education had some space to be improved so that they would confidently integrate CALL into YL classes. Combining an under-researched area which is TEYL and CALL teacher education, it is believed that this study will be beneficial both for teacher education programs and YL teachers in terms of planning CALL-integrated classes.