Abstract
Regulatory bodies such as the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) provide a framework of formal criteria to be addressed by providers of initial teacher education (ITE) but these criteria can be interpreted in many different ways. The Initial Teacher Education Research Project (ITERP) has investigated the preparation of intermediate phase (grades 4 to 6) teachers of mathematics and English at five South African universities, selected as representative of the major 'types' of institutions offering ITE. In this article we draw on our analysis of data from this research to describe and discuss the courses in mathematics and English offered by each of the five universities to student teachers specialising in mathematics or English and to 'non-specialists'. We suggest that while there are examples of excellent curriculum design and implementation, none of the universities in the study is fully addressing the challenges of teaching and learning in diverse intermediate phase classrooms. While acknowledging that answering the question how much of what? is particularly complex in teacher education contexts in which some students enter university with an inadequate knowledge base from which to develop content and pedagogic knowledge in a number of disciplines and inter-disciplinary fields, we offer some curriculum suggestions for teacher educators to consider.
Highlights
IntroductionForm a critically important schooling phase in which the majority of learners in South Africa move from learning in their primary language to using English as the main language of learning and teaching (LoLT)
Regulatory bodies such as the Department of Higher Edu cation and Training (DHET) provide a framework of formal criteria to be addressed by providers of initial teacher education (ITE) but these criteria can be interpreted in many different ways
As the disciplines differ in nature and because the ways in which they are recontextualised in teacher education differ, we provide separate and, in some respects, quite different kinds of analyses of the curricula for mathematics and English
Summary
Form a critically important schooling phase in which the majority of learners in South Africa move from learning in their primary language to using English as the main language of learning and teaching (LoLT) In these grades, they are expected to move from proficiency in arithmetic, based on counting, to proficiency in using more sophisticated mathematical tools. We begin with an outline of the overall design of the ITERP and of the methodologies adopted for collecting and analysing data in the various phases of the project This outline is followed by a presentation and discussion of data in response to the questions in the paper’s title: how much of what is offered to intermediate phase student teachers who have chosen to specialise in English or in mathematics or who have chosen other subject specialisations at one of the five universities in the study. We have chosen to refer to relevant literature within each section rather than to offer a separate literature review
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