Abstract
First-time teaching is a transitional phase for novice teachers and it is an exciting experience and challenging task that needs to examine qualitatively. The purpose of the study is to explore prospective teachers' teaching experience as they practically live through teaching in the classroom for the first time in their lives. The phenomenological research approach was employed to explore the lived experience of thirteen teachers who were selected purposively from public and private schools in a district of the province of Punjab, Pakistan. Data were collected by interviewing the participants in an open-ended form of questions. The emergent main themes include debut in the classroom, managing classrooms, providing instructions, supported by cooperative teachers and support from school. The analysis of the themes and sub-themes revealed that prospective teachers experienced teaching quite differently from their expectations. The handling of the teaching situation became both challenging and exciting for them. The results have implications for prospective and novice teachers and educators, school administrators and experts of pre-service teacher programs who can make a plan to improve teaching conditions and enrich teaching experiences in the schools.
Highlights
First time teaching is considered to be an exciting activity that shapes the concept of teaching and informs novice teachers for teaching and experiencing the phenomenon in a particular way
The purpose of the study is to unveil this experience of prospective teachers who are engaged in teaching practice in public schools of a district in the province of Punjab, Pakistan
Human experience is studied and a detailed and in-depth description of the experience is interpreted through participants’ lived experiences (Creswell, 2007, 2013). This is a suitable methodology in understanding the situation of prospective teachers they experienced during the first-time teaching in schools because a deep understanding of the phenomenon can be attained through reflecting on the consciousness experiences of the teachers (Zeeck, 2012)
Summary
First time teaching is considered to be an exciting activity that shapes the concept of teaching and informs novice teachers for teaching and experiencing the phenomenon in a particular way. First time teaching experience can be positive or negative and contributes to teachers’ success or failure in the future that helps make decisions if they have to take teaching as a profession or not It was explored by Saenz-Lopez, Almagro, and Ibanezin (2011) that the initial experiences of prospective teachers can be inconsistent in some unfamiliar conditions, which results in anxiety, emotional reaction, tension and some kind of insecurity. Their level of interest, confidence and nature of feelings may become significantly important when they enter the classroom for the first time to teach school children. The realities of classroom and expectations of prospective teachers have an apparent clash (Demirbag, Ünişen, & Yesilyurt, 2016)
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