Student Teachers of English on the Lookout for Good Teaching

Abstract

Education has always been a subject to changes structure and content wise; its quality has been an issue all the time. In Latvia, the recent reform named School 2030, which essence is a competence approach to the curriculum, is introducing its requirements. Additionally, the government has planned to introduce a system monitoring the quality of education by 2023. Consequently, questions like what a good school, teacher and teaching are gain certain attention. The particular qualitative approach research concentrates on finding out student teachers’ answers to these questions as core values they remember to be the most significant ones to make them think of their schools, teachers and their teaching as good. The aim of the research is to examine how student teachers of English who have begun their teacher education studies recently perceive good teaching. To provide answers, they filled out Personal Statement – an introductory part of the European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages. The research sample of the case study consists of 55 second and fourth year full and part-time students who have decided to become teachers of English. They are studying at the faculty of Education, Psychology and Art, the University of Latvia. To analyse student teachers’ opinions, content analysis was used. The data allows concluding that student teachers’ perception of good teaching is characterised by three key elements: good classroom management techniques, relevant teaching methodology and teachers’ personalities. Furthermore, student teachers of English are of the opinion that in good teaching environment teachers take into account their pupils’ personalities. The same ideas prevail in the answers revealing what student teachers want to master in their studies. That implies student teachers of English long to see academic staff at the university as role models of good teaching.