Student-Teachers’ Pedagogical Reasoning in Teyl Lesson Plans and Microteaching Presentations

Abstract

Pedagogical reasoning enables student-teachers to better understand their own teaching practices, analyse what, why and how they teach, and become aware of their teaching practices. This case study aims to understand student- teachers’ decisions and the pedagogical reasoning behind these decisions in lesson plans in an English language pre-service education programme. Three third-year English language student-teachers enrolled in a pedagogical content knowledge course “Teaching English to Young Learners” (TEYL) participated in this study. We collected qualitative data from lesson plans, reflection notes on these performances and plans, and interviews with student-teachers in the TEYL course. We used Shulman’s model of pedagogical reasoning and action as a conceptual model to explore the complexity of learning to teach English to young learners. Data were analysed iteratively through content and thematic analysis. The results indicated that student-teachers made decisions mainly in the transformation and instruction stages, and that their pedagogical reasoning emerged from the theory of TEYL and their assumptions about the characteristics of very young and young learners. More opportunities should be provided to increase their self-consciousness, self-knowledge and sense of agency through reflective tasks, action research projects and teaching practice. The study has implications for student-teachers who need guidance and motivation to prepare reflective lesson plans and for teacher educators who need to raise student-teachers’ awareness about decision making and pedagogical reasoning.