Abstract

During the journey to becoming teachers, practice teaching process is considered to be of great importance. During the practicum, the prospective teachers are required to complete certain classroom procedures and establish a link between the theoretical and the practical component of the undergraduate program. Although the research shows that this process is immensely helpful for pre-service teachers to become professionals, it is not without problems. In this context, by identifying the commonly experienced problems, the pre-service teacher education can be improved. This study was carried out to collate the common challenges of practicum practices in ELT departments in Turkey. The study identified 40 studies in the literature and then analyzed and categorized the challenges mentioned by the literature thorough coding procedures. Five main categories and 36 sub-categories have been identified. The analysis showed that the challenges have been identified by (1) student teachers, (2) classroom teachers, (3) supervisors, (4) pupils, and (5) school administrators. The recurring problems discovered were to receive feedback from supervisors and classroom teachers, classroom management of student teachers, lack of collaboration between schools and faculties of Education, the gap between theory and practice, and target language problems. Through exploring the recurring problems of practicum processes in undergraduate teacher education, suggestions for overcoming these challenges and implications for improving teacher education practices have been stated upon analyzing the literature.

Highlights

  • In Turkey, the language teacher programs are arranged by the Council of Higher Education (CHE) and all language teacher education programs are obliged to offer a main coursework for student teachers (CHE reports, 1998)

  • This study focuses on the following research questions: 1) What are the main challenges faced in practicum courses in Turkey? 2) How can the practical experience of pre-service EFL teachers be improved before graduation?

  • Most of the mentioned challenges were identified by student teachers (STs) which is followed by Classroom teachers (CT)

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Summary

Introduction

In Turkey, the language teacher programs are arranged by the Council of Higher Education (CHE) and all language teacher education programs are obliged to offer a main coursework for student teachers (CHE reports, 1998). It is noted by the literature that students from other faculties can become English language teachers via pedagogic formation certificate (Aydoğan & Çilsal, 2007; Çepik & Çepik, 2015; Tercanlıoğlu, 2004) These programs offer five years of teacher education (1 year in intensive English preparatory school and 4 years at the program) and the main aim of these programs is to train qualified language teachers for schools of Ministry of National Education (MONE) (Seymen, 2012). During the first term of the senior year, the student teachers (STs) take School Experience course and they visit MONE schools and observe in-service English language teachers. As can be inferred from these statements, the supervisors are expected to work with the mentor teachers during practicum process

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