Turkish Pre-service Teachers’ Reflective Practices in Teaching English to Young Learners

Abstract

The course 'Teaching English to Young Learners' is the first stage where pre-service teachers are introduced to a child's world, developmental characteristics, needs, interests as well as teaching and learning techniques for these learners in English language teaching pre-service teacher education programmes in Turkey. This action research study identifies the gap that pre-service teachers experience between the theoretical considerations and realities of teaching, and the problems they face in this course. It provides the opportunity for monitoring and evaluating themselves in a pre-service teacher education programme in Turkey. Hence, this piece of research aims to promote reflective practice at the preservice level in teaching English to young learners through video recorded microteaching sessions, reflective journals, and lesson plans of pre-service teachers. The study reports on the results by highlighting the contribution of these reflective tools to pre-service teachers' professional development, self- and peer- reflections and the preparedness to teach English to young learners. Finally, insights and recommendations concerning teacher educators and pre-service programmes are offered to promote reflective practice and make methodology courses more beneficial before pre-service teachers embark on their practicum experience.