Pre-service English Research Articles

Pre-service EFL Teachers' Anxiety regarding the Online Teaching Practicum during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Thailand Case Study

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers (PSTs) experienced various forms of teaching anxiety. However, during the pandemic, they likely encountered additional, different types of teaching anxiety, especially at the teaching practicum stage. This study investigated factors causing anxiety in these PSTs prior to the practicum. It surveyed 257 PSTs from 10 polytechnic universities across Thailand scheduled to conduct a teaching practicum in the subsequent semester. The findings indicated that 246 PSTs (95.7%) had no prior experience with online learning. The PSTs reported being most familiar with Zoom and Google Meet, that these were the most convenient learning platforms, and also being most proficient in them. Two of their greatest concerns regarded online teaching, namely how they would do their practicum, e.g., hybrid, and what equipment and facilities schools would provide for them. Regarding anxiety, the participants demonstrated extremely high levels on four factors all associated with online teaching: the mode of instruction, whether online, onsite, or hybrid; the stability of the internet connection during online teaching; their teaching skills in the online mode; and their ability to integrate technological applications into their teaching. Given the participants' anxiety towards online teaching, pedagogical implications are discussed.

Exploring English Preservice Teachers’ Digital Competence Perceptions Regarding the C3 Matrix-cyber Ethics, Cyber Security and Cyber Safety: An Empirical Study Executed in China

This study was executed with an attempt to figure out Chinese English preservice teachers’ digital competence perceptions pertaining the C3 Matrix, namely cyber ethics, cyber security and cyber safety. 221 senior students majoring in English Education in a normal university in northern China participated in the data collection process. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed in this study, which contained four latent variables: cyber ethics, cyber security, cyber safety and digital competence. Major findings suggest that how English preservice teachers perceive the C3 Matrix exerts mixed impacts on their digital competence perceptions. First, English preservice teachers’ cyber ethics perceptions have great positive impact on how they perceive cyber security and cyber safety. Cyber security and cyber safety then exert similar positive effects on how they perceive their digital competence. What’s worth noticing is that although cyber ethics exerts positive influence on digital competence via the agency of cyber security and cyber safety, it alone exerts minor negative effects on the participants’ digital competence perceptions, which is thought-provoking since no previous research so far echoed with this outcome.

ENGLISH PRESERVICE TEACHERS' PERCEPTION OF ICT: THE STUDY ON THE STUDENTS FROM RURAL AREAS

The development of technology brings a good effect on learning English. Some research supports that using technology in learning English increases students' comprehension. However, the fact in the field state that many teachers teach English using conventional methods without technology. On this basis, researchers aimed to examine the perceptions and attitudes of English preservice teachers. This research will be exciting because knowing the current perception of preservice teachers may impact their behavior with technology in the future. In conducting the study, the researchers used a descriptive qualitative method using interviews to obtain data. The criterion used is English education students who study at the higher education level in Sintang. There are 6 (six) students or preservice teachers that the researchers chose as the participants. The result of this research showed that all of the participants think that ICT is important for teaching English. Using ICT in learning can make students understand the material better, making them easier to find information from the material being taught.

Applying Community of Inquiry for Language Learning Among English Preservice Teachers

Community of Inquiry allows learning activities to run optimally. There are three components in CoI: teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence. This study aims to investigate the implementation of CoI among English Language Education students in lectures, their opinions, the components of teaching presence, cognitive presence and social presence that arise. The method used in this research is qualitative. Data were collected through observation, Focus Group Discussion and Content Analysis. The results of the study show that CoI can be implemented for lecture activities among English Education students. They argue that CoI provides many benefits for their lecture activities. The components of teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence appear in learning activities during the implementation of CoI.

Research: Preparation and Practice: Preservice English Teachers’ Experiences in Learning to Facilitate Text-Based Discussions

This study explores the experiences of one cohort of secondary English preservice teachers (PSTs) learning to facilitate text-based discussions during a methods course. The authors analyze how the use of a Common Core-aligned instructional text and mixed-reality simulations support PSTs in developing discussion facilitation skills. Implications highlight that teacher educators need to examine their timing of approximations in teacher education programs and explain how simulated environments are intentionally used for PSTs to refine their practice.

Self-concept of EFL preservice teachers as reflected in their teaching performance

A number of studies discussing the significant role of self-concept in the educational field are evident. However, research investigating the self-concept of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) preservice teachers and how the self-concept is reflected in the teaching performance is limited. Thus, this study was aimed at investigating the portrait of the self-concept of English preservice teachers in the Indonesian context and how the self-concept is reflected in their teaching performance. A qualitative research paradigm, especially an explanatory case study design was employed to figure them out. The study found that first, diverse portraits of self-concept i.e. highly positive, moderate, and low or negative self-concept were captured in the participants’ academic self-concept (pedagogic and professional self-concept) with the inclination of higher portrayal in the non-academic sub-aspects of self-concept (social and emotional self-concept). Second, the congruent and incongruent reflection of self-concept were identified. The findings imply that academic aspects of self-concept (pedagogic and professional competence) seem to be contributing factors to the participants’ negative self-perception of their self-concept. Moreover, reflexivity, internal and external frames of reference, and emotion regulation strategies seem to be contributing factors to the construction of the participants’ self-concept. This study concludes that the construction of the participants’ self-concept dynamic during the practicum and its manifestation in the teaching performance is affected by internal and external factors.

Developing Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) through an enriched teacher education program: cases of four Iranian pre-service EFL teachers

ABSTRACT Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been extensively studied in science teacher education. However, scant research attention within the domain of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) has been paid to teachers’ PCK. With an interpretive qualitative design, the present study aimed to investigate whether pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ PCK could be developed through an enriched teacher education program in the Iranian context. The program, including 12 sessions for increasing four teachers’ knowledge of strategies, students, and curriculum, was enriched by providing the teachers with opportunities to present the content through effective strategies, reflect on teaching practices through viewing videos, and receive mentoring. The data were gathered through video-stimulated recall, semi-structured interview, field notes, and classroom observation. After qualitative data analysis, five major themes emerged. The findings indicated that enriched teacher education programs could help pre-service EFL teachers reflect on their pedagogical practices and develop their PCK; however, these programs would not be sufficient. In addition, analysing the observational data indicated that enriched teacher education programs could mainly influence pre-service EFL teachers’ knowledge of teaching strategies as one of the main subareas of PCK. Finally, pedagogical implications and suggestions for future research are offered.

Implementing Self-created Media in Online Teaching by English Pre-service Teacher of English Language Education at Mulawarman University

English pre-service teachers at Mulawarman University had to implement instructional media in online teaching practice. As a result, the researcher was keen on researching the pre-service teacher's experience, difficulties, and the way the-preservice teacher overcame the difficulties in implementing self-created media in online teaching practice. The purposes of this study were (1) To explore the way English pre-service teacher implemented self-created media in online teaching practice; (2) To know difficulties faced by English pre-service teacher in online teaching practice; (3) To examine the way English pre-service teacher overcame the difficulties in online teaching practice. The design of the study was a qualitative research approach. The research participant was the seventh semester of English pre-service teacher at Mulawarman University. In collecting data, the researcher used interview, document, and observation. In analyzing the data, the researcher used Miles, Huberman, & Saldaña’s flow model of analysis that consists of data collection, data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing and verification. This study showed that the pre-service teacher had to design the lesson plan, design the instructional video, use Google Meet as the platform for synchronous meeting, and implement the lesson plan in online teaching, which included pre-teaching, whilst-teaching, and post-teaching. The difficulties were related to a technical problem and a pedagogical problem. To overcome the difficulties, the pre-service teacher summarized the material during the online meeting and gave it to the students who could not join the class.

Preservice EFL Teachers’ Experiences in Their First Teaching Practicum: A Collaborative Autoethnography

This paper reports a collaborative autoethnography on a first teaching practicum at Universidad Surcolombiana. The study aimed at how we, as novice researchers and preservice English as a foreign language teachers, make sense of our teaching experiences in our first teaching practicum using collaborative autoethnography as a research method. The data were collected by reflective journals and ethnographic observations. Results show the meaning that we give to our experiences, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, by recognizing and analyzing our sociocultural context. Additionally, we were immersed in a virtual learning environment where we had the opportunity to confront unforeseen changes imposed by the pandemic, familiarize ourselves with possible issues that teachers grapple with, and imagine new ways to be ourselves.

Challenges in Designing a Short Lesson Plan by Pre-Service English Teachers During an Internship School Program

New regulation about shortening the lesson plan in Indonesia was stated through Circular Letter no. 14 in 2019. The highlighted component of the short lesson part is lesson objective, teaching procedure, and assessment. This study was employed to explore the challenge in designing a short lesson plan by the English Pre-service Teachers. A narrative inquiry design and interview method were used to explore the challenges of designing the component of a short lesson plan. Two English pre-service teachers of the English Education Department who were experienced in the pre-service teacher training program participated in this research. The result stated that they admitted having challenges in designed teaching procedure such as selecting opening and core activities. They also having challenges in designed assessment, specifically in selecting proper indicator for evaluation on the short lesson plan.

Transforming pre-service EFL teacher education through critical cosmopolitan literacies: voices from Mainland China

ABSTRACT This paper describes a qualitative participatory action research study applying critical cosmopolitan literacies principles with pre-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers to address global human rights issues through international English youth literature. Using literary works on sociopolitical issues alongside critical pedagogy engagements and teaching practicum in various educational settings, the author as a teacher-researcher attempts to raise the student teachers’ critical awareness to issues of power, privilege, and social justice embedded in the multicultural and multimodal texts. Analysis of the qualitative data indicates important outcomes in terms of an enhanced understanding of critical human rights issues pertaining to the formation of student teachers’ identities as global-conscious and socially responsible educators. Meanwhile, with explicit guidance from the teacher educator, the student teachers also develop communicative intercultural competence, high-order thinking skills, and learning agency by engaging in multiliteracies practices within a cosmopolitan liteacies orientation.

Error Analysis in the Written Texts of Pre-Service Teachers

The errors in the written texts of eleven (11) BSED English Pre-Service Teachers from a private university in Iloilo City, Philippines, are investigated in this study. The Error Analysis framework of Stephen Pit Corder was chosen to analyze errors of omissions, additions, selections, and misordering, as well as the sources of these errors, both interlingually and intralinguistically. The omission of past tense markers, auxiliary words, plural noun markers, and conjunctions revealed that the sentences were incorrectly structured. Written texts were complex and grammatically inappropriate due to the addition of verbs, plural noun markers, and articles. The inclusion of the present tense, the plural noun marker, articles, and other wordy expressions resulted in the expression's contradictory meaning. Furthermore, the presence of run-on or fused sentences, comma splices, and dangling modifiers resulted in sentence disorder and ambiguous meaning. There are a variety of reasons why English language learners make mistakes when learning a foreign language, one of which is Interlingual source, which occurs when they utilize their first language as a framework and then transform their ideas into English word for word. Intralingual, on the other hand, developed as a result of overgeneralization and the inability to apply rules in specific contexts, preferring simple grammatical combinations to intricate rules. In students' written texts, errors are widespread, indicating issues with writing processes. Pre-service teachers must be proficient in writing; thus, their English teachers must regularly review errors and conduct an intensive intervention session using appropriate instructional techniques to address their writing issues and needs.

Exploring Pre-service Pre-primary EFL Teacher Beliefs about Teaching English to Very Young Learners: A Macau Case Study

Research on the beliefs of pre-service and in-service English teachers at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels has provided useful knowledge to teacher education curriculum designers. However, the beliefs of pre-service pre-primary English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers have not been addressed. Thus, a case study was conducted in one pre-primary education program at a public university in the Macau Special Administrative Region of China. Data was collected by providing participants ( N = 63) a writing prompt aimed at gathering their beliefs about the teaching and learning of English in the pre-primary context. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze these written reflection reports of third-year pre-service pre-primary English teachers with the aim of uncovering their beliefs about teaching and learning EFL. Results showed the participants held beliefs about classroom practice, EFL learners and learning, pedagogical knowledge, teaching, content, goals of language teaching, the role of teaching, subject, schooling, hearsay, self, learning to teach, and the teacher education program. Most participants mentioned their beliefs about classroom practice, EFL learners and learning, and pedagogical knowledge, while very few participants wrote about self, learning to teach, or the teacher education program. While many of the beliefs held by the participants were found to be substantiated by early childhood education research, some unfounded beliefs were also uncovered. The results highlighted a need for curriculum designers to reconsider the education program’s ability to meet the needs of the pre-service teachers. Participants required additional training in English content knowledge, use as a medium of instruction, and pronunciation. The polarized view of teaching the mother tongue and EFL should be reconsidered in light of the current views on bilingualism and bilingual education.

Instructional Coaching in a TESOL Teacher Preparation Program: An Exploratory Case Study

Instructional coaching is a professional development model that seeks to improve classroom practice through a collaborative, non-evaluative partnerships between teachers and coaches. Although existing literature suggests that coaching in pre-service teacher programs is relatively uncommon, the limited research on its use is promising. This exploratory case study examined one coaching partnership between a pre-service English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher and an English language teaching (ELT) faculty member during a course for adult paraprofessional educators learning to take an exam required for teaching licensure. The results of a qualitative document analysis of reflective writing, email correspondence and an audio-recorded phone conversation suggest that instructional coaching supported the pre-service ESL teacher through the use of unique coaching elements, including modeling, a window on the coach's reflective process, opportunities to request specific feedback and the coach's familiarity with the pre-service teacher's students. The coaching partnership also provided an opportunity for the ELT faculty member to grow professionally. Our findings point to the importance of positive interpersonal dynamics in the coaching relationship and the need for clear goal setting, expectations and scheduling logistics.

English writing anxiety and preservice teacher's written corrective feedback

This study investigated the English writing anxiety experienced by preservice English as second/foreign language teachers in Hong Kong, and its impact on their written corrective feedback (WCF). A total of 34 highly proficient preservice teachers responded to the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (Cheng, 2004), which measured writing anxiety in three dimensions (i.e., cognitive, somatic and avoidance anxiety). Ten were selected to provide WCF to a sample student writing and receive an individual interview immediately afterwards. Over half of the 34 participants were found suffering from moderate or high levels of writing anxiety, especially in the cognitive dimension. Compared to their less apprehensive peers who adopted more indirect feedback, highly anxious student teachers had a clear preference to direct and comprehensive feedback. Their WCF practices were found affected by five factors, including their conception of English writing, concerns of teacher professional credibility and work ethics, concerns of student cognition and motivation, confidence in students’ ability, and their feedback experience as students and student teacher during teaching practicum. These factors were synthesized into a grounded-theory model of four internal forces that drive student teachers towards either a focus-on-form, direct, comprehensive approach to WCF or a broad-based, indirect and selective approach. Suggestions were made for further research.

Pre-service EFL Teachers’ Conceptions of Learning about SLA through online Discussion Forums and WhatsApp in Blended Learning

Online discussion forums are a popular learning tool commonly used in blended learning. Despite the widespread use of this tool, pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ conceptions of learning disciplinary concepts through online-discussion forums are under researched. This study aims at filling this gap by describing the conceptions of learning through such forums held by a group of 16 Mexican, pre-service EFL teachers enrolled in an undergraduate Second Language Acquisition course. Interviews were conducted and analysed using phenomenography. We found three experiential categories: Going over the content, Expanding knowledge metacognitively, and Negotiating knowledge. These involve different ways of approaching course material, writing and responding to messages, and relating to the teacher. WhatsApp was used as a parallel forum to negotiate potential conflicts without the instructor’s presence. The results suggest the need to train pre-service teachers to use online discussion forums (ODFs) with a deep approach to learning that includes meaning negotiation.

The Impact of English EFL Technology PowerPoint in Learning Speaking for English Pre-Service Teacher

Language is a communication tool to convey ideas or opinions and feelings to others. Through language, people can be interconnected, share, learn from each other, and improve their intellectual abilities. The ability to communicate in English is very crucial in the world of work. One of the abilities demanded by alumni of English education study programs is the ability to communicate in English. So far, based on the experience of researchers while teaching, there are still students who are unable to speak in public or make English presentations. They have less confidence to do it. The fourth-semester students of the English Education Study Program applied This English Presentation method. This research uses descriptive qualitative method to describe in public speaking by using English.

Writing Proficiency in Preservice EFL Teachers: A Discourse-Analytic Study in the Chinese Mainland

The study investigates writing proficiency in preservice English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers characterized by selected discourse features inherent in their writing performance. Eighty-one preservice EFL teachers from a key normal university in the Chinese mainland participated in the study. The discourse-analytic approach was adopted to provide evidence underlying teachers’ writing performance. The results suggest that 11 out of 19 features selected are informative of preservice EFL teachers’ writing performance in that they can successfully differentiate EFL teachers at various levels of proficiency. These findings have implications for the professional preparation and development of preservice EFL teachers and provide insight into the development of language assessment for this population.

A preservice teacher’s learning of instructional scaffolding in the EAL practicum

This qualitative case study examines how a preservice English as an Additional Language (EAL) teacher from the Faculty of Education at a large Melbourne-based university learned to scaffold EAL learning during a two-week practicum in a secondary school and the factors shaping his cognition. The data sources include individual interviews, oral reflections on lessons and recordings of those same lessons. The study was underpinned by a sociocultural perspective on scaffolding and van de Pol, Volman and Beishuizen’s (2010) framework for analysing scaffolding, which is based on a synthesis of previous models and findings. The findings indicate that the preservice teacher implemented a number of scaffolding strategies during the EAL practicum. The use of these strategies was shaped by the preservice teacher’s theoretical knowledge of scaffolding and belief about its importance, which he gained from the teacher education coursework and his prior practicum experience. Learning within practice was also found to be important in his cognition of scaffolding as through the practicum he developed knowledge about his students’ abilities and their difficulties in learning EAL, which are the basis for his contingent scaffolding strategies. Based on the findings, the paper suggests that instructional scaffolding is an important area of professional learning, especially for teachers working with EAL students, and needs to be explicitly built into teacher education in both coursework and the teaching practicum.

Problematising School-Based Mentoring for Pre-Service Primary English language Teachers

ABSTRACT Despite the growing interest in investigating the practice of mentoring during the practicum regardless of field focus, research is scarce in relation to how mentoring is seen and enacted in the area of English language teaching especially in primary schools. Drawing on interviews with fifteen student teachers and fourteen cooperating teachers, this study reports on the factors which are perceived as obstructive in preparing student teachers for English language teaching during the practicum. The following factors emerged from an analysis of the data: a) lack of subject-matter knowledge, b) prescriptive approach to mentoring, c) problematic mentoring relationship, d) ignorance of roles, e) student teachers’ reluctance to be mentored and, f) contextual factors related to failings in the educational system. Implications and suggestions for improving the current practice for preparing general teachers to teach English in primary schools are offered.