scholarly journals A Case Study of Three Finnish Pre-Service Teachers’ Emotions and Understanding of CLIL During an Online Practicum

Author(s):  
Sotiria Pappa

The novel exigencies of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic caused a shift towards online learning environments and teleconference platforms, which have also affected teaching practicums. The impact of this approach on teacher preparation is yet unknown and may render pre-service teachers (PSTs) more vulnerable to the challenges of early professional learning through practice, especially when implementing a methodology they have been insufficiently introduced to. Following three students of primary teacher education who opted for a practicum in a CLIL class at a Finnish teacher training school, this case study examines how the online practicum affected these PSTs’ emotions and understanding of CLIL. The case study is based on the analytical categories of teacher identity and emotion and draws on essay, diary, and interview data. The thematic analysis of the data suggests that the online practicum met participants’ expectations for building confidence and was perceived as an overall instructive experience, which was improved by the quality of mentorship and peer support they received. However, feelings of frustration or dissatisfaction accompanied moments of conflict with incoming expectations, principally related to using English in CLIL. The analysis further suggests that the online practicum strengthened participants’ earlier conception of CLIL as a language-oriented teaching tool. Regardless of whether online CLIL practicums remain a future option, acquiring disciplinary and language knowledge alike are important aspects in teacher preparation for CLIL, which could be an optional part of teacher education programs for PSTs who are aware of or sensitive to language as a tool for learning.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-384
Author(s):  
Lucinda Grace Heimer

Race is a marker hiding more complex narratives. Children identify the social cues that continue to segregate based on race, yet too often teachers fail to provide support for making sense of these worlds. Current critical scholarship highlights the importance of addressing issues of race, culture, and social justice with future teachers. The timing of this work is urgent as health, social and civil unrest due to systemic racism in the U.S. raise critiques and also open possibilities to reimagine early childhood education. Classroom teachers feel pressure to standardize pedagogy and outcomes yet meet myriad student needs and talents in complex settings. This study builds on the current literature as it uses one case study to explore institutional messages and student perceptions in a future teacher education program that centers race, culture, identity, and social justice. Teaching as a caring profession is explored to illuminate the impact authentic, aesthetic, and rhetorical care may have in classrooms. Using key tenets of Critical Race Theory as an analytical tool enhanced the case study process by focusing the inquiry on identity within a racist society. Four themes are highlighted related to institutional values, rigorous coursework, white privilege, and connecting individual racial and cultural understanding with classroom practice. With consideration of ethical relationality, teacher education programs begin to address the impact of racist histories. This work calls for individualized critical inquiry regarding future teacher understanding of “self” in new contexts as well as an investigation of how teacher education programs fit into larger institutional philosophies.


in education ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-22
Author(s):  
Katherine Sanford ◽  
Tim Hopper ◽  
Kerry Robertson ◽  
Laura Lancaster ◽  
Vivian Collyer

The world, influenced by 21st century technologies and ecological challenges, has rapidly changed with more ability to “connect” locally and globally and more opportunities to learn from a range of sources. As a result, our learners and their needs have changed. With such rapid changes, conceptions of educational leadership need to reflect these changes utilizing the complexities of the role in society. As a group of educators who work in a School District, Ministry of Education and University teacher education programs, we ask how educational leaders in school districts and teacher education programs can design spaces that engage everyone, recognize everyone’s expertise and share responsibility for growth and development, and how in teacher education we can begin to move away from the hierarchical, industrialized model of management to one where everyone feels engaged, valued, and heard. In this paper, we draw on sustainable and distributed leadership ideas, termed by Wheatley (2010) as the “new sciences,” informed by tenets from complexity theory. Using a case study approach and narrative insights, this paper elucidates how an ongoing Professional Learning Network (PLN) called Link-to-Practice (L2P) offers an alternative conception of educational leadership.            Keywords: case study; narrative, qualitative research, complexity theory


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-71
Author(s):  
Glenda L. Black

Action research has the potential to reconstruct schools into professional learning communities that are able to identify educational issues and develop appropriate solutions for 21st century learning. Increasingly, teacher education programs are providing action research experiences to encourage analytical thinking and problem-solving skills (Darling-Hammond, 2009, 2012). The purpose of this study was to critically examine the experiences of the teacher educator and teacher candidates involved in the implementation of an action research component over four years in a revised consecutive initial teacher preparation program. A case study design using action research methodology was used in the research, which provided the tools to explore a complex phenomenon within its context: the implementation of an action research assignment in a core course in a teacher preparation program. The perceptions of the faculty teaching the course and the teacher candidates (n=544) in each of the four years provided insight into challenges, benefits, and lessons learned.  The discussion centers on the implementation of action research in a compulsory course in a teacher education program; identifying opportunities and limitations settled into four main categories: structural incongruence, reflection, growth, and recommendations.


2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-145
Author(s):  
Fern Snart

Within current Canadian learning environments, learners bring sophistication in areas such as communication/technology, a wide diversity of learning needs, and often an orientation towards social justice. This commentary refers to the ongoing responsiveness of teacher education programs to these evolving learner attributes, using as exemplars the areas of global citizenship education and technology integration. A backdrop for this discussion is the observation that the knowledge and skills that contribute to successful adult lives are also evolving.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Abderrahim Bouderbane

The present study is a comparison between the impact of rhetorical argumentation and narrating stories on students’ fluency and accuracy in communicative competence. We aimed at evaluating the usefulness and suitability of these tasks, and their efficiency when it comes to teaching fluency and accuracy by analysing the direct effects of the tasks on the indices of fluency and accuracy. The problematic issue in this research investigates the effects of the task rhetorical argumentation, and whether it is an important task that teachers should rely on it in teaching speaking in academic contexts. The sample is composed of 65 students which are divided in between 30 students in the control group and 35 students in experimental group. The data was collected by a test which was used to evaluate three main areas which are: classroom interaction, topic knowledge and language knowledge. The results of the experiment show that there are two types of fluency which are procedural and automatic. Rhetorical argumentation can be used to develop procedural fluency, and not automatic since the task is considered as difficult and students were not familiar with it.


Author(s):  
Ngatman Ngatman

<em>This study aims to analyze the understanding the use of Javanese language "krama inggil" of preservice teachers in primary teacher education programs. This research is a descriptive study of 84 research subjects. The instruments used were description test sheets, questionnaire sheets, and interview sheets. The data analysis technique uses descriptive qualitative. The results of the analysis show that: 1) The average value of understanding the use of Javanese language "krama inggil" was 78; 2) students who are able to communicate using good manners and apply in daily life as much as 38.61%; 3) Some of the difficulties factors of students using Javanese language "krama inggil" include not being accustomed from childhood, parents do not teach Javanese language "krama inggil", preferring to use Indonesian, lacking the motivation to use Javanese language "krama inggil" because it is difficult to pronounce.</em>


2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Anne Block ◽  
Paul Betts

Teacher candidates’ individual and collaborative inquiry occurs within multiple and layered contexts of learning. The layered contexts support a strong connection between the practicum and the university and the emergent teaching identities. Our understanding of teacher identity is as situated and socially constructed, yet fluid and agentic. This paper explores how agentic teaching identities emerge within the layered contexts of our teacher education program as examined in five narratives of teacher candidates’ experience. These narratives involve tension, inquiry, successes and risks, as teacher candidates negotiate what is means to learn how to teach, to teach and to critically reflect on knowledge needed to teach. We conclude that navigating teacher identity is a teacher candidate capacity that could be explicitly cultivated by teacher education programs.


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