Grammar Skills of Secondary Teacher Education Students in a State University: Basis for Worktext Development

The study aimed to determine the standing in the grammar of the freshmen secondary teacher education students of a state university in Zambales, Philippines. Using descriptive research, a questionnaire served as the main instrument in gathering data involving eighty (80) students. A typical respondent is between 16-18 years old, female, speaks Filipino at home, prefers to read in English, and loves short stories as a genre to read. The grammar test consists of three parts: speech; subject-verb agreement; and phrases, clauses, sentences, and sentence patterns. The respondents got the highest scores in the parts of speech. There was a significant increase in their post-test scores. The students should explore and study English grammar and should give more time to appreciate it fully. Gender, language spoken at home, preferred reading materials, and genres should not affect the students' learning. A regular encouragement might help them enhance the students’ grammar skills. Students should practice using English at home, explore reading other genres to develop effective reading habits. The teachers should develop more exciting and up-to-date teaching strategies on improving the students' grammar skills. A worktext can be developed based on the results of the study.

Preparing secondary teacher candidates to teach academic English

In this qualitative study, mainstream teacher candidates in a secondary teacher education program were asked to incorporate academic English instruction into their lesson planning and implementation in fieldwork placement classrooms. Teacher candidates attended a training session in which one method for identifying academic English features was taught. Artifacts, classroom observations, and interviews from four teacher candidates were analyzed to determine what features of academic English were identified and how these were taught to high school students. While all four teacher candidates accurately identified features of academic English in their lessons, only two participants taught features of academic English to students. The experiences of the participants illustrated that teacher candidates need, in addition to the ability to identify features of academic English, knowledge about how to teach language, a commitment to teaching language in their lessons, and the support of university supervisors and supervising practitioners who possess the same knowledge and commitment.

Pre-Service Secondary Teacher Education Programme: Some Concerns of Sustainability

With the onset of a new academic session, teacher education programmes across the county will be in a new avatar. The revamping of a teacher education programme has been on the cards for several years but stiff resistance from different quarters of the educational community made it impossible to do so. The revised secondary teacher education programme is new in several counts. Firstly, curricular areas have been made more contextual, class, student and community based. Secondly, teaching pedagogy has been made more child centred, experiential and reflective. Thirdly, internship model has been introduced giving more thrust on acquisition of skills and competencies in actual classroom and real settings rather than artificial settings. But, the reform has brought several challenges in its realm which teacher education programmes and institutes have to face. The present paper deals with the new challenges like demand for teacher education programmes, the role of private teacher education institutes and their increasing focus on commercialization, demand for teacher educators and whether the new system is pro-rich or pro-poor student etc.

Secondary School Teacher Preparation in the Age of Inclusive Education

All students have the right to quality educational experiences that is inclusive. For this to become a reality, there is a need to have teachers who respect and appreciate diversity and are capable creating inclusive educational experiences that support diverse students learning need. This chapter attempts to look at how secondary teacher education programs can prepare preservice teachers who understand diversity and are capable of integrating inclusive education strategies in their teaching. It examines how inclusive education can become an integral part of the processes and procedure involved in secondary teacher education programs.

PERCEPTION OF TEACHER-EDUCATOR TOWARDS TWO YEARS B.ED. PROGRAMME

The present study investigates the perceptions of teacher-educators towards two years B.Ed. programme, which introduced according to NCTE 2014, norms and regulations. The study investigated the perceptions of teacher-educators towards two years B.Ed. programme considering gender, locale & experience variations of the participants. By using selfdeveloped standardized tool,in which 136 items in a five points scale, for the study. Where sample of the studywere 150 teacher-educators from 10 B.Ed. colleges of Murshidabad district of West Bengal participated. The participants were selected by using simple random basis technique. Descriptive survey method was applied for conducting the present study. The present studyinvestigated delimiting toteacher-educators perceptions towards two years B.Ed. programmefrommurshidabad district of WestBengal only. Another delimitation of the study is teacher educators perception analysed in the context of, B.Ed. programme as professional course, generates motivation for teaching, develops professional acumens, provides essential of child psychology,B.Ed.programme influences the personality of the teacher and perceptions about two years B.Ed. course only. The obtained data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that,significant impact existed on the opinion of teacher educators perceptions as they are agreed mostly for positive impact of secondary teacher education programme. That is mixed perceptions towards secondary teacher education programme by the teacher educators.The present findings of the study is matched with i.e. confirmatory study of Adhikary (2017) in a study where found that teacher trainees mixed perception towards the two year B.Ed. programme in Assam.