Pre-Service Teachers’ Reflective Practice and their Teaching Practicum Beliefs

While learning assessment serves as feedback for teachers in maintaining or improving teaching practice, reflective practice play can be seen in how pre-service teachers plan, design, implement and evaluate their teaching approaches. Practicing reflection can help pre-service teachers starting to embrace the value and passion of teaching which manifests in their professional teaching practice. This study was conducted to determine the reflective practice of pre-service teachers and their teaching practicum experience. Involved in this study were 103 pre-service teachers from the government Teacher Education Institution. The study used self-developed survey questionnaires on pre-service reflective practice and beliefs about their teaching practicum. Results showed that there is a significant relationship between the reflective practice of pre-service teachers and their beliefs about teaching practicum. On the other hand, reflective practice as well as the beliefs of male and female pre-service teachers about their teaching practicum does not have a significant difference. Teacher educators should impart reflective practice as part of their teaching practicum. For further research, a wide scope of study may be conducted involving different Teacher Education Institutions in private and public Higher Education Institutions to verify the findings in this study.

Learning to Teach

This study explores pre-service EFL teachers’ experiences in learning to teach English at the teaching practicum program during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The study adopts a qualitative narrative inquiry to capture the pre-service EFL teachers’ events or stories experienced in their learning to teach at schools. Drawing on semi-structured interview data, we found that the majority of the pre-service EFL teachers forced themselves to understand digital literacy and be able to adopt various learning platforms such as Google Classroom, Youtube, Zoom meeting, and Whatsapp in the online teaching at the practicum program during COVID-19 Pandemic. They supposed that those ways were effective enough to deliver learning materials, interact with their students and achieve learning goals. However, during online teaching at the COVID-19 Pandemic, the teaching practicum program did not run well because during the process of online teaching the pre-service EFL experienced various challenges: poor internet connection, lack their participation, and negative attitude. Therefore, the strategies they employed to overcome the teaching challenges were creating a comfortable learning atmosphere by using certain learning platforms, communicating actively with the students’ parents to encourage their online participation, and growing their self-confidence and motivation.

Online ELT Practicum: Views of Student Teachers, Cooperating Teachers and Faculty Supervisors

Teaching practicum is a vital and challenging phase of English Language Teaching (ELT) teacher education in which student teachers experience their first teaching practices In line with the global pandemic status quo, official regulations that leaded educational activities at state primary schools and universities to be carried out online, have also changed the modes and means in the practices and experiences of in-service and pre-service ELT teachers. Therefore, in respect of three participant groups of the practicum process as student teachers, cooperating teachers and university supervisors, it is essential to examine the impact of this new coercive teaching practice system on them. This study attempts to gain insight into the teaching practicum period that ELT student teachers, cooperative teachers and university supervisors cooperatively carried out fully online through English lessons administered by state primary schools. The results elicited by the participants’ views on online practicum revealed that pupilrelated issues like their low attendance and participation in online English lessons and technological problems such as internet access or computer-related malfunctions were compelling factors for student teachers and cooperative teachers. Regarding practicum performances, cooperative teachers confirmed student teachers’ technological skills and the use of a variety of web 2 tools in their practices was found as an opportunity for student teachers to develop their teaching skills.

Online ELT Practicum: Views of Student Teachers, Cooperating Teachers and Faculty Supervisors

Teaching practicum is a vital and challenging phase of English Language Teaching (ELT) teacher education in which student teachers experience their first teaching practices In line with the global pandemic status quo, official regulations that leaded educational activities at state primary schools and universities to be carried out online, have also changed the modes and means in the practices and experiences of in-service and pre-service ELT teachers. Therefore, in respect of three participant groups of the practicum process as student teachers, cooperating teachers and university supervisors, it is essential to examine the impact of this new coercive teaching practice system on them. This study attempts to gain insight into the teaching practicum period that ELT student teachers, cooperative teachers and university supervisors cooperatively carried out fully online through English lessons administered by state primary schools. The results elicited by the participants’ views on online practicum revealed that pupilrelated issues like their low attendance and participation in online English lessons and technological problems such as internet access or computer-related malfunctions were compelling factors for student teachers and cooperative teachers. Regarding practicum performances, cooperative teachers confirmed student teachers’ technological skills and the use of a variety of web 2 tools in their practices was found as an opportunity for student teachers to develop their teaching skills.

Novice Teachers' Thinking Development from Practicum to Early Career

<p>Teacher education programmes have focused on training student teachers with knowledge of teaching methodologies and good teaching performance. What is going on inside student teachers’ minds in their processes of learning to teach is more difficult to observe and sometimes overshadowed by this primary focus. This study sets out to gain a deeper understanding of student teachers’ developing cognition while learning to teach. The existing literature on teachers’ critical thinking, reflection, and cognition provides various frameworks each of which presents different levels or stages of teachers’ development in the respective domains. Each level or stage is characterised by certain concerns, beliefs, skills, discourse, or teaching behaviours. However, underlying processes of change – i.e. how teachers move from lower levels to higher levels of such development, what triggers such movement – and how such movement enhances their teaching effectiveness are under-researched. In addition, those existing frameworks describe major stages of teachers’ development during the whole of their professional journeys. Little research zooms in novice teachers’ thinking development. This research takes an exploratory approach, without relying on any existing frameworks, to investigating and theorising the unseen thinking development processes of novice teachers during the important transition from teaching practicum to early career teaching. The research included three stages of inquiry in which one stage was developed from the previous stage and its results were constantly compared to those of the previous one. The first stage involved in-depth individual interviews with nine early career teachers. The second stage involved working closely with a cohort of five student teachers during four months of their teaching practicum in the same teacher training program. The third stage involved my following one of the cohort members into the first two years of his teaching through online communication about their experiences and thinking about language teaching in real-life contexts. The close interaction with the novice teachers incrementally constructed a clearer picture of the complexity and dynamics of their thinking. The stories of the three groups revealed and confirmed a hierarchy of attention to core aspects of effective teaching. However, the movement across the hierarchy was not linear but fluctuating and causing dissonance between their cognition and practice. Moreover, the novice teachers’ thinking development also involved the development of generic thinking skills – from “either-or” thinking to “both-and” thinking, from single-perspective to multi-perspective thinking, and from a focus on the detail to 'big picture' thinking. Thinking development was found to go hand in hand with the development of teaching effectiveness, understanding of teaching methodologies, and awareness of professional identity. This research proposes a tentative framework of novice teachers’ thinking development from teaching practicum to early career teaching. The framework presents both content and processes of their thinking changes, both internal and external factors influencing their thinking changes, and both teaching-domain-specific and general thinking skills. This framework suggests reconsidering the over-emphasis on surface teaching methodology and teaching performance in teacher education programs and calls for more attention to the thinking, emotions, and self-awareness which strongly influence novice teachers’ teaching performance and professional identity.</p>

The emerging understandings and practices of task-based language teaching (TBLT) by Thai EFL student teachers

<p>Despite substantive empirical evidence for the efficacy of task-based language teaching and learning (TBLT), research shows that the classroom implementation of TBLT has often met with mixed success, especially in Asian EFL contexts (Adams & Newton, 2009; Butler, 2011, 2017; Thomas & Reinders, 2015). One of the reasons is teachers’ lack of understanding of TBLT (e.g., Carless, 2009) and it is this factor that the research focused on. Although TBLT is not widely known or practised in Thailand, its potential has been noted (McDonough & Chaikitmongkol, 2007), and so this is an important topic to address in this context. The research consisted of a two-phase, exploratory, qualitative study into the introduction of a new module on task-based language teaching (TBLT) in the methodology course in the final year of a pre-service EFL teacher education programme in a Thai university. Data was collected from a class of 31 EFL student teachers (STs) in their final (fourth) year of study in the programme and three STs in a one-year teaching practicum at a secondary school. Phase one investigated evidence of learning in the stated understandings of the STs and in their ability to design a task-based lesson at the conclusion of the TBLT module. Data consisted of pre-and post-course questionnaires, lesson plans designed by the STs, and focus-group interviews. The findings showed that after the 5-week TBLT module, two third of the class had developed a favourable disposition towards TBLT. At the conclusion of the module all the STs were able to plan a task-based lesson that broadly reflected principles of TBLT although there was evidence of limited understanding of task features and of difficulties with the task design process. Phase two involved case studies of three of the STs as they undertook a one-year teaching practicum at a secondary school. During the practicum, lesson planning and classroom observation data (video/audio-recordings and observation notes) was collected in three phases: (1) prior to being given any additional lesson planning guidance; (2) during the process of collaborative lesson planning with the researcher; and (3) in subsequent independently planned and taught lessons. In addition, data collection included stimulated recall interviews, semi-structured interviews and group interviews with the teachers and with students from their classes. The data shows how the STs’ understandings and teaching practices developed across these three phases as well as the affordances and constraints that shaped their adoption of TBLT. Learners in the STs’ classes actively engaged in the task-based lessons and reported positive attitudes towards the lessons. In conclusion, the study contributes to the field of TBLT research by providing insights into the processes by which TBLT can be introduced into pre-service teacher education in a context where it has previously not been widely disseminated or understood. Evidence presented in the study shows that the TBLT innovation was broadly successful in terms of its impact on the understandings and teaching practice by STs, at least as measured over the period of the STs main practicum experience.</p>

Novice Teachers' Thinking Development from Practicum to Early Career

<p>Teacher education programmes have focused on training student teachers with knowledge of teaching methodologies and good teaching performance. What is going on inside student teachers’ minds in their processes of learning to teach is more difficult to observe and sometimes overshadowed by this primary focus. This study sets out to gain a deeper understanding of student teachers’ developing cognition while learning to teach. The existing literature on teachers’ critical thinking, reflection, and cognition provides various frameworks each of which presents different levels or stages of teachers’ development in the respective domains. Each level or stage is characterised by certain concerns, beliefs, skills, discourse, or teaching behaviours. However, underlying processes of change – i.e. how teachers move from lower levels to higher levels of such development, what triggers such movement – and how such movement enhances their teaching effectiveness are under-researched. In addition, those existing frameworks describe major stages of teachers’ development during the whole of their professional journeys. Little research zooms in novice teachers’ thinking development. This research takes an exploratory approach, without relying on any existing frameworks, to investigating and theorising the unseen thinking development processes of novice teachers during the important transition from teaching practicum to early career teaching. The research included three stages of inquiry in which one stage was developed from the previous stage and its results were constantly compared to those of the previous one. The first stage involved in-depth individual interviews with nine early career teachers. The second stage involved working closely with a cohort of five student teachers during four months of their teaching practicum in the same teacher training program. The third stage involved my following one of the cohort members into the first two years of his teaching through online communication about their experiences and thinking about language teaching in real-life contexts. The close interaction with the novice teachers incrementally constructed a clearer picture of the complexity and dynamics of their thinking. The stories of the three groups revealed and confirmed a hierarchy of attention to core aspects of effective teaching. However, the movement across the hierarchy was not linear but fluctuating and causing dissonance between their cognition and practice. Moreover, the novice teachers’ thinking development also involved the development of generic thinking skills – from “either-or” thinking to “both-and” thinking, from single-perspective to multi-perspective thinking, and from a focus on the detail to 'big picture' thinking. Thinking development was found to go hand in hand with the development of teaching effectiveness, understanding of teaching methodologies, and awareness of professional identity. This research proposes a tentative framework of novice teachers’ thinking development from teaching practicum to early career teaching. The framework presents both content and processes of their thinking changes, both internal and external factors influencing their thinking changes, and both teaching-domain-specific and general thinking skills. This framework suggests reconsidering the over-emphasis on surface teaching methodology and teaching performance in teacher education programs and calls for more attention to the thinking, emotions, and self-awareness which strongly influence novice teachers’ teaching performance and professional identity.</p>

The emerging understandings and practices of task-based language teaching (TBLT) by Thai EFL student teachers

<p>Despite substantive empirical evidence for the efficacy of task-based language teaching and learning (TBLT), research shows that the classroom implementation of TBLT has often met with mixed success, especially in Asian EFL contexts (Adams & Newton, 2009; Butler, 2011, 2017; Thomas & Reinders, 2015). One of the reasons is teachers’ lack of understanding of TBLT (e.g., Carless, 2009) and it is this factor that the research focused on. Although TBLT is not widely known or practised in Thailand, its potential has been noted (McDonough & Chaikitmongkol, 2007), and so this is an important topic to address in this context. The research consisted of a two-phase, exploratory, qualitative study into the introduction of a new module on task-based language teaching (TBLT) in the methodology course in the final year of a pre-service EFL teacher education programme in a Thai university. Data was collected from a class of 31 EFL student teachers (STs) in their final (fourth) year of study in the programme and three STs in a one-year teaching practicum at a secondary school. Phase one investigated evidence of learning in the stated understandings of the STs and in their ability to design a task-based lesson at the conclusion of the TBLT module. Data consisted of pre-and post-course questionnaires, lesson plans designed by the STs, and focus-group interviews. The findings showed that after the 5-week TBLT module, two third of the class had developed a favourable disposition towards TBLT. At the conclusion of the module all the STs were able to plan a task-based lesson that broadly reflected principles of TBLT although there was evidence of limited understanding of task features and of difficulties with the task design process. Phase two involved case studies of three of the STs as they undertook a one-year teaching practicum at a secondary school. During the practicum, lesson planning and classroom observation data (video/audio-recordings and observation notes) was collected in three phases: (1) prior to being given any additional lesson planning guidance; (2) during the process of collaborative lesson planning with the researcher; and (3) in subsequent independently planned and taught lessons. In addition, data collection included stimulated recall interviews, semi-structured interviews and group interviews with the teachers and with students from their classes. The data shows how the STs’ understandings and teaching practices developed across these three phases as well as the affordances and constraints that shaped their adoption of TBLT. Learners in the STs’ classes actively engaged in the task-based lessons and reported positive attitudes towards the lessons. In conclusion, the study contributes to the field of TBLT research by providing insights into the processes by which TBLT can be introduced into pre-service teacher education in a context where it has previously not been widely disseminated or understood. Evidence presented in the study shows that the TBLT innovation was broadly successful in terms of its impact on the understandings and teaching practice by STs, at least as measured over the period of the STs main practicum experience.</p>

THE EXPERIENCES OF PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS TEACHING PRACTICUM DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the prohibition of close contact and this unprecedented issue has led to the abrupt closure of schools and universities across the country. Teacher education programs have taken a toll as the final year students would not be able to fully experience the working environment in a school during teaching practicum. Thus, this systematic literature review aims to explore the lived experiences of pre-service teachers teaching practicum experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, after screening from 23,084 research articles, 8 relevant articles that focus on the teaching practicum experiences of pre-service teachers during the pandemic were chosen for review in order to achieve the objective. The findings show that the pre-service teachers teaching practicum experiences can be categorised into intrapersonal development or interpersonal development. Pre-service teachers seem to have a positive perception towards the change as they understood the importance of the transition from face-to-face learning to online learning during the pandemic. Other than that, positive or negative teaching practicum experiences highly depend on the institutions as much as the pre-service teachers depend on themselves. The future agenda and implementation of the findings are also discussed.

The role of teaching practicum in the future biology teachers' professional training

Currently, education is moving towards a modern quality standard, which implies the improvement of the training of students of pedagogical universities for their future professional activity. Accordingly, the priority is given to the problem of training future teachers in the period of teaching practicum, the potential of which is crucial as a “vital foundation” for personal experience in determining professional interests and needs, in mastering the methods of educational activities. In this regard, the scientific problem of training students for self-realization in the context of teaching practicum within a certain pedagogical system will contribute to the expansion and enrichment of the research area of pedagogical science and practice.