Multicultural Initial Teacher Training in Greece

Greece's demography has changed rapidly over the last 30 years. Migrants now form a sizable population but are still persistently excluded from mainstream conceptualizations and representations of the national ‘we'. Moreover, although multicultural classrooms have also become the norm, migrant students still face significant educational inequities. This chapter argues that a major stepping stone towards changing this adverse reality can come from the initial teacher training provided to future educators in Greece. Drawing upon teacher trainees' narratives, this chapter critically reflects upon the multicultural initial teacher training currently offered in Greece in an attempt to highlight how multicultural experiential learning contributes to the preparation of more multiculturally competent future educators. Illustrating good practice examples and areas in need of improvement in the training currently offered, this chapter also provides transferable guidelines for the creation of effective multicultural teacher training, based on equity and social justice principles.

Nauczyciel – badacz. O zastosowaniu badania w działaniu przez nauczycieli i przyszłych nauczycieli języków obcych

Action research (AR) as a research method has been recommended in the process of educating foreign language (FL) teachers as well as developing their teaching skills for decades. Many teacher education experts, including Elliott (1991) are of the opinion that the method contributes to teachers’ professional develpoment as they can extend their theoretical knowledge of the processes of learning and teaching through gaining the practical knowledge. Moreover, action research evokes the need for reflection upon one’s teaching activities. One may wonder whether FL teacher-practitoners apply AR in their teaching and how, if at all, it influences their classroom teaching. In order to learn about it, the author of the article conducted a questionnaire which provides interesting information about FL teachers’ attitude towards AR. The article aims at promoting AR as well as encouraging FL teachers and teacher-trainees to use the method in their work.

Validation of the Moral Disengagement for Adolescent Dating Violence Prevention Scale With Teacher Trainees

Once in the workforce, teachers are often asked to participate in school-based adolescent dating violence prevention efforts. However, our understanding of how willing and able future teachers are to engage in dating violence prevention is limited. This may be due, in part, to the lack of available measurement tools. Understanding willingness before teachers are in the classroom is key to exploring how to help future teachers be more ready and able to engage in prevention efforts once they are in the classroom. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to develop and test a measure that assesses one aspect of teacher trainees’ willingness to engage in dating violence prevention efforts: moral disengagement. Using two independent samples of teacher trainees ( N = 400; 64.5% White, 75.0% female, 84.5% heterosexual), we explored the factor structure of the Moral Disengagement for Adolescent Dating Violence Prevention (MD-ADVP) scale. We conducted exploratory factor analysis (Sample 1, n = 222) and confirmatory factor analysis (Sample 2, n = 178), and also examined the factor structure across sub-groups and assessed internal consistency reliability and construct validity evidence. Analyses suggest the MD-ADVP is unidimensional, and that this factor structure holds across sub-groups. We found strong evidence of both reliability and construct (convergent and divergent) validity. As hypothesized, scores on the MD-ADVP demonstrated significant negative bivariate associations with scores on three measures of adolescent dating violence prevention-related beliefs, and no association with scores on a measure of weight bias. The MD-ADVP will advance research investigating teacher preparation for adolescent dating violence prevention efforts. For example, use of the MD-ADVP can illuminate whether teacher trainees’ moral disengagement is an indicator of future implementation success. Further testing of this measure in racially and gender diverse samples is needed.

Teacher Trainees Perceptions of Think-Pair-Share Technique in Teaching Classification of Living Organisms in Colleges of Education – Ghana

The purpose of the study was to explore the perceptions of teacher trainees on the use of think-pair-share in teaching and learning of classification of living organisms. The study adopted a quantitative approach. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to report the results of the study. Frequency counts and percentages were used to report the teacher trainees’ perceptions about the impact of think-pair-share learning technique in the teaching and learning of classification of living organisms. The study was carried out in Enchi College of Education in the Aowin Municipality in the Western North Region of Ghana. Stratified, simple random, and systematic sampling techniques were used to select 80 respondents for the study. This was made up of 30 level 300, 30 level 200, and 20 level 100 students, respectively. The participants were subjected to think-pair-share learning technique of teaching. The instrument used for the data collection was a questionnaire guide. The findings of the study revealed that, think-pair-share learning technique of teaching motivate and engage, provide immediate feedback, develop social and physical skills simultaneously, help students to learn with fun and increase students interest and confidence level. It was therefore recommended that creative approach such as think-pair-share learning technique should be adopted by science tutors in Colleges of Education for effective teaching and learning.

Primary Teacher Trainees’ Intercultural Education The Italian case

This study focuses on the importance of strengthening intercultural awareness among future Primary School teachers. Intercultural communicative competence plays a fundamental role in developing an honest and productive dialogue among people, whatever their origin, language or cultural heritage, and prospective teachers will be responsible for training the ‘good interculturalists’ of tomorrow. A survey was conducted among students attending a degree course for Primary Education Teachers to highlight what knowledge, practices and skills they have acquired regarding intercultural competence and whether they are able to deal with and successfully apply the notions of plurilingual and intercultural competence to their teaching practices.

Real Time Feedback in English Microteaching Practice: A Case Study on Online Learning

<p class="16">Online microteaching classes allow the student to practice their teaching ability using the online platform. This case study attempted to find out the perspective of teacher trainees using real-time feedback and peer observation of online microteaching classes. The researcher focused on 3rd year microteaching students in 2020/2021 at one of Indonesia's state universities. In this qualitative case study, the researcher used multiple data collection techniques. The researcher uses a questionnaire from (Eksi, 2020) with some changes to suit the purpose of this study in collecting data. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to 40 teacher trainees who already practiced online microteaching and got real-time feedback from the lecture and their peers. The teacher trainee showed a positive perspective in using real-time feedback. They thought the process helped increased their professional development. Many student-teachers were engaged in giving real-time feedback to other student teacher's performance. They realized that real-time feedback helped them positively. However, the results found that most of the teacher trainees believe that the direct observation from two or three students was enough. Teacher trainees also thought that online classes are increasing the opportunity for misunderstanding.</p>

LEVEL OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES AS A FACTOR RELATED TO ACADEMIC PROCRASTINATION IN TEACHER TRAINEES IN THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Procrastination represents a significant chronic tendency of individuals to delay tasks manifested in various fields of human activities, including their academic life. Even though the results of available research show that almost every student is a procrastinator, in Slovak research, not much attention has been paid to this phenomenon. In the presented paper, the authors deal with the topical issues of academic procrastination in university students enrolled in bachelors and masters teacher training programmes and present the partial results of an original research study in the discussed field according to the variable of the level of university studies. The sample consisted of 748 respondents from the above specific target group and is evenly distributed. For the purposes of the research, an author-constructed questionnaire was used. The results indicate that teacher trainees in master programmes miss deadlines more frequently and they tend to procrastinate in relation to their academic tasks more than their colleagues in bachelor programmes. The presented research brings unique data from the Slovak academic environment and has implications for further research in the field of academic procrastination.