Reflections of pre-service EFL teachers thourghout their teaching practicum: What has been good? What has gone wrong? What has changed?

ABSTRACT The emphasis and the importance of teaching practicum and student teaching in teacher education programs are unquestionable. Teacher education programs are keen on the idea that student teachers be given the best opportunities to practice teach in order to prepare for future teaching. Even though there has been numerous research done on different aspect of teaching practicum, what student teachers face and feel throughout their practicum experience has not been thoroughly examined by researchers in the teacher education. What student teachers express as their problems or as their positive attributes in their student teaching experiences are important in the analysis of the process of teaching practicum. This study was designed to determine the self-reported problems and positive aspects of student teachers' teaching throughout their practicum. The study also aims to find out, through the self reported data, if there has been any change in these problems or positive attributes in quantity or in category. The participants of this study were 99 Turkish student EFL teachers. They were senior students all completing their teaching practicum component at Anadolu University English Language Teacher Training Program. For the data collection purposes, student teachers were told to write their reflections on each of their teaching experience using the "Guided Reflection Protocol" (Hole & McEntee :1999) as their guideline. Data was analyzed by dividing the reflections in the student teachers' reports into communication units. Each communication unit was labeled as expressing a problem or a positive aspect in student teachers' teaching experiences. ConstantVI Comparison Method was used to categorize the communication units. Categories were also grouped into three different time periods taking reporting time of the communication unit into consideration as stated by student teachers. The analysis of the data revealed five main categories as the sources of problems student teachers experience: student teacher-based problems, student-based problems, cooperating teacher-based problems, educational context/system-based problems, and supervisor-based problems. Communication units related to positive aspects of student teachers' teaching, on the other hand, were drawn into three main categories: student teacher-based positive aspects, student based positive aspects, and cooperating teacher- based positive aspects. The analysis of the data suggested that the problems of pre- service teachers decrease in frequency whereas positive aspects increase towards the end of the practicum. Nevertheless, there are problem and positive aspect categories and sub-categories in student teachers' teaching that show no change, or show a reverse change to the general trend. The final chapter of the thesis posits and discusses a number of pedagogical implications and possible improvements for the teaching practicum courses in particular and curriculum in general for pre-service teacher education programs.