Search results for: English (second language)

This exploratory action research study aims to understand the challenges that a group of pre-service teachers faced while participating in an undergraduate course unit introducing Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) teaching in an online context (Cycle 1), and the way in which they implemented plans of action (Cycle 2) to address issues uncovered in Cycle 1. The study found that the pre-service teachers experienced problems applying appropriate English teaching approaches to promote their pupils’ communicative competence. Four measures were applied in Cycle 2, such as restructuring the training-teaching module, reinforcing the concept of English as a lingua franca to promote students’ communicative skills, selecting authentic materials to enhance students’ motivation, and obtaining administrative support to resolve technological problems. The results from English proficiency tests showed that the pupils improved their reading and listening skills in Cycle 2. Although the actions taken in Cycle 2 were focused on improving pupils’ English abilities, these actions also had the effect of enhancing the pre-service teachers’ CLIL pedagogical concepts, such as the translanguaging approach. The study provides a detailed description of CLIL teaching with online storybooks and adds to the body of much-needed studies of CLIL in practice, especially in the Asian context.

The purpose of the present study was to explore online mentoring experience from the perspectives of preservice teachers (PTs). The methodology was qualitative. 35 randomly selected PTs were interviewed after the completion of an eight-week online school experience course. Data obtained from focus group interviews were analyzed using pattern coding. Overall, the PTs mostly had a positive online mentoring experience. They reported receiving sufficient contextual and technological support when needed with limited professional support. However, they expected their mentors to allocate more time and their university supervisors (USs) to control practicum schools and to provide more online teaching samples and guidelines. They indicated that when they did not receive supports this was entirely due to the pandemic.

Featuring a fundamental component in initial teacher education (ITE), the practicum also presents pre-service teachers (PSTs) with challenges arising in the process of crossing the boundary between the university and school. This paper draws on the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to analyse case study data on a university-school partnership in Vietnam. Findings reveal a ‘separatist’ partnership, characterised by marked division of labour, and insufficient communication between the partners. In light of CHAT, the paper offers a renewed understanding of partnership, whereby contradictions are viewed as valuable for learning as consistent ideas and values held by the partners.

This paper presents a narrative inquiry study on agency development in student-teachers of an English language teacher program at a public university in the south of Colombia. The authors’ goal was to understand how student-teachers develop agency when narratively inquiring their community by planning and conducting community-based pedagogy projects on issues they found pertinent to investigate. The data were gathered through semi-structured focus group interviews, individual journal entries, and video-recorded talks about their inquiries. As a conclusion, they acknowledge that certain social and narrative practices such as interacting within their inquiry groups, interacting with their communities, voicing their communities’ necessities, and acting upon the inquired necessities facilitated developing agency and contributed to rethinking their roles as transformative members of their communities.