Coping, Confidence and Alienation: the early experience of trainee teachers in English FE

This article examines what both in-service and pre-service trainee teachers learn from their early experience of teaching in further education (FE) colleges in England. Despite differences between in-service and pre-service trainees, that early experience is often characterised by isolation and lack of control over practice for both groups. Though trainee teachers may develop as a result of this experience of working in FE, a discourse that emphasises their growing confidence obscures how these trainees may not be enhancing their professional practice, but rather learning to cope with difficult circumstances. This article draws on data gathered between 2005 and 2009 from two separate projects, one that focused on pre-service, the other on in-service teacher education in FE colleges. It problematises the effect of this early experience and applies the Marxist concept of alienation to analyse the development of trainee teachers in relation to coping rather than learning to teach and to the limited impact of government reform. As a partial counterbalance to the paucity of the early experience of many trainee teachers, the article concludes by arguing that teacher education for the FE sector should be constructed around a body of professional knowledge rather than the lengthy list of statutory professional standards that directs current provision

Trainee teachers’ engagement in a cross-curricular news project: impact on professional identity

On 7th September at BERA, the above ITTE members presented the findings from their ITTE evaluation project, funded by the TDA into the impact of the BBC News School Report project on trainee teachers. In short, the project found that the professional identity of trainee teachers, is, in part, defined by their relationship to those who mentor and tutor them. As teachers in training they are in a role with less power than those who are responsible for their training, support and development. The ITTE evaluation focused on the impact of trainee teachers’ engagement in the BBC News School Report project and how this helped to form their professional identity. This was examined through the roles taken by trainee teachers in the project while on placement in schools, the activities they were consequently engaged in and the types of evidence generated for their assessment against the Standards for Qualified Teachers in England. The evaluation of the project for Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA), the government agency responsible for teacher training in England, involved the following instruments of data collection - surveys, focus groups and written reports. Respondents included trainee teachers themselves, their tutors as representatives of teacher education providers and their mentors as representatives of schools in which they were placed. The methodological approach was interpretative and phenomenological with qualitative and quantitative data being analysed for emergent themes. The paper presented at BERA focused on one of the themes found, that of the impact on the professional identity of trainee teachers exposed to taking up leadership roles. The research showed that their professional identity is enhanced through their being in a leading role in respect of curriculum and working with other staff. Their self perception of role was modified to one in which they saw themselves, and were seen, as equals to qualified staff rather than subservient or dependent on them. Furthermore, engagement in such projects led them to collecting richer, more holistic evidence for meeting the Standards as they took greater ownership for this process, situating it in their leading role in the project. Their identity became defined less by the articulation of Standards and by their relationship to others and more by their own notions of professionalism. A new more equal power relationship developed as they took on responsibility for the project

Developing enterprise culture in a northern educational authority in the UK: involving trainee teachers in learning-orientated evaluation

In this paper we discuss our use of innovative methods - at least in the context of regeneration evaluation - to help evaluate an enterprise project in northern England, paying particular attention to the involvement of trainee teachers. We discuss the methods used and critically appraise the methods and methodology, present some emerging findings from the trainee teachers strand and conclude by discussing the place of what might be termed 'learning-orientated evaluation' in relation to the currently dominant output-focussed evaluation paradigm.</p

How do International Trainee Teachers and Mentors Respond to Cross-cultural Mentoring Relationships?

Forty-one percent of the trainee teachers who trained to teach modern foreign languages (MFL) at the University of Worcester between September 2008 and June 2011 were international trainee teachers who spoke English as an additional language. International trainee teachers and home trainee teachers do not usually share the same mother tongue or the same culture. A small-scale research project was conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods to consider international trainee teacher and mentor attitudes to cross-cultural mentoring relationships. The study found that it was critically important to facilitate communication between mentor and trainee teachers in order to support the development of cross-cultural mentoring relationships, to help avoid misunderstandings and to enable trainee teachers to meet their potential

The Meaning and Construction of the Dialogical Teacher Training

Dialogical teacher training is an important way to promote the efficiency of the teacher training. It is based on the interactions between trainer teachers, training contents and trainee teachers, including construction of dialogical relationship between trainer teachers and trainee teachers, dialogical relationship between trainee teachers themselves, and dialogical relationship among trainee teachers

Hubungan nilai kerja dengan jantina, umur dan pengalaman mengajar guru pelatih

In order to be successful in his work, a person should have not only knowledge and skills, but also good work values. The study explored twelve work values of trainee teachers of Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (UPM) and their relationships with gender, age and teaching experience. In general, trainee teachers of UPM had good work values. They considered self-development, economic reward and job security as very important values, whereas creativity, working conditions, life style and autonomy were considered moderately important. Values like variety, authority, social relationship, risk, and prestige were not very important to them. In addition, significantly low relationships exist between work values and age and teaching experience. Young trainee teachers without teaching experience were found to have better work values than experienced trainee teachers. Male trainee teachers were found to value creativity and authority more than female trainee teachers. Trainee teachers without teaching experience were also found to value variety, risk and prestige more than experienced trainee teachers. Age was found to have negative and low but significant relationships with life style, authority, risk and prestige. This relationship showed that as trainee teachers grew older, these values became less important to them. Based on the findings of the study, it is suggested that rewards should be given to teacher's in order to attract more of the younger generation to become teachers, teachers should be given more autonomy, teachers should be motivated to use their own creativity, and younger teachers should be given challenging tasks

EFL Trainee Teachers’ Perceptions of School-Based Teaching Practice and Their Reflections on Their Teaching Practice: Hawassa College of Teacher Education in Focus

This study intends to explore EFL trainee teachers’ perceptions of school-based teaching practice and their reflections on the school-based teaching practice. To achieve this objective, the study employed mixed method research design. To this end, questionnaire and interview were employed to collect data. All sixty third year regular EFL trainee teachers at Hawassa College of Teacher Education were included in this study. The questionnaire was administered to all sixty EFL trainee teachers. In addition, four EFL trainee teachers were included for the interview data. Then, the quantitative data were analysed using mean and standard deviation and Pearson product-moment correlation. To check the predictive power of perceptions on EFL trainee teachers’ reflective practice simple linear regression was employed. Interview data were utilized qualitatively. The finding revealed that EFL trainee teachers had positive perceptions and reflected positively towards school-based teaching practice. In addition, there was a high statistical moderate positive correlation between EFL trainee teachers’ perceptions of school-based teaching practice and their reflections on it(r=.626). Furthermore, the finding revealed that perceptions towards school-based teaching practice significantly predicted EFL trainee teachers’ reflection on school-based teaching practice. The findings from interview also supported the quantitative data result. Keywords: EFL Trainee teachers, Perception, School-based teaching practice, Reflection DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-3-05 Publication date: February 28th 2021

A Study of Group Learning Among ELT Practicum Students through Analysis of Their Teaching Practicum Journals in A MAELT Program at Assumption University

Teaching Practicum (TP) is important for trainee teachers and many studies have been conducted to help improve the quality of TP recently. This research aims to analyze ten journals written by ten trainee teachers during their practicum in a MA – ELT program at Assumption University. These trainee teachers came from three different countries: seven of Chinese, one British, one Burmese and one Vietnamese. They all had different backgrounds in terms of culture, perception and education. The procedure to analyze these journals was done by finding similarities and differences within the journals of these trainee teachers. The trainee teachers had to communicate and share their ideas and thoughts to each other in order to learn and improve through their journals. The outcomes revealed the evaluation of the practicum from the trainee teachers’ points of view. In addition, the outcomes also provided helpful implications for both trainee teachers and supervisors in using journals more effectively

Links between ICT advanced skills teachers and initial teacher training

This report and guidance materials were compiled for the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA)Research undertaken at one higher education institution located in West London, UK sought to explore links between ICT Avanced Skills Teachers (AST) and Initial Teacher Training (ITT). The main objective was to capture the perceptions and experiences of leading ASTs in ICT along with those of teacher educators and trainee teachers to identify ways in which collaborative and/or sustainable partnerships might be forged, which enable trainee teachers to gain exposure to cutting edge, best practice of ICT in primary and secondary schools

Increasing the subject knowledge of trainee teachers

A number of potential entrants to teacher training in secondary science are deterred due to lack of breadth and depth in subject knowledge. This article outlines two Teacher Training Agency (TTA) sponsored approaches to enhancing the subject knowledge of trainee teachers during and prior to their formal training period