Student teachers' self-reported challenges during the practicum (A Qualitative study) = Nghiên cứu định tính về những khó khăn của giáo sinh trong thời gian thự

practicum can inform changes which are to prepare the student teachers better by narrowing the gap between the teacher education programme and the real teaching in the school.. Scope, Ai

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC

STUDENT TEACHERS’ SELF-REPORTED CHALLENGES

DURING THE PRACTICUM

A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Nghiên cứu định tính về những khó khăn của giáo sinh

trong thời gian thực tập sư phạm

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC

STUDENT TEACHERS’ SELF-REPORTED CHALLENGES

DURING THE PRACTICUM

A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Nghiên cứu định tính về những khó khăn của giáo sinh

trong thời gian thực tập sư phạm

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Table of contentS

Page

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

Part A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Scope, aims, research design and significance of the study 2

2.1 Aims of the study 2

2.2 Research design 2

2.3 Scope of the study 2

2.4 Significance of the study 2

3 Structure of the Thesis 3

PartB: DEVELOPMENT 4

Chapter 1: literature review 4

1.1 The Practicum 4

1.2 The Challenges of the Practicum 7

1.3 The Roles of Cooperating Teachers (Mentors) in the Practicum 11

1.4 The Practicum Supervisor 13

Summary 15

Chapter 2: The study 16

2.1 The Context of the Study 16

2.2 Participants 17

2.3 Research Methods 17

2.4 Instruments 18

2.4.1 The Diary 18

2.4.2 Interviews 20

2.5 Data Collection Procedures 20

Summary 21

Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion 22

3.1 Data analysis 22

3.1.1 Challenges in students' behaviour 22

3.1.2 Challenges in lesson planning 24

3.1.3 Challenges in using the blacboard 26

3.1.4 Challenges in classroom teaching 27

3.1.5 Challenges in the relationship with mentors 31

3.1.6 The need of a college supervisor in the practicum 33

3.1.7 The benefits of the practicum 35

Summary 36

Part c: conclusion 37

1 Conclusions 37

2 Suggestions for the Teacher Education Programme 37

3 Limitations of the Study 38

4 Suggestions for Futher Research 38

References……….39-44

Appendix 1: Guidance on writing diary during the practicum I

Part A: introduction

1 Rationale

In recent years, the Ministry of Education and Training has paid much attention to raising the standard of learning and teaching English as a compulsory subject from the primary to the tertiary level of education Educational quality depends on the teacher quality, which is dependent on the training quality Therefore emphasis should be on all three training components of learning: subject matter (content) knowledge, pedagogical knowledge (pedagogy), and professional experience (the practicum)

For the subject matter knowledge, student teachers are supplied with basic foundation knowledge of the subject they will teach Regarding the pedagogical knowledge, they are provided with theories of language, theories of language learning, and classroom management strategies as well as how to interact with the students in the classroom These two first components of teacher education programmes are carried out in the university or college And then in the practicum, which takes place in schools, they apply what they have learned to the actual classrooms with real students The practicum is, thus, to help the student teachers gain the professional experience needed for their learning to teach

The 6-week practicum is the last stage in a teacher education course This is the time for pre-service teacher to transfer the theory into practice During this time they can feel stressful because they may be faced with the unpredictable challenges of carrying out two important tasks at the same time: teaching, and learning to teach They are expected to do tasks like: planning lessons, preparing visual aids, teaching in the classroom, interacting with students…In addition, they try to build good relationship with their cooperating teachers (mentors) All of these give them tensions and challenges because what they believe about effective teaching and learning may conflict with the reality of teaching in the school context

While there have been studies investigating the different aspects of student teachers‟ learning to teach, however, little has been documented concerning how pre-service EFL teachers prepare for their learning to teach (Gomez,1990; Kelley, 2005), especially in Vietnamese contexts I believe that insights into student teachers‟ challenges during the

practicum can inform changes which are to prepare the student teachers better by narrowing the gap between the teacher education programme and the real teaching in the school

This study sets out to explore the challenges and tensions of the 5 student teachers through their diaries written during the practicum

2 Scope, Aims, Research Design and Significance of the Study

2.1 Aims of the study

The study aims at:

- Exploring the challenges of the 5 student teachers through their diaries

- Identifying the gaps between the existing teacher education programme and the reality

in the school context

- Giving some suggestions for the improvement of the existing teacher education programme

2.2 Research Design

Given the aims of the study, which are to explore the challenges encountered by the student teachers during the practicum, a qualitative design was employed Data were collected from the student teachers‟ diaries and follow-up interviews, and then analysed qualitatively in order to find common challenges encountered by the student teachers participating in this study In addition to the common patterns of challenges, particulars were also attended to

2.3 Scope of the study

The study limits itself to the investigation of the challenges of the student teachers during their practicum Information was collected from a small group of 5 student teachers‟ diaries and the follow-up interviews The study is not intended to look into student teachers‟ classroom teaching practices Nor is it intended to explore the benefits gained by the student teachers in the practicum

2.4 Significance of the Study

As stated in the Rationale, this study will contribute to the understanding of the relevance of the existing teacher education programme at Nghe An Teachers‟ College to the

real teaching at the lower secondary school, where student teachers are assigned to teach upon their graduation Specifically, findings of the study will identify the space for improvement of the existing teacher education programme in a bid to prepare the student teachers better

3 Structure of the Thesis

The thesis is composed of three parts with each part consisting of different chapters

Part A is the introduction, which consists of the rational, scope, aims, research design,

significance, and structure of the study

Part B is the development of the thesis which comprises 3 chapters

Chapter 1 reviews the literature relevant to the topic of the research and summarizes some

selected studies on challenges of student teachers in the practicum, which serves as a theoretical and methodological foundation of the study

Chapter 2 presents the research methodology of the study It provides information about

the participants, the resources, the data collection procedure and data analysis

Chapter 3 is the main part of the study which reports and discusses the main findings

according to research matter

Part C is the conclusion that presents the author‟s reflection and limitations of the study and

finally gives the implication of the study and some suggestions for further research

Part B:development

Chapter I: Literature review

This chapter reviews the literature on the practicum It first discusses the role of the practicum in the teacher education programme Next, it reviews the challenges of the student teachers during the practicum such as their relationship with the mentors or cooperating teachers, and other challenges Then the roles of mentors or cooperating teachers are mentioned Finally, the role of the supervisor in the practicum is reviewed

1.1 The Practicum

If education plays a crucial role in developing the human capital required for the economic and social growth of societies (Anamuah-Mensah, 2002), teachers play a decisive role in this undertaking Teacher quality constitutes a critical factor on which the quality of the human capital depends It is said that “if they [teachers] acquire the professional competence and attitudes that enable them to effectively perform their multiple tasks in the classroom, in the school and in the community, teachers become the single most important contributing factor in ensuring quality educational provision” (Dave & Rajput, 2000)

Teachers‟ professional competence is developed first of all in the teacher education programmes of which the practicum is an inseparable part According to Hawes & Hawes (1982), the practicum is considered as a course or student exercise involving practical experience as well as theoretical study It is a “supervised experience in counselling as part of professional pre-service education of counselors” (p.498) For other scholars, the practicum is one of the most important aspects of a student teacher‟s education (e.g Clarke & Collins, 2007; Farrell, 2008) In fact, the importance of the practicum is specified by scholars For example, Collinson, Kozina, Lin, Ling, Matheson, Newcobe, & Zogla (2009) view the practicum as an important induction into the profession “both to improve teachers‟ skills and

to extend the body of knowledge on effective teaching practices” For Purdy and Gibson (2008), teaching practice plans a role in education similar to internship or field attachment in other professions such as medicine, law, and engineering by offering exposure to practical classroom experiences in the context of a mainstream school From the perspective of learning to teach, Johnson (1996) has noted that “For most student teachers, the practicum is

considered to be one of the most important learning experiences in learning to teach” through reasoning about their practices, supported by their educators (p.30 )

Extended teaching practice could give the student teachers considerable “exposure to practices of experienced teachers” (Zeichner, 2006:333) Especially, the practicum may provide feedback to the teacher education institution regarding the progress to their students and provide a basis as to whether they should be qualified to teach or not It also enables the teacher education institution to identify aspects of their programme to improve (Derrick & Dicks, 2005) Johnson (1996) concludes her study that

A better understanding of pre-service teachers‟ perceptions of the practicum may enable the field of second language teacher education to better understand how second language teachers learn to teach and how teacher preparation programmes can effectively enhance this development process (p 47)

This is also the aim of the present study, which is to find out the space for improvement in the existing teacher education programme at Nghe An Teachers‟ College

It is evident that the practicum provides a useful opportunity for student teachers to learn to teach, to try applying the theories they have acquired from the teacher education programmes into the real classroom It also provides an opportunity for student teacher to learn the practical teaching skills from the experienced teachers in the role of mentoring or cooperating teachers As discussed above, not only do the student teachers benefit the practicum, but also the teacher education provider, i.e., the teacher education institution, can also improve the quality of the programme through the feedback and the progress of the student teachers during the practicum Anamuah-Mensah (2002, p 121) has pointed out that the practicum is aimed at:

 Strengthening the development of specific teaching competencies;

 Providing opportunities for self reflection;

 Providing opportunities for sharing experiences with a mentor, supervisor and peers;

 Promoting problem solving capacity and team skill in student teachers and an appreciation of the life of the whole school as distinct from teaching in individual classroom;

 Encourage formation of learning communities and promotion of team work;

 Developing collaborative capacities in student teachers as a basis for successful participation in teaching teams and partnership arrangements at school;

 Providing opportunity for student teachers to establish themselves as generative and innovative teaching professionals through authentic participation in school and community activities;

 Meeting real pupils/learners and real situations enables student teachers to develop a repertoire of skills in dealing with different learning situations; and

 Developing competencies as teacher-researcher through action research projects

However, the benefits of the practicum are not autonomous, or come from the vacuum

In other words, student teachers‟ gains from the practicum depends on a variety of different factors such as the skills of the mentoring or cooperating teachers, the motivation of the student teachers, etc The most decisive factor to the desired success of the practicum is the organisation and management of the practicum This point has been noted by Anamuah-Mensah (2002) that:

As a major component of the training of teachers, practicum experience for initial teacher education should have in-built flexibility to enable teachers who

go through it to be able to meet future demands The role of practicum in any teacher education programme will depend on the structure of the practicum While some have six-week experience others have 16-32 week experience that embraces different activities and different objectives This suggests multiple roles for the practicum experience (p.118)

Thus, the practicum is considered an important aspect of teacher education that is getting increased attention of researchers in the field (Ong‟ondo & Jwan, 2009) It is a complex stage which is approached very differently in various parts of the world It is also a central part of student teacher development in many countries and is crucial for implementing EFL education reform (Anderson,2004; Stewart, 2004) These field experiences allow student

teachers to make a connection between their acquired pedagogical knowledge or theories

of language learning and teaching and school practices

Although the benefits of the practicum are evident, the student teachers, during the practicum, may experience a lot of challenges such as the strange school environment, the attitudes of the mentoring teachers, and the pressure from the students and from the school These challenges will be discussed in the following section

1.2 The Challenges of the Practicum

The school where the practicum happens is usually a strange land to the student teachers Everything seems unpredictable to them Therefore, student teachers embarking on their practicum are likely to feel anxious about their new experiences In order to overcome those challenges, student teachers need to have the right attitude toward the practicum in addition to their professional knowledge and skills In this section I will review the literature

on some of the challenges student teachers face

Wang and Odell (2002) identify three types of challenges that can confront student teacher when learning to teach within the school context These challenges include emotional and psychological stress, lack of support, and conceptual struggles about teaching and learning Emotional and psychological stress is “widely assumed to be the result of the relatively low professional status of teaching, the uncertainty of classroom life, and difficult working condition” (p.514) Student teachers can experience high levels of stress during their field experience because they face the challenges of carrying out two important tasks at the same time: teaching and learning to teach Emotional and psychological challenges may be rooted in the student teachers‟ unrealistic expectations For example, many student teachers enter the practicum with hopes and inflated expectations that are often “shattered by exposure

to certain realities of schools, classroom, and teaching” (Knowles, Coles & Presswood, 1994, p.109) In her case study, Johnson (1996) finds out that the tensions of the practicum are rooted in the gap between the student teachers‟ vision and the reality of language teaching In addition, a lack of support can include a “lack of instruction routines, procedures, skills, and techniques that are related to the contexts of teaching” (Wang & Odell, 2002, p.515) Student teachers may be unprepared for the demands of upper secondary English teaching and more effective models for pre-service EFL teacher development are required (Butcher,2003)

Kagan (1992, pp 154-155) points out that student teachers may have inadequate knowledge of the pupils and classroom procedures of the host school They come instead with idealized views of pupils and an optimistic, oversimplified picture of classroom practice They are usually unprepared to deal with problems of class control and discipline As a result, most of them become obsessed with class control, designing instruction, not to promote pupil learning, but to discourage disruptive behavior

Brandt (2006) conducted an ethnographic study with 95 participants from 9 countries over a period of 4 years and identified 21 critical issues related to the teaching practice during the practicum These include poor relationship between student teachers and the teaching practice tutors; student teachers‟ difficulties complying with their tutors‟ expectations; collaboration among student teachers, especially in the latter stages of the practicum; student teachers‟ failure in responding the learners‟ needs; tutors‟ delayed feedback on failing lessons among others Tutors were more concerned about evidence to justify grades while ignoring giving developmental feedback Brandt suggests that there should be a move away from “

„being told‟ transfer approach, which is expert-directed, subordinating, replicating, dependent and rational towards an exploratory „finding out‟ or transformative approach” (p 362,

emphasis in the original)

Leshem and Bar-Hama (2008) examine troublesome issue of assessing „teaching practice lesson‟ in their second language teacher education program in Israel Working in a context where numerical grades for such activities are the norm, they examine different ways

of encouraging more discussion during feedback sessions in order to provide more learning opportunities for student teachers According to these researchers, evaluation of observed lessons is a controversial issue Their study also shows that trainee teachers preferred numerical grades than just “pass‟ or „fail‟, but most of them opted for a holistic approach to evaluation They need explicit criteria for effective teaching in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses and use them as guidelines for improvement To address this paradox, they recommend that a space should be provided for the trainee teachers‟ voice regarding approach

to teaching evaluation

Very recently, Farrell (2008) reports in his case study with eighteen Singaporean trainee teachers thirty-six critical incidents these trainee teachers encountered during their teaching practice The most frequent incidents were trainee teachers‟ poor language proficiency, students‟ poor class participation and behavior He asserts that any incidents that occur can be dramatic to trainee students who have not experienced these before

Vanci Osam and Balbay (2004) have examined the different decision-making patterns and responses to difficulties of student teachers in Turkey They suspect a mismatch between two groups‟ needs and ways of dealing with difficulties The student teachers were concerned with issues of classroom management, while the mentors (or cooperating teachers) were more concerned with matters in the here-and-now of classroom activities, such as teaching particular parts of the coursebook What the study demonstrates is that mentors need to be sensitised to the difficulties faced by student teachers if they are to provide assistance of value Another difficulty raised is that the mentors are seen as too entrenched in a transmission approach to teaching, reinforced by the school setting, which did not match closely enough with the teaching ideas the student teachers had gathered from their formal preparation sessions

Regarding the issue of student teachers‟ preoccupation with themselves some research

on student teachers‟ experiences has shown that initial teacher education did not seem to prepare student teachers adequately practice ( e.g Johnson, 1996)

Nevertheless, some studies have shown that the amount of preparation at university notwithstanding, most student teachers still face huge challenges during teaching practice For example, studies by Caires and Almeida (2005) in Portugal, Johnson (1994) and Liston et al (2006) in North America reported that one of the major challenges student teachers reported was the need to perform according to the procedures taught at the university, which took their attention away from reasoning about teaching based on their experiences McCormack et al (2006) also conducted a study in Australia that examined the experience of fifty beginner teachers and reported the challenges posed by a weak relationship between coursework and practice which included fitting within a dominant school culture, getting used to formal supervision for accreditation, and developing their own effective approaches to teaching

They reported that for most student teachers, these were very difficult to achieve during teaching practice

Intrator (2006) also identified another key challenge student teachers face during teaching practice is how to balance between portraying themselves as qualified professionals who know what they are doing, against the need to be humble and to portray the desire to seek support from experienced teachers in the spirit of “commitment to inquiry and willingness to learn from error” (p.233-238)

Feeling isolated and unsupported is another challenge, which has been reported in the literature Placed in a classroom in a school, student teachers are often isolated from university lecturers and coursework, other classroom as well as from their peers (Cohen, 1999) This creates a sense of „disconnection‟ among the student teachers In order to address this challenge, some teacher education institutions use a “university supervisor” to make some connections between the two contexts of school and university A growing trend however, amidst the current climate, is that supervisory visits are made by non-tenured hourly paid staff who have not taught university coursework and so for them, making links between the two contexts is difficult Moreover, school environments are becoming increasingly „busy place‟ and so, even when students are placed in school groups, difficulties with pressured timetables and teachers‟ commitments do not lend themselves to peers working together or university lecturers engaging with teachers

In summary, when leaving their university settings for actual school settings, there is a tremendous amount of pressure on student teachers The expectations placed on them are high, whether by their mentor teachers, their university facilitators, or themselves Upon entering the school, they find themselves in an unknown situation facing a variety of challenges emerging from their work at the school These challenges include the following (Available at http://www2.education.ualbeterta.ca.html):

Stress of interacting with students: no matter how many pedagogical content classes a

student teacher takes regarding classroom management and child/adolescent development, actually being around students is an overwhelming feeling Student teachers feel pressure to behave in a professional manner while developing a good rapport with the students They can

also find themselves exhausted after such a long day of interaction, especially having come from a much more individualized university settings

Relationship with cooperating teacher (mentor): student teachers or mentees also feel

a great deal of stress around the relationship that will develop between them and their mentor teachers This relationship is extremely important for the length of the practicum and often sets the tone for a student teacher‟s experience

Planning and teaching: Having to plan their own lessons is a challenging experience

for many student teachers, especially taking into account that they are being constantly evaluated by their mentors They must learn to create diverse and engaging lessons; they must then learn how to put those into action, something which is easier said than done

Challenges in using blackboard: This is a big challenge that student teachers face in

the practicum They must learn how to divide the board properly so that they can write down what are necessary for their students‟ learning Also their handwritings must be good in order

to avoid mistakes made by students while they copying down in notebooks

New environment: Student teachers can also feel challenged and out of their element

simply by being in this new school environment It is difficult to get to know the staff or the practices as quick as one would like Until this is accomplished, student teachers can feel very out of their element which adds to their stress

Evaluation: Teacher candidates also feel a great deal of pressure to perform well in

front of their mentors as they are very aware that the evaluation from their mentors will be very influential in their future job searches

1.3 The roles of cooperating teachers (mentors) in the practicum

Some of the studies (e.g Atay, 2007; Hsu, 2005) report that cooperating teachers (mentors) effectively facilitate student teachers‟ learning in many aspects For example, Atay (2007) reports how observation of mentors assist student teachers to develop in efficacy Another researcher who reports a similar finding is Darling-Hammond (2006) following her study (together with others) of the practicum in several teacher education programmes in

North America She points out that in programmes where collaboration between student teachers and mentors is well structured and emphasized , there is very powerful impact on student teachers development Similarly, several research papers from many different countries in the world spanning over thirty years reviewed by Hobson et al (2009) have generally supported the importance of structured collaboration in student teachers‟ learning during the practicum

Other studies on this issue have indicated that where the collaboration is not well structured, where there is no shared understanding among the participants on teaching approaches, and if cooperating teachers are not prepared for their roles, there is usually no productive learning for the student teachers and that the student teachers might end up with very negative practicum experiences (e.g Farrell, 2001, 2008; Graham, 2006) Hence, mentoring programs should be devised for mentors to assist their mentees develop pedagogical knowledge and overcome context-specific difficulties Researchers (e.g Forbes, 2004; Garnes, 2004; Hawkey, 1997) have shown that mentoring relationships in school-based programs can shape student teachers‟ professional practice Undoubtedly, student teachers in their formative stages of development require assistance from more experienced colleagues More specifically, effective mentoring programs provide structure and support to promote the attainment of effective teaching skills and sound pedagogical knowledge (Arnold, 2006; Woullard & Coat, 2004)

It is established that school mentors play important roles in effectively mentoring student teachers during their teaching practice (Borko & Mayfield, 1995; Ewell, 2004) A mentor may be defined as “one who is more knowledgeable on teaching practices and through explicit mentoring processes develops pedagogical self-efficacy in the mentee towards autonomous teaching practices” (Hudson, 2004, p.216-217) Five factors for mentors‟ facilitation of the mentoring process have been theoretically and empirically identified These five factors are: personal attributes, system requirements, pedagogical knowledge, modelling, and feedback (Hudson, 2005) Mentors need to display personal attributes that facilitate a collaborative working relationship (Ganser, 1991) System requirements must be made explicit to student teachers in order to understand departmental directives for teaching (Lenton & Turner, 1999) A mentor‟s articulation of pedagogical knowledge aims to enhance student teacher development (Zanting, Verloop, & Vermunt, 2003) Mentors need to display

their expertise by modeling effective teaching practices (Klausmeier, 1994; Malderez & Bodoczky, 1999) Finally, feedback in both oral and written form can guide student teacher development with clear expectations for improving practices (Malderez & Bodoczky, 1999; Zachary, 2002)

What has been discussed in this section indicates that the outcome of the practicum in terms of the student teachers‟ learning to teach depends largely on the cooperation between the student teacher and his or her mentor or cooperating teacher Another person who is, to a great extent, influential to the student teacher‟s learning to teach during the practicum is the supervisor The role of the practicum supervisor will be reviewed in the subsequent section

1.4 The Practicum Supervisor

In most teacher education programmes, student teachers are supervised by teacher educators from their institutions The process usually involves the supervisors observing the student teachers‟ teaching in classrooms, and then talking about the lessons during what is commonly called post-observation conferences (e.g Bailey, 2006; Intrator, 2006) Bailey,

2006 stated that “supervision is an integral part of the teaching practice or practicum undertaken in schools by part-time or full-time students seeking professional initial teaching qualifications” (p.3) Intrator (2006) explains that the main goal of supervision should be to support student teacher to perform the correct mental disposition and be ready to improve during the time He goes on to suggest that such support is important because the “journey student teacher experience is especially intense, conflicting, dynamic and fragile” (p.234)

With regard to the importance of supervision in the practicum, Richards and Crookes (1988) assert that the success of the practice teaching depends on the kinds of liaison and communication established between supervisor and master teacher The responsibilities of the cooperating teacher and the purpose of the visits from the supervisor need to be clearly established At the same time, student teachers need to be made aware of what is expected of them Zimpher, deVoss, and Nott (1980), in one of the few studies on the relationship between supervision and student teacher, attest to the crucial role of the supervisor:

First, at least four of the findings suggest that if the university supervisor were not directly involved in the student teaching experience, there would have been no direction set

for requirements, evaluation, or assessment of the student teacher‟s experience in the school site Second, informational communication between participants appeared to be enhanced because of the presence of the university supervisor Students and teachers (and the principal) appeared unable to deal with each other very directly and needed an interlocutor‟s assistance-in this case the university supervisor Third, even though the university supervisor

in the study appeared to be frustrated by a lack of direct influence on the teaching style of the student teachers, the supervisor seemed to be the only one making any critical contributions to the student teachers‟ progress (p.14)

Sandholtz and Shannon (2000) stress the important role of practicum supervision in teacher preparation programs According to these researchers, the supervisor plays the role not only as a subject matter expert and a resourceful person for pedagogical strategies for teaching a particular discipline, but also as a leading subject matter resource for student teachers For scholars such as Adey and Speedy (1993) and Hawkey (1998) the student teacher‟s success in the practicum depends partly on how well the supervisor does his or her job They stress the need to establish a good degree of cooperation between the practicum supervisor and the cooperating teacher The supervisor‟s role and responsibilities are changing depending on the development and requirements of the teaching-learning process and the teacher preparation methods Sandholtz and Shannon (2000) state that the availability

of the practicum supervisor at a school site helps student teachers through when needed

Although the practicum has been researched internationally for several years, little has been done to investigate the challenges of the student teachers during the practicum in Vietnamese contexts In fact, there are few of studies on Vietnamese pre-service EFL teachers‟ challenges during their practicum Most studies focus on EFL in-service teacher education with the assumption that teachers play a key role for improving English language education in Vietnam (Le, 2007; Pham, 2007; Nunan, 2003) One of the common findings that these studies share is that the quality of in-service teachers is still a concern in Vietnam (Nunan,2003; Le,2007) This champions the need for reforms in pre-service EFL teacher education which has not been adequately studied (Nguyen & Luong, 2008)

Given this inadequacy of research into the practicum, this study is intended to fill the gap by exploring teacher students‟ challenges and tensions during their practicum More

specifically, the purpose of this study is to find out some student teachers‟ challenges and tensions from which some suggestions are given in order to reduce difficulties during their practicum

Summary

This chapter reviews the literature on the practicum Not only the benefits but also the challenges as well as factors affecting the success of the practicum regarding the student teachers‟ learning to teach have been reviewed The challenges include the tensions deriving from the gap between student teachers‟ vision and the reality of language teaching as well as challenges related to technical matters such as planning the lesson, using the blackboard, dealing with students‟ behaviors, etc .The chapter also identifies a research space in the Vietnamese context where this study fits The next chapter presents the research methods which were employed in this study

Chapter 2: the study

The previous chapter has presented a literature review on theory of the practicum, challenges that student teachers face when they enter the practicum, collaboration between student teachers and mentors, and supervision during the practicum This chapter presents the methodology used in this study and the instruments of data collection and analysis in the study It starts with a description of the setting of the study and the participants It then describes the instruments of data collection and analysis procedures of the study It also presents the advantages and disadvantages of each data collection instrument

2.1 The Context of the Study

This study was carried out during the practicum which was in the final semester (the

6th semester) of teacher education program at Nghe An Teachers‟ College before the student teachers are qualified to teach at lower secondary schools The practicum lasted 6 weeks (from February the 22nd to April the 2nd) at a lower secondary school Before entering this practicum, the student teachers were sent to the lower secondary school for the Practicum I at the end of the third semester (the second year) However, the objective of Practicum I is to expose the student teachers to the school environment Therefore, they were not allowed to teach Rather, they were supposed to observe other in-service teachers in the school The practicum, which is the focus of this study is Practicum II in the teacher education programme

The objectives of this practicum (Practicum II) are stipulated in the Decision 36/ 2003/QD-GD&DT by the Minister of Education and Training dated August 1st, 2003 One of those objectives is “to provide student teachers with the opportunity to apply the knowledge they have acquired in the training program to school context and to develop their pedagogical skills, thereby developing their pedagogical competence” (Article 15.2)

To meet the objectives of the practicum, the student teachers were expected to take part in all the teaching and extra-curricular activities, develop positive community relations, observe their mentor‟s lesson demonstrations, write lesson plans, teach EFL lessons, which

were followed by teaching without supervision However, during this time they had many challenges

As a teacher educator at Nghe An College, one of my concerns regarding the practicum is how to help the student teachers feel confident enough to be successful in their practicum Therefore, it is my intention to explore the challenges of these student teachers may meet with during the practicum with the hope to identify a gap, if any, between the existing teacher education programme and the school context so that suggestions for improvement can be made

2.2 Participants

This qualitative study was conducted with 5 student teachers of English at Nghe An Teachers‟ College, while they were having a 6-week practicum at a lower secondary school in Quynh Luu district, Nghe An province The practicum lasted from February 22nd to April 2nd

These student teachers were from K10 cohort, which had a student teacher population

of 40 These forty student teachers were divided into 7 groups that were placed in different lower secondary schools in Quynh Luu district The five student teachers were selected for this study on the basis of my personal relationship with them and their willingness to participate Because of my good personal relationship with them, I was able to contact with them during the practicum to encourage and to remind them to write the diaries This reminding was so crucial since diary-writing was not a common practice to the student teachers in the College Another reason for selecting these five student teachers is that I could meet them for the follow-up interviews

2.3 Research Methods

This study only used qualitative methods in which the student teachers‟ diaries and follow-up interviews are the two sources of data The reasons for choosing the qualitative methods are as follows:

 Obtaining a more realistic feel of the world that cannot be experienced in the numerical data and statistical analysis used in quantitative research;

 Flexible ways to perform data collection, subsequent analysis, and interpretation of collected information;

 Provide a holistic view of the phenomena under investigation (Bogdan & Taylor, 1975; Patton, 1980);

 Ability to interact with the research subjects in their own language and on their own terms (Kirk & Miller, 1986);

 Descriptive capability based on primary and unstructured data

2.4 Instruments

As stated above, data for this study were collected with two instruments: student teachers‟ diaries and follow-up interviews What follows is the rationale for using these two

instruments

supplies the researcher with detailed information about the aspects of the problems needed for the research

According to Bailey (1990), “a diary [study] is a first-person account of a language learning or teaching experience, documented through regular, candid entries in a personal journal [and then analysed for recurring patterns or salient events” (p 215) A number of

writers (e.g Holly, 1984; Hopkins, 1993) make a distinction between logs, journals and diaries Holly regards (a) logs as a record of factual information, (b) diaries as the kind of

subjective text, and (c) journals as a combination of the two, containing both „subjective‟ and

„objective‟ data In this study I shall, for convenience, simply refer to „diaries‟ as a subjective text containing any kind of information – factual, feelings, attitudes, and reactions Bell (1999) notes that the term „diary studies‟ usually refers to data obtained from „solicited diaries‟ only, that is, from accounts produced specifically at the researcher‟s request, by an informant or informants Dornyei (2007) claims that

In applied linguistics, diaries have been used since the beginning of the1980s to obtain personal accounts of the experience of language learning both by learners themselves and by parents documenting their

(mainly bilingual) children‟s L2 development, and diary studies have been used in teacher education programmes (p 156)

Dornyei (2007) also argues that an element of the qualitative inquiry is to try and elicit the participants‟ own descriptions and interpretations of events and behaviours – in diary studies the participants inevitably become co-researchers as they keep records of their own feelings, thoughts, or activities He therefore asserts that diary data is by definition an insider account

McDonough and McDonough (1997) argue that diaries are best written over an extended period, and „snapshot‟ extracts cannot capture changes over time which can be often very marked, so any one segment belongs originally in a broader temporal and contextual picture Nunan (1992) calls diaries a „ground-clearing‟ preliminary, generating topics worth pursuing with other research tools both qualitative and numerical However, only when diaries are processed analytically that they start to become instruments for research This point has been made particularly strongly by Bailey (1983; 1990) Her argument, briefly, is that while a diary is private, a diary study means going public, contributing to a growing body

of “different insights into the largely unobservable processes of second language learning and teaching” (Bailey & Ochsner, 1983, p 191) Holly (1984) lists three areas for diary entries:

1 Teaching: what you do and why

2 Students: what they do, circumstances, descriptions of behaviours

3 Collegial interactions

McDonough and McDonough (1997) suggest that each of these areas can be broken down to become much more specific, so the very general label of „teaching‟ might include:

 Planning the lesson and selecting material

 Dealing with different types of learner in the class (mother tongue, learning styles, attitudes, pacing, proficiency…)

 Whether the plan matched the reality; why some things worked, others not

 Coping with the unexpected; changing direction

 Using available resources and technology

 Speculation (about learning; behaviour)

(p 131)

Bailey (1990, p 219) diagrammatises the production of a diary study into five steps:

1 Account of diarist‟s professional background

2 Confidential diary

3 Revision of entries for public version

4 Analysis

5 Interpretation and discussion

2.4.2 Interviews: Together with diary, interviews are considered as a useful instrument

for collecting data because they can give the researcher a deeper insight into the subjects Yet, interviews have some drawbacks The first, they are time consuming (for this study I spent 6 hours) The second, they may introduce elements of subjectivity and personal bias The third, rapport may cause the interviewee to respond in a way to please the interviewer To avoid these problems the student teachers were asked to be honest with their answers

2.5 Data Collection Procedures

The data collection procedures started in early February and ended in mid April 2010

All of the procedures involved the following steps

Step 1: Inviting the student teachers to write diaries

Before the practicum one week I chose a group of student teachers who agreed to participate in this study I talked with them about my intentions and asked them to help me with keeping diaries during their practicum Following their agreement to be participants, I gave each a notebook for the diaries I also gave them instructions in Vietnamese on how to keep the diaries with an emphasis on what to write in the diaries All these instructions were then printed out and attached to the cover of each notebook (see Appendix 1)