pre-service EFL teachers

This study investigated how several pre-service EFL teachers in an undergraduate programme engaged in a series of collegial discussions after their student teaching experiences over the third year of the programme and how the collegial interactions nurtured their professional development. The individual interviews and group discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed in verbatim. The findings indicated that the active participation of the participant teachers in collegial discussions following their student teaching experiences facilitated learning in a collaborative learning community. The participants shared their personal practical experiences, scaffolded their peers and developed their professional knowledge in several aspects. Their awareness of pedagogical challenges was raised and they addressed their learners' needs and learning strategies in real classroom settings more effectively. The collegial interactions focused on the transfer of theories learned from the disciplinary textbooks to the pedagogical realities of the EFL educational settings. The engagement of the student teachers in collegial discussions made them reconsider their pedagogical beliefs and practices.

Based on Shulman's (1986) concept of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) emerged and became a helpful framework for comprehending the objectives of using technology in pre-service teacher training programs. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate Iranian pre-service EFL teachers’ (PSEFLTs) perceptions towards their TPACK regarding their gender and academic year of study. To this aim, 254 Iranian PSEFLTs across various academic years of study filled out a 39-item EFL TPACK questionnaire developed by Baser et al. (2016). The questionnaire included seven categories: Content Knowledge (CK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Technology Knowledge (TK), PCK, Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). Based on the collected data, which were subjected to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, descriptive statistics, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and post-hoc analysis, it was found that PSEFLTs generally held mildly favorable perceptions towards their TPACK. Notably, the lowest mean score was observed for the TK component, while the component with the highest mean score was the CK component. In terms of the gender effect, statistically significant differences were found in the TK and TPCK dimensions, where males outscored females in both TK and TPCK and females outscored males in CK. Furthermore, an examination of the relationship between participants' TPACK and their academic years of study manifested a statistically significant difference primarily between freshmen and seniors. The results are expected to encourage curriculum planners to develop PSEFLTs’ training programs by integrating technology courses into the ELT curriculum.