practicum

Practicum as a component of the English language teacher education program has been welcomed by pre-service teacher education institutes. Despite the great emphasis laid on practicum by Farhangian University, it has not been evaluated comprehensively by the student teachers and graduated student teachers up to now.  The main objective of the study was to explore the benefits and problems of the practicum program. To do so, a qualitative case study was employed. 25 informants were recruited using a purposive sampling procedure. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with student teachers and graduated student teachers. The interpretational and reflective analysis techniques were employed to analyze the data. The findings were content analyzed in terms of benefits/advantages and challenges of the practicum. They indicate that practicum courses make the student teachers ready for real teaching, help them learn about the realities of real teaching and overcome the negative attitudes and feelings about the teaching profession. It has been also found that the practicum program needs revision in terms of evaluation, quality of placement schools, and cooperation between mentors, university educators and student teachers. Findings can be used by teacher training institutes, practicum educators, school mentors, and EFL student teachers.

This study was an attempt to explore the process of professional identity construction of 49 male and female pre-service English language teachers of Isfahan Farhangian university Through a Vygotskian sociocultural lens. Since the construction of identity can be considered both personally and socially (Beachup & Thomas, 2009; Beijaard et al., 2004), this study took a social constructivism and Vygotskian sociocultural approach as its theoretical basis. This mixed method study was conducted through reflective journals, semi-structured interviews, and a five items Likert-type questionnaire. The data were analyzed using SPSS ver.19 and ANOVA for comparing the means of the quantitative data. Thematic analysis was used for analyzing the qualitative data. The results showed that the construction of student-teachers’ professional identity is a dynamic and unstable process which is affected by different factors such as personal and sociocultural factors, self-image, learning environment, and practicum experiences and mentor teachers. The results of the current study can be used by educational policy makers, teacher educators, and evaluators for making better decisions about teachers to make educational progress.