Abstract
In the current Teaching Licensing program accredited by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, students who plan to become English teachers are required to have two to three weeks of in-service training at junior or senior high schools. This teaching practicum is central to the curriculum and provides extremely rich experiences that lead to the participants’ transformative learning. However, little has been investigated as for what the in-service students actually learn; what they experienced, how they felt, and what effects their experiences and emotions brought to after they complete the practicum. We, as teacher trainers, would like to fill in this gap and present our analyses of reflective questionnaire results. The data were submitted by fourteen students in the final requisite course of a university teaching licensing program in response to the open questions regarding their (1) most memorable experiences, (2) negative experiences, (3) challenging experiences, (4) questions toward the school/teacher/student encounters, and (5) imaginary modification of behaviors as in-service teachers. Based on the text analyses using the KH Coder, we extracted three key concepts: perceived teacher aptitude, interaction with students, and teaching of English. The findings will further be connected to a survey result of self-evaluation change in teaching aptitudes and of future career choice. Two directions of enhancing the Teaching Practicum learning are suggested: (1) Incorporate a service training at an earlier stage of the program and (2) provide information and tasks that develop alternative views among the participants to foster re-evaluation of their transformative learning.
Author Information
Mitsuyo Toya, University of the Ryukyus, Japan
Hideki Goya, University of the Ryukyus, Japan
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