Fatemeh sadat Tabatabaei; Mohammad Aliakbari; Reza Khany
Abstract
Teacher training programs play a vital role in developing student-teachers’ understanding of their professional selves as an effective factor in successful teaching. Though the number of studies regarding the effects of teacher education on foreign language teachers’ self-images continues ...
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Teacher training programs play a vital role in developing student-teachers’ understanding of their professional selves as an effective factor in successful teaching. Though the number of studies regarding the effects of teacher education on foreign language teachers’ self-images continues to proliferate, little attention has been paid to Iranian EFL student-teachers, particularly females, in terms of future images of professional selves being developed during their training at Teacher Education University. Using the Possible selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986), the present qualitative study explores and compares the future professional self-images of EFL student-teachers at Iranian Teacher Education University. Eight female student-teachers in the first, third, and last year of their studies from several female teacher education colleges around the country accepted to participate in the interviews. They were asked to discuss their desired and feared selves, as well as their plans for achieving or avoiding these selves, respectively. In-depth phenomenological interviewing was adopted to collect the data. Before fieldwork experience, student-teachers’ hopes and fears were mostly geared to classroom routines, while by the end, their statements were predominantly theory-based and sophisticated. Most student-teachers made reference to some plans for attaining their desired professional self-images and avoiding feared ones. The study put forward some implications for teacher training and education programs.
Mohammad Aliakbari; Fatemeh sadat Tabatabaei
Abstract
Despite the importance of Iranian teacher education programmes at Teacher Education universities for preparing EFL teachers in terms of effective teaching, no research has surveyed the role of these programmes in preparing effective teachers. This cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate Iranian ...
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Despite the importance of Iranian teacher education programmes at Teacher Education universities for preparing EFL teachers in terms of effective teaching, no research has surveyed the role of these programmes in preparing effective teachers. This cross-sectional study was conducted to evaluate Iranian Teacher Education universities programmes for EFL student-teachers regarding five areas of teaching knowledge which conform to California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP) that are stated in Commission on Teacher Credentialing (2009). This study employed a mixed-method design in which 126 in-service EFL teachers from six cities and 212 EFL student-teachers from six Iranian Teacher Education universities participated in a survey; then interviews were conducted with 12 selected volunteers from participants. The student-teachers’ expectations of TEPs at the beginning, their evaluations of the programmes at the end, and in-service teachers’ evaluations after years of teaching in terms of their preparation for teaching were compared. The results of Mixed Between-within (Repeated Measures) ANOVA as well as interview analyses and interpretations showed that there was a difference between the first-year group’s expectations and the last-year group’s evaluations. The difference was significant between female first- and last-year groups, female in-service and last-year groups as well as male in-service and male first- and last-year groups. Both male and female in-service teachers acknowledged the effectiveness of their four years of education at Teacher Education universities. Implications for providing more effective teacher education programmes are discussed.
