SAN MARTÍN MARÍA GIMENA
Congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Perceptions on the Practicum by Argentinean EFL Teacher Training Community
Lugar:
Minneapolis
Reunión:
Conferencia; Expanding our Horizons. 7th International Conference on Language Teacher Education; 2011
Institución organizadora:
Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.
Resumen:
The practicum is an area of much concern and interest in language teaching education because of the reported lack of articulation between theory and practice as well as the dynamics of interaction of sometimes clashing beliefs. Our study of teacher cognition (Borg, 2003) follows the idea of a construct (BAK) composed by beliefs, assumptions and knowledge (Woods, 1996). It is highly relevant to note that studies following this construct, which find difficult to analyze its components separately, aim at finding links between the cognitive and procedural domains. Another concept also studied in relation to teacher cognition is teacher perception, which is being currently looked at in relation to the students and their skills (Meisinger, Bradley, Schwanenflugel y Kuhn, 2010; Murray y Zvoch, 2010; Rubie-Davies, C. M., 2010; Li y Ji, 2010) and the school climate (Mitchel, Bradshaw y Leaf, 2010) among other domains. In this paper we will refer to perceptions in a generic way since the objective of our work is to get a better understanding of what the subjects involved in this institution think and how hey assess the practicum. The context of this research is the English (EFL) teacher training course at the National University of Cordoba, Argentina, which is a five-year program. From third year onwards, students take one methodology course each year, the last two consisting of class observation and reporting as well as practicum. In third year students only observe EFL classes and write focused reports. The subjects of the study are students who are not already teaching at any private institution (a common practice in Argentina) and who are currently doing their practicum, novice graduates from the program with no more than five years from graduation, methodology professors as well as their assistants. A control group of year students was also part of the sample. An ad hoc interview consisting of 30 questions was sent by email to all the participants and constituted the data collection instrument. The questions followed a Likert scale format in addition to some multiple choice items and some open ended questions added to the professors and assistants. The data was quantitatively analyzed only to the extent that it was necessary to allow qualitative description and interpretation of it. The results show, among other things, that students perceive an insufficient articulation between theory and practice and that all the groups perceive that the instruction that the institution offers focuses on the content, but particularly on the learner. Other results are also discussed.