Section archive - Preservice Teachers

This research examines the quality of student–teachers’ (STs’) verbal communication during their teaching practice on the ‘Studies for the Environment’ subject. It also identifies potential factors affecting it. The results reveal that student teachers clearly dominate classroom discussion, the questions they address to their students are of poor quality, and are not facilitating the development of students’ critical thinking. The findings reveal that the student teachers used types of questions that do not consider students as researchers and do not provide them the opportunity to develop the fundamental skills specified in the ‘Studies for the Environment’ curricula, requiring them to be able to investigate complex issues. The authors also found that the factors influencing STs’ verbal communication are the absence of relevant theoretical and practical background, the inappropriate training school setting and the lack of teaching experience are the most prominent.

This study aimed to determine whether past research experience and pre-existing motivation style influence pre-service teachers’ perceptions of research. This study demonstrates that pre-service teachers generally display a positive attitude towards research, although these attitudes depend on their perceived research experience and also on their motivational styles. Furthermore, the authors found that students who believe they possess research experience are more likely, compared to students who believe they do not possess such experience, to value research and support the university’s attempts to promote research at the undergraduate level.

This study examined the professional perceptions of Teaching Chinese as an International Language (TCIL) pre-service teachers through analyzing the metaphors they use to describe themselves as teachers. The findings revealed that the participants used a variety of metaphors to display perceptions of themselves as pre-service TCIL teachers. Additionally, the participants’ metaphors demonstrate the interaction of cultural, historical and sociopolitical conditions underlying their perceptions.

The purpose of this study was to examine prospective elementary teachers’ conceptions and values about the learn-from-teaching (LFT) skills and model hold about these skills. The authors argue that PTs had a high level of procedural knowledge. However, their conceptions were not always productive in terms of promoting systematic lifelong learning. In The authors try to explain why PTs may have held these conceptions by suggesting three conjectures.