Abstract
This paper reports on a qualitative study of the practicum learning experiences of thirty students of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) enrolled in a Masters of TESOL Education at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on current thinking about the role of reflective practice in teacher education, the value of real world learning beyond the classroom and the pedagogical affordances of the practicum, the enquiry aims to identify the types of practitioner learning that occur during practicum placements in terms of enhancing learners’ knowledge and skills, increasing their self-reliance and self-confidence and contributing to their growth as educators and individuals, their professional and social identities. Utilising reflective surveys from a portfolio of authentic practicum documents as data, the researchers create thematic narratives of ‘being and becoming’ which foreground the salient themes. Hence, we demonstrate how the practicum develops participant practice teachers’ realisations of their emerging agency as practitioners, makes manifest their perceptions of their increased professional confidence and then serves to indicate the pedagogical value of applying theoretical learning from the classroom to their professional practice. These results suggest the importance of preparing teachers for discovery, both the usual and the unexpected, in the process of planning, implementing and evidencing practicum work, and emphasise the importance of being and becoming to the practicum’s work of embodied learning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arnold, J. (2011). The self as data: A qualitative methodology. Journal of Educational and Developmental Psychology, 11 (1), 65–73.
Barnett, R. (2004). Learning for an unknown future. Higher Education Research & Development, 23 (3), 247–260.
Barkhuizen, G. (2011). Narrative knowledging in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 45, 391–414.
Barkhuizen, G., Benson, P. & Chik, A. (2014). Narrative inquiry in language teaching and learning research. New York: Routledge.
Beynon, J., Ilieva, R. & Dichupa, M. (2004). Re-credentialling experiences of immigrant teachers: negotiating institutional structures, professional identities and pedagogy. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 10 (4), 429–444.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). Forms of capital. In J.G. Richardson (Ed.), The Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of capital (pp. 241–58). New York, NY: Greenwood Press.
Brinton, D. & Holten, C. (1989). What novice teachers focus on: the practicum in TESL. TESOL Quarterly, 23 (2), 343–350.
Carter, K. & Doyle, W. (2006). Classroom management in early childhood and elementary classrooms. In C.M. Everston & C.S. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research, practice & contemporary issues. 373–406, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cheung, Y.L., Said, S.B. & Park, K. (Eds.) (2015). Advances and current trends in language teacher identity research. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Crookes, G. (2003). A practicum in TESOL: professional development through teaching practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Danielewicz, J. (2001). Teaching selves: Identity, pedagogy, and teacher education. New York, NY: State University of New York Press.
Dewey, J. (1904). The relation of theory to practice in education. In C.A. McMurray (Ed.), The third NSSE yearbook (part 1, pp. 9–30). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Edge, J. (2011). The reflexive teacher educator in TESOL: roots and wings. New York, NY: Routledge.
Farrell, T.S. C. (2004). Reflective practice in action: 80 reflection breaks for busy teachers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Farrell, T.S. C. (2015). Reflective language teaching from research to practice. London, UK: Bloomsbury.
Farrell, T.S. C. (2016). From trainee to teacher: reflective practice for novice teachers. London, UK: Equinox.
Gee, J.P. (1991/2007). Sociolinguistics and literacies: ideology in discourse. London, UK: Falmer Press.
Graham, A. & Phelps, R. (2003). Being a teacher: developing teacher identity and enhancing practice through metacognitive and reflective learning processes. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 27 (2), 11–24.
Ishihara, N. (2005). Intercultural challenges and cultural scaffolding: the experience of a non-native English-speaking student teacher in a practicum in second language teaching. In M. Bigelow & C. Walker (Eds.), Creating teacher community: selected papers from the third international conference on language teacher education (pp. 153–173). Minneapolis, MN: Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition.
Jenkins, R. (2008). Social identity. London, UK: Routledge.
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2012) Language teacher education for a global society: a modular model for knowing, analyzing, recognizing, doing and seeing. New York, NY: Routledge.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Leshem, S. & Bar-Hama, R. (2008). Evaluating teaching practice. ELT J, 62 (3), 257–265.
Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: a sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mann, S. & Edge, J. (2013). Overview - Innovation as action new-in-context: an introduction to the PRESETT collection. In J. Edge, J. & S. Mann (Ed.) Innovations in pre-service education and training for English language teachers (pp. 5–17). London, UK: British Council.
Mattsson, M., Rorrison, D. & Eilertsen T.V. (Eds.) (2011). A practicum turn in teacher education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Mills, J., Bonner, A. & Francis, K. (2006). The development of constructivist grounded theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5 (1), 25–35.
Mishler, E. (2006). Narrative and identity: the double arrow of time. In A. De Fina, D. Shriffin & M. Bamberg (Eds.), Discourse and identity: studies in interactional sociolinguistics (pp. 30–47). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Oprandy, R. (2015). Refashioning the practicum by emphasizing attending and reflective skills. The CATESOL Journal, 27(2), 101–128.
Parks, S. (2015). Maximizing target language use in a preservice practicum: tensions, power, and identity formation. TESL-EJ, 19 (1), 1–12.
Patton, M.Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Pennycook, A. (2004). Critical moments in a TESOL practicum. In B. Norton & K. Toohey (Eds.), Critical pedagogies and language learning (pp. 327–345). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Polkinghorne, D.E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. Qualitative Studies in Education, 8 (1), 5–23.
Preston, J.P., Walker, K.D. & Ralph, E.G. (2015). Mentorship in the professional practicum: Partners’ perspectives. International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research, 13 (3), 1–16.
Richards, J.C. & Crookes, G. (1988). The practicum in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 22 (1), 9–27.
Richards, J.C. & Farrell, T.S. C. (2011). Practice teaching: A reflective approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rodgers, C.R. & Scott, K.H. (2008). The development of the personal self and professional identity in learning to teach. In M. Cochran-Smith, S. Feiman-Nemser, D.J. McIntyre & K.E. Demers (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education: enduring questions in changing contexts (pp. 732–755). New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group/Association of Teacher Educators.
Ryan, G.W. & Bernard, H.R. (2003). Techniques to identify themes. Field Methods, 15 (1), 85–109.
Sandelowski, M. (2010). Whatever happened to qualitative description? Research in Nursing & Health, 23, 334–340.
Santos, M.G., Olsher, D. & Wickrama, P. (2015). Charting our course: why the practicum continues to matter to us in TESOL. CATESOL Journal, 27(2), 89–100.
Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass higher education series.
Thomas, L. & Beauchamp, C. (2011). Understanding new teachers’ professional identities through metaphor. Teaching & Teacher Education, 27(4), 762–769.
Ulvik, M. & Smith, K. (2011). What characterises a good practicum in teacher education? Education Inquiry, 2 (3), 517–536.
Uzum, B., Petron, M. & Berg, H. (2014). Pre-service teachers’ first foray into the ESL classroom: reflective practice in a service learning project. TESL-EJ, 18 (3) (Online).
Velikova, S. (2013). Using the European portfolio for student teachers of languages (EPOSTL) to scaffold reflective teacher learning in English language teacher education. In J. Edge & S. Mann (Eds.), Innovations in pre-service education and training for English language teachers (pp. 211–216). London, UK: British Council.
Weedon, C. (2004). Identity and culture: Narratives of difference and belonging. New York, NY: Open University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Yunus, M.M., Hashim, H., Ishak, N.M. & Mahamod, Z. (2010). Understanding TESL pre-service teachers’ teaching experiences and challenges via post-practicum reflection forms. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 9, 722–728.
Zeichner, K. (2002). Beyond traditional structures of student teaching. Teacher Education Quarterly, 2 (2), 59–64.
Zwozdiak-Myer, P. (2012). The teacher’s reflective practice handbook: becoming an extended professional through capturing evidence-informed practice. London, UK, and New York, NY: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Andrew, M., Razoumova, O. Being and becoming TESOL educators: Embodied learning via practicum. AJLL 40, 174–185 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03651996
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03651996