Introduction:

This report gives details of ELT 405 Practice teaching course. The description of the course is given first. Then, Goals and objectives are presented. Followed procedure is explained and then some important roles for teachers are clarified. Finally, assessment is explained at the end.

Course Description

ELT 405 Practice Teaching

The course is described in the curriculum as:

Consolidating the skills necessary for teaching English as a foreign language at primary and secondary schools through observation and teaching practice in pre-determined secondary schools under staff supervision; critically analyzing the previously acquired teaching related knowledge and skills through further reading, research and in class activities in order to develop a professional view of the ELT field.

Goals and Objectives:

Pre-service teachers are introduced to real classroom for the first time. This course prepares students for the profession. Before attending real classrooms, teacher candidates prepare and present micro teaching tasks in their classrooms. Then they go to real classrooms and observe experienced teachers.

 

Procedures:

Two full days of week is allowed for the course (Monday and Wednesday). The course is carried out in three phases:

Introduction & Seminars

Students are given some seminars in order to prepare them to the experience. The seminars usually focus on the revision of some courses such as classroom management, teaching skills, methods of instruction etc. This phase takes 3 weeks and is carried out on Mondays.

Microteachings

Each student prepares and presents a 20 minute sample lesson from a topic he\she chooses. The main aims of this activity are to overcome the stage fright and to have opportunity to comment on their performances, which can provide formative assessment and constructive feedback. This phase takes around 5-6 weeks and is carried out on Mondays.

School Visits

Students are encouraged to visit schools as soon as possible. It takes for students to make arrangement of the schools at least two or three weeks. After third week they start to go to schools on Wednesdays. After they complete first two phases they also go to schools on Mondays too.

There are two options for arrangement of schools: students either arrange their schools by themselves or they ask their supervisors to arrange Hawler Ronaki schools.

Supervising and Mentoring:

There are two main roles for this course to be successful: supervisor and mentor. Supervisor refers to the lecturer in the university. The supervisor, as the name suggests, organizes students to follow the phases smoothly and arrange their orientation to schools. He\She guides and directs teacher candidates to accomplish the tasks and requirements of the course. Mentor is the teacher, preferably experienced and skillful, who receives the teacher-student at the visited school. They help the candidates to adapt to school environment and introduce him\her to the students. They function like guides to teacher candidates.

Assessment and Attendance:

Students attend first 9-10 weeks every Mondays in the University. After they have arranged their schools they attend these schools. Their attendance is weekly taken in the schools and signed by the mentor (see appendix 1).  This attendance paper is under teacher candidate`s responsibility and to be handed to the supervisor at the end of semester. The attendance paper has to be signed and stamped by school principal or headmaster.

As for assessment, Teacher candidates collect their final grades through various ways; microteaching, 4 classroom observation reports, 3 interviews (a student interview, a teacher interview, and a vice-principal interview) see Appendix 2, 3, 4, 5). The table below depicts the assessment ways clearly:

Assessment Type Description %
Microteaching Teacher Candidate performs a 20 minute sample lesson in the University and receives feedback from the supervisor and other TCs. 30
Interviews (3) TC interviews a student, a teacher, a vice-principal in order to understand school environment better. 30
Classroom observation reports (4) TC observes four different teachers` teaching and write a report for each. 40