Teachers of the future: Perceived teaching competences and visions of pre-service English language teachers

Authors

  • Hatice Gülru Yüksel Yıldız Technical University

Keywords:

English as a second language, Pre-service teachers, Teaching competence, Teacher education, Teacher vision

Abstract

The changes observed in the early 1990s have altered the conceptions of learning and teaching in the 21st century, which in turn have raised questions about the nature of teacher education and the core knowledge and skills to be taught to student teachers. Gaining insights about how student teachers project themselves as teachers of 21st century and how they assess their teaching capabilities became crucial for teacher educators and policy makers. This study was conducted with 40 pre-service teachers of English as a foreign language to investigate how they assess their teaching competences and how they project themselves as teachers of future. The study employed a convergent parallel mixed-method design. The findings from quantitative data indicated that their perception related to various teaching competencies were uniform and they feel themselves competent enough in teaching. However, they needed further help in classroom management. The qualitative data can be interpreted as a signal that our participants will possibly adopt a constructivist approach to language teaching.

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Author Biography

Hatice Gülru Yüksel, Yıldız Technical University

H. Gülru YÜKSEL holds a PhD from Ankara University, Institute of Social Sciences, Foreign Languages Education Program. She is currently working as an assistant professor in ELT Department, Yıldız Technical University, Istanbul. Her research interests are vocabulary development in L2, corpus linguistics, literary texts in L2 teaching, and teacher education.

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Published

2014-07-03

How to Cite

Yüksel, H. G. (2014). Teachers of the future: Perceived teaching competences and visions of pre-service English language teachers. Journal of Human Sciences, 11(2), 27–39. Retrieved from https://j-humansciences.com/ojs/index.php/IJHS/article/view/2920

Issue

Section

English Literature and Teaching