Becoming a professional: Exploring EFL pre-service teachers’ conceptions of an effective foreign language teacher

Abstract

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Becoming a professional: Exploring EFL pre-service teachers’ conceptions of an effective foreign language teacher
The study aims to explore English as a foreign language (EFL) pre-service teachers’ conceptualization of the features of an effective EFL teacher. Additionally, the study attempts to evaluate the role of EFL teacher education programs on EFL PTs’ perceptions of being an effective EFL teacher. The data were collected through concept maps from a group of EFL pre-service teachers attending the same teacher-education program, focus group interviews with 20 pre-service teachers selected randomly from the participant group, and the researcher’s notes taken throughout the research. All of the data sources were analyzed through content analysis. The results indicate that the most important among all features of being an effective teacher, the EFL PTs depict the profile of an effective EFL teacher as having the necessary language skills to be able to use English fluently and accurately. Additionally, the EFL PTs referred to the personality traits of effective EFL teachers as being patient, helpful and humorous with good relationships with their students. When the differences between the grades of the teacher education program were considered, both the frequency levels of the emerging themes of the concept maps and the content of the interviews displayed differences among the theme distribution indicating that no gradual development in the professional learning concepts observed during the professional learning process. Further, the PTs gained insights in terms of defining an effective EFL teacher profile with regard to the priorities and the requirements of the EFL teacher education program.
Information about Author(s)*
Author 1
Author (Last name, First name)	Göksel, Şule
Affiliated institution (University)	Duzce University
Country	Turkey
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	School of Foreign Languages
Corresponding author (Yes/No) Write only one corresponding author.	No
Author 2
Author (Last name, First name)	Rakıcıoğlu Söylemez, Anıl
Affiliated institution (University)	Abant İzzet Baysal University
Country	Turkey
Email address	[e-mail]
Department & Rank	Department of Foreign Language Education
Corresponding author (Yes/No)	Yes
Author 3
Author (Last name, First name)
Affiliated institution (University)
Country
Email address
Department & Rank
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Author 4
Author (Last name, First name)
Affiliated institution (University)
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Keywords

• English language teaching(elt); teacher education; effective language teacher; pre-service teachers; concept maps

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