Teaching English to Young Learners: Combining Theory and Practice through Practicum in Pre-service Teacher Education

Serdar Tekin; Tuba Baykara

doi:10.51535/tell.1310265

EN

Teaching English to Young Learners: Combining Theory and Practice through Practicum in Pre-service Teacher Education

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed an exponential growth in interest in teaching English to young learners (TEYL) across the world. Pivotally, there is some research focusing on in-class practices and teacher pedagogy on this issue, yet young learner teacher education has not been given much attention. Many teacher education programs in different countries prepare their pre-service teachers for young learners by offering TEYL courses without providing them with real classroom experiences. To this end, the researchers initiated a practicum project in which pre-service EFL teachers taught English to young learners besides taking the TEYL module at the university. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 21 participants, it was aimed to examine the effectiveness of a practicum-integrated TEYL teacher education program. The findings revealed that practicum provided teacher candidates with a range of benefits in terms of putting young learner knowledge into practice, developing teaching skills, designing age-appropriate lessons and materials, and gaining confidence with TEYL. Different from previous practicum-related studies, the current study showed that practicum helped pre-service teachers have clearer minds on their future careers and teaching contexts in that some participants would choose to work with older learners considering the distinctive characteristics of children. This study offers implications for pre-service teachers and teacher education programs for training young learner English teachers more effectively.

Keywords

Teaching English to young learners (TEYL) , Teacher education , Teacher practicum

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Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

-

Journal Section

Research Article

Authors

Serdar Tekin ^*
0000-0003-4625-4324
Türkiye

Tuba Baykara
0000-0002-0570-5283
Türkiye

Early Pub Date

June 22, 2023

Publication Date

June 30, 2023

Submission Date

June 5, 2023

Acceptance Date

June 7, 2023

Published in Issue

Year 2023 Volume: 5 Number: 1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.51535/tell.1310265

IZ

https://izlik.org/JA63RC25GR

APA

Tekin, S., & Baykara, T. (2023). Teaching English to Young Learners: Combining Theory and Practice through Practicum in Pre-service Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education and Lifelong Learning, 5(1), 400-412. https://doi.org/10.51535/tell.1310265

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26172 20107

Teaching English to Young Learners: Combining Theory and Practice through Practicum in Pre-service Teacher Education

Abstract

Keywords

Öz

References

Details

Primary Language

Subjects

Journal Section

Authors

Early Pub Date

Publication Date

Submission Date

Acceptance Date

Published in Issue

DOI

IZ

Cite

Cited By

Exploring storytelling practices of pre-service teachers with young EFL learners in the Turkish primary context