초등영어 교육실습 현황과 예비교사들의 인식

Pre-service teachers’ perceptions and current situations of English teaching practice in elementary schools

The purpose of this study was to investigate current situations of English teaching practice in elementary schools and pre-service teachers’ perceptions on it. For this a survey questionnaire was administerd to 868 student teachers who went through teaching practice at 23 elementary schools. In addition interview data and English teaching journals were collected. The analysis of the data revealed that only half of the student teachers had the opportunity to experience English teaching and third quarters to observe model English classes during the student teaching internship. It was found out that about half of the student teachers had difficulty in teaching English due to their low level of English proficiency and lack of understanding elementary students’ level of English. As for the English teaching demonstration, more than half of the student teachers did not use classroom English enough and one third did not get any help from the English teachers before or after the class, while guidance and advice of the English teachers were considered great help for improving their English teaching skills. The analysis also showed that many student teachers had the intention to teach English when they become elementary school teachers, although they perceived that current curriculum of the university and teaching practice programs were not effective enough to prepare pre-service teachers to be able to teach English in elementary schools. Based on the results of the study, suggestions for constructing effective elementary English teacher development programs, in particular English teaching practice, were made.