This study sought to investigate changes in pre-service EFL teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs before and after the practicum experience at school. The data were collected using the same 24-item teacher sense of efficacy (TSE) scale. Three null hypotheses were formulated based on the subcategories of self-efficacy in the study (i.e., self-efficacy in student engagement, self-efficacy in applying instructional strategies, and self-efficacy in classroom management). The Wilcoxonsigned rank test runs on the pre-practicum and post-practicum results suggested that the null hypothesis that practicum would not bring about any change in student engagement should be rejected. According to the second null hypothesis, there would be no significant difference between pre-service EFL teachers’ pre-practicum and post-practicum self-efficacy in applying instructional strategies. Results indicated that we should reject the second null hypothesis, too, implying that pre-service teachers’ scores in this construct have also been significantly different from each other in the pretest and the posttest. The last hypothesis of interest was if pre-service EFL teachers’ selfefficacy in classroom management changes due to practicum experience. The data gathered implies that we should reject this hypothesis, possibly in favor of the premise that our practicing pre-service EFL teachers have made positive gains in their classroom management ability. If we compare the obtained results based on the effect sizes that we have calculated for them, although all of them are strong effect sizes, we can say that the pre-service EFL teachers’ self-efficacy has improved first in classroom management (r = 0.77), second in applying instructional strategies (r = 0.71), and third in student engagement (r = 0.622). The findings of the study are discussed in the light of implications to the language teacher education programs and the development of practicum experience.

While there is general agreement among learners, teachers, and scholars that constructive feedback on writing is necessary to revision, there are fewer consensuses on how feedback should be given, when, by whom, and what sort of feedback is most effective (Weigle, 2014). Providing feedback on writing is generally categorized into three types: written comments, individual conferences, and recorded oral feedback. As the first two types are believed to be very time-consuming and lots of workloads, recording comments, along with the advances in technology over the last decades, has opened new possibilities for feedback in the form of podcasts or other digitally recorded means. In this study, the effect of recorded oral feedback to the writing of the English as a foreign language (EFL) learners was taken into scrutiny. In so doing, two different types of feedback (i.e., audio-recorded comments and metalinguistic written corrective feedback) were given to the learner writing in two groups respectively. The treatment lasted for approximately two months, in which the participants received two different types of feedback to their writing (e.g., recorded oral feedback and metalinguistic written corrective feedback). Results indicated that the group receiving audio-recorded comments on their writing outperformed the latter in their content, and organization, while no significant difference was observed between the two groups in clarity and sentence-level accuracy.

To better understand teacher retention, the thrust of the study was to investigate the relationships among principal support, teacher efficacy, collective efficacy and practicing teachers' commitment to the profession. This study was designed to test the mediating role of teacher and collective efficacy beliefs on teacher commitment facilitating three mediation models. Data come from 260 public school teachers in the Washington DC area, aged between 20 and 69, who completed three questionnaires through which a predictive and mediation model of teacher commitment was tested. Teacher efficacy and collective efficacy beliefs were hypothesized to mediate the relations between the principal support and teachers' commitment to teaching profession. Mediation regression modelling was used to test and validate these three models across the sample of K-12 teachers. Teacher collective efficacy beliefs were found to be partially mediated the relationship between principal support and teacher commitment to teaching profession whereas general teacher efficacy and personal teacher efficacy did not mediate the relationship between principal support and teachers' commitment to the profession of teaching. The measures in this study can be used to guide professional development and measure how successful attempts are to increase teacher commitment.

The goal of this study was to explore the relationship between perceived job stress and a specific set of predictor variables among the selected university preparatory school EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers in Turkey. To comprehensively analyze the issue of perceived job stress, interpersonal emotion regulation, and teacher collective efficacy used as variables. The sample consisted of 48 EFL teachers in various Turkish university preparatory schools. It was hypothesized that high levels of teacher collective efficacy beliefs would be a negative predictor of perceived stress among the EFL teachers. A negative relationship was also predicted between interpersonal emotion regulation and perceived job stress levels among the selected teachers. The research hypotheses were tested using data collected through surveys. While the relationship between EFL teachers’ collective efficacy beliefs and interpersonal emotion regulation was significant, their perceived job stress and interpersonal emotion regulation were negatively related, but the association was not strong enough to reach a significant level. The results of the study indicated that demographic variables such as age, and the years of language teaching experience did not have any significant effect on teachers’ collective self-efficacy belief, perceived job stress, and interpersonal emotion regulation of the selected Turkish EFL Instructors in university preparatory programs. The study highlighted the fact that enhancing EFL teachers’ collective efficacy belief would reduce the tension teachers experience in the form of stress and would improve their emotion regulation skills.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0914/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>