Reforms in Australia about the education of future teachers have placed a high degree of emphasis on the development of knowledge and skills that are necessary for practitioners who will ply their trade in culturally rich and diverse classrooms (Ramsey, 2000). There is now a broad consensus from key stakeholders (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2012) that pre-service teachers need to be provided with a range of opportunities that are grounded in classroom practices including exposure to teaching students overseas. The aim of this mixed mode study (Creswell, 2012) is to better understand the skills and knowledge that pre-service teachers need in order to function in and gain from their overseas professional experiences (OSPEX). In this study, we undertook semi-structured interviews, and then using the emerging themes compared a cohort of pre-service teachers' perceptions of OSPEX before and after their completed their professional experiences in Fiji via the use of a questionnaire. Results indicate that pre-service teachers need to be better prepared locally before attempting an OSPEX visit.

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This paper details a project that sought to understand the benefits of Australian pre-service teachers undertaking an overseas teaching professional experience in Fiji. Using the language of the pre-service teachers who took part in this program led to the dataset being re-viewed through the lens of 'sensemaking theory'. This reviewing and methodological sieving of the data through this theoretical portal revealed a set of principles that gave greater insight into how these forms of teaching experiences enhanced personal and professional reflection that is far different from the typical domestic teaching professional experiences routinely offered. It also revealed the nature and power of personal reflection when conjoined with social interaction.

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