Pre-Service English Teachers' Classroom Management

Abstract

Classroom management of pre-service English teachers has received little phenomenological research. This paper describes classroom management as a lived pedagogical experience that emerges from discontinuities rather than as an instrument of control. This was a qualitative, phenomenological study. Data were collected through narrative interviews and pre-service English teachers' journals. The analysis was conducted by using the empirical phenomenological method. The results suggest that pre-service English teachers lived educational experience is broken by classroom discontinuities that negatively affect their mood (broken educational reality). However, they try to manage the classroom (guided pedagogical reality), guided by what they think is a teacher's duty and what they should do. In this way, they are able to create a positive pedagogical atmosphere and a caring pedagogical relationship that leads them to an “attuned pedagogical reality.” It was concluded that discontinuities and classroom management help pre-service teachers grow organically in their professional development.