Pre-service teachers’ views on their general pedagogy practice: An analysis of trainees’ reflections

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present the reflections of pre-service teachers of English of their general pedagogy practice. Their views on different aspects of the practicum are content-analysed as well as the feasibility of the tasks assigned to them during the field experience is verified. The first part contains an overview of selected issues related to teaching practice, among others the theory-practice gap, competences of a modern foreign language teacher, with special focus on his or her role of an educator, emotions accompanying the trainees’ field experience as well as relations between the university practicum coordinator, a school mentor and a trainee. There are also some considerations devoted to reflectivity, critical incidents and instruments supporting and monitoring effectiveness of the internship. The second part of the paper focuses on the small-scale qualitative study based on the reflections of first-year English philology students performing their general pedagogy practicum as part of their teaching specialisation. The article closes with some remarks related to the research findings.