Teaching Practicum of an English Teacher Education Program in Vietnam: From Expectations to Reality

Abstract

Teaching practicum is very essential in the process of learning how to teach, so it should be paid great attention by not only teacher education program designers but also implementators. The paper reports a study on the efficiency of teaching practicum which has been conducted at Public University (pseudonym) in Vietnam. The research employed qualitative approach, and semi-structured interviews were used as the instrument for the data collection. Findings reveal that the implementation of the teaching practicum did not provide student teachers with sufficient chances to develop their teaching skill efficiently. Inappropriate method of implementing the teaching practicum, loose cooperation between the university and high schools, and insufficient support are major issues that caused the teaching practicum to be ineffective. Peer mentoring and a more suitable method of implementing the internship are recommended solutions to improve the effectiveness of the teaching practicum in the English Teacher Education Program at Public University in particular and other English teacher education programs in Vietnam in general.Keywords: Educational program, peer mentoring, teacher education, teaching practicum, teaching skills, VietnamCite as: Vo, T.K.A., Pang, V., & Kean Wah, L. (2018). Teaching practicum of an English teacher education program in Vietnam: From expectations to reality. Journal of NusantaraStudies, 3(2), 32-40. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol3iss2pp32-40

First experiences in a school-based practicum: Pre-service teachers’ emotion and perceived benefits towards the program

“…The presented interview excerpts showed that all participants expressed positive emotion towards their participation in the school-based practicum as their first experiences joining the program. The finding echoed prior studies which reported that the PSTs showed positive emotions like feeling excited (Vo, et. al., 2018), interested and enthusiastic (Hascher, et.…”

“…With socialization by the university supervisor who explained the nature of the program, the PSETs understood the tasks they should accomplish which eventually eased them and shifted the negative feelings to positive ones. Prior studies emphasized that lack of guidance from mentor teachers and university supervisors makes practicum less effective (Vo, et. al., 2018) and reduce the quality of the practicum program (Sulistyo, et.…”

“…Prior studies on school-based practicum have been conducted in various contexts, such as Vietnamese (Vo, Pang, & Lee, 2018), Turkish (Tülüce & Çeçen, 2016), Chinese (Teng, 2017;Zhang, Clarke & Lee, 2018), Austrian (Hascher & Hagenauer, 2016), and Indonesian (Sulistiyo, et. al., 2017;Kuswandono, 2017) context.…”

“…al., 2017;Kuswandono, 2017) context. By involving different groups of participants, such as the fourth-year students (Vo, et. al., 2018;Tülüce & Çeçen, 2016;Teng, 2017;Zhang, et.…”

“…Nonetheless, the author identified a gap which should be filled with the expectation that it would provide better understanding. While other studies focused on the implementation of teaching practicum (Vo, et. al., 2018;Tülüce & Çeçen, 2016;Teng, 2017;Yangin Eksi & Gungor, 2018), explored the process of non-teaching practice, such as school observation PSTs have gone through is noteworthy.…”