Pre-service English Teachers’ Views on Teaching Practicum during COVID-19 : A Case Study

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this case study is to investigate pre-service secondary English teachers’ views on teaching practicum during COVID-19. As online English Language Teaching can be offered regardless of time and space, it was abruptly and inevitably adopted into English classes in secondary schools in the world as well as in Korea due to the pandemic since the first semester in 2020. Accordingly, pre-service English teachers had to conduct their practicum online English classes along with offline classes since then. Such a hybrid format of teaching practicum has been continued for almost two years and is highly likely to expand with the development of online teaching tools and changes in instructional modes even after the pandemic.
Given such drastic changes occurred up to now, it is necessary to investigate pre-service teachers’ views on the hybrid teaching practicum. The existing studies on teaching practicum, however, has mostly focused on offline teaching practicum only. Given the lack of research on the online or hybrid teaching practicum in English language teaching(ELT), this study poses the research questions as follows;
First, what are the pre-service English teachers’ views on the advantages and disadvantages of hybrid practicum program?
Second, what are the pre-service teacher’s views on the usefulness of their hybrid teaching practicum in their future teaching?
To examine the two questions above, the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with 5 pre-service English teachers who had experienced the hybrid teaching practicum. The data was collected through 2 to 3 rounds of interviews. The first interview was all conducted by phone for about one hour due to the pandemic. The follow-up interviews were carried out via phone, email, or text messages based on the participants’ preference for about 30 minutes. The collected interview data was transcribed and read numerous times to find participants’ recurring or particular views on their hybrid teaching practicum. In doing so, this study categorized their views through open and thematic coding in terms of advantages, disadvantages, and usefulness of the hybrid teaching practicum.
The results of this study showed that the participants found both online and offline teaching practicum were complementary to each other. First, they were satisfied with the online teaching practicum in that it prompted them to have more opportunities to observe and practice multimedia use in language classes while they felt dissatisfaction due to the lack of interaction with student during online classes. However, they could observe more active interaction between the teachers and students during offline classes. Second, they pointed out offline teaching practicum was conducted in traditional methods, which they could not see diverse instructional aids including multimedia or other tools in class, but they felt there were more interaction between the head teachers with students, between the participants and students, and among students. Third, they also agreed that a hybrid teaching practicum was a useful experience for their future teaching. Therefore, this study has implication given that the hybrid teaching practicum has a positive influence on pre-service teachers’ experience even if it needs to be supplemented. In addition, the hybrid teaching practicum is worth continuing even after the pandemic, regarding its advantages and usefulness. Thus, more in-depth follow-up studies on the effectiveness of hybrid teaching practicum are required.
In sum, it is highly probable that even after the pandemic, the hybrid teaching practicum is necessary in order for pre-service English teachers to prepare for their future online teaching or a hybrid teaching. This is more so online communication tools are increasingly used in all the sectors in society and the world as well as in school. Accordingly, prospective as well as in-service teachers should be geared to cope with such transformations in preparing themselves even after the post new normal era.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………1
• CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………4
• 1. Teaching Practicum……………………………..…………………...………….4
• 2. The Teaching Practicum Model………………………………………..……...6
• 3. Previous Studies………………………….………………………………..……..9
• 3.1. Pre-service Teachers’ views of the Teaching Practicum……………….……9
• 3.2. Pre-service Teachers’ views on Gaps between Theory and Practice…...…...11
• 4. Research Questions……………………………………………………………13
• CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………...14
• 1. Participants…………………………………………………………………………..14
• 2. Data Collections…………………………………………………………………….17
• 1.1 Interview Questionnaire…………………………………………………………17
• 1.2. Interview Procedure…………………………………………………………….20
• 3. Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………….…20
• CHAPTER 4. RESULTS……………….………………………………………22
• 1. Advantages of Online Class Observation…………………………………………..23
• 1.1. Reflection through Reviewing Recorded Lectures…………………………….23
• 1.2. Discovering the Possibility of Flipped Teaching……………………………….24
• 1.3. Observing Multimedia in Class…………………………………………………27
• 1.4. Learning to Manage Online Group Work……………………………………….29
• 1.5. Convenience of Digital Materials in Class………………………………………30
• 2. Disadvantages of Online Class Observation…………………………………………31
• 2.1. Difficulty Checking Students’ Reactions………………………………………..31
• 2.2. Difficulty of Students-student and Teacher-student Interactions………………..32
• 2.3. Time Delay…………………………………………………………………….34
• 3. Advantages of Online Teaching Practices………………………………………….35
• 3.1. Opportunity to Apply Multimedia in Class……………………………………35
• 3.2. Engaging in Reflective Teaching………………………………………………36
• 3.3. Low Anxiety…………………………………………………………………...37
• 3.4. Low Physical Burden…………………………………………………………..39
• 3.5. Realizing the Possibility of Flipped Teaching…………………………………..39
• 4. Disadvantages of Online Teaching Practices………………………………………..40
• 4.1. Difficulty of Teacher-student Interaction……………………………………….40
• 4.2. Difficulty Checking on Students’ Participation………………………………….42
• 4.3. Difficulty Checking on Students’ Concentration………………………………43
• 4.4. Technical Difficulties during Online Teaching…………………………………44
• 5. Advantages of Offline Class Observation…………………………………………….46
• 5.1. Convenience in Observing Teacher-student Interaction…………………………46
• 5.2. Opportunity to Learn Classroom Language Use……………………….………47
• 5.3. Convenience in Grasping Students’ Understanding……………………………48
• 6. Disadvantages of Offline Class Observation……………………………………….49
• 6.1. Difficulty Learning to Use Multimedia for Actual Teaching…………………...49
• 6.2. Difficulty Observing Group Work………………………………………………50
• 6.3. Difficulty Reviewing Lectures…………………………………………………..51
• 7. Advantages of Offline Teaching Practices……………………………………………52
• 7.1. Active Interaction with Students…………………………………………………52
• 7.2. Maintaining Students’ Attention in Class………………………………………54
• 8. Disadvantages of Offline Teaching Practices……………………………………….55
• 8.1. Excessive Use of Traditional Teaching Methods……………………………….55
• 8.2. Excessive Physical Demand…………………………………………………….57
• 9. Usefulness of the Hybrid Teaching Practicum……………………………………….58
• 9.1. Helping Making a Decision on Future Career…………………………………59
• 9.2. Experiencing Multimedia Use in Language Classes…………………………..61
• 9.3. Developing Diverse Teaching Skills……………………………………………63
• CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION…………………………66
• REFERENCES………………………………………………………………….72
• 국문초록……………………………………………………………………..…………….77