چکیده
در سالهای اخیر و با شروع تحول در روشهای نوین تدریس، چگونگی بهبود و افزایش
شایستگی و توانایی معلمان در کاربرد آن روشها
مورد مطالعه بسیاری از پژوهشگران آموزشی قرار گرفت. به طوریکه برخی از پژوهشگران بر اهمیت و اثر
حضور در کارگاههای آموزشی در زمینه افزایش
شایستگی معلمان در بهکارگیری روشهای نوین تأکید کردهاند. بدین ترتیب، هدف این مطالعه بررسی
نگرش دانشجومعلمان در زمینه احساس نیاز به شرکت در کارگاههای آموزشی بهعنوان برنامه غیردرسی و تأثیر آن بر
شایستگی آنها در بهکارگیری روشهای نوین است. به منظور کسب دادهها و اطلاعات در زمینه مورد مطالعه،
پرسشنامه تحقیقاتی بین 40 دانشجو
معلم که تجربه شرکت در کارگاه آموزشی داشتند، توزیع شد. به دلیل محدودیت موجود در
پاسخ به پرسشنامه مذکور و برای کسب
اطلاعات و دادههای دقیقتر، با 10 دانشجو از 40 دانشجو معلم
شرکتکننده، مصاحبهای نیمه سازمانیافته برگزار شد. نتایج مطالعه حاکی از
آن هستند که اکثر دانشجومعلمان میل و گرایش به شرکت کردن در کارگاههای آموزشی خارج از برنامه درسی را
دارند. با بررسی دقیق یافتههای این مطالعه، میتوان به احساس رضایت و خرسندی
دانشجومعلمان، از تأثیر شرکت در این کارگاهها،
بر شایستگی خود پی برد. علاوه بر این، اکثر دانشجومعلمان باور داشتند که کارگاههای آموزشی، مکمل مناسبی برای دوره
کارورزی میباشد که هدف آن آمادهسازی بیشتر آنها برای ورود به عرصه تدریس است.
کلیدواژهها: کارگاه آموزشی، کارورزی، شایستگی،
دانشجومعلم، نگرش
Abstract
Teaching is
neither an innovation nor a fleeting vogue. It has been with human beings
throughout history. Recently and in the wake of the revolution of new teaching
methods and theories, competence of teachers in adopting the new methods has
become appealing to many educational researchers. Eventually, it is maintained
that taking part in teaching workshops and watching others’ teaching practice
could be of a great help. Correspondingly, this study aimed at investigating
student teachers’ attitudes towards teaching workshops and their effects on
their competence in adopting the new methods. 40 student teachers who had some
experience of attending such workshops were given questionnaires and to gain
more in-depth data, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten of them.
The findings of this study indicate that most of the student teachers had
positive attitudes towards taking part in teaching workshops. Moreover they
opine such workshops are effective and satisfactory. The findings of the
present study leads us to the notion of necessity for teaching workshops as a
supplement to the current internship course.
Key Words: teaching workshop, internship, competence,
student teacher, attitude
INTRODUCTION
The education
sector as a vital part of our lives has never been thought to be static. It has
always been considered as dynamic. As Chastain (2007, p.15) puts it,
methodologists consistently try to come up with new teaching approaches and
methods for different reasons one of which is enhancing the level of quality of
the educational expriences and making them harmonious and compatible with the
daily needs. On the other hand, some others underline the setbacks which come
along with the English Language Teaching (ELT) innovations and believe that not
all these innovations are put into practice as they should be (Carless, 2007).
Therefore, teachers if they are really determined to improve learning and reach
the goals of the new approaches they encounter with, they had better be ready
and willing to accept new ideas and experiment with them (Chastain,2007,
p.145). As a solution, Smith and colleagues (1983) stated that in order to
reach the acceptable level of competence compatible with the innovative
teaching methods, teachers need to spend time on reading and reflecting on
their own teaching practices; Moreover, some teaching workshops are held which
are usually run by more experienced teachers. Those workshops are designed and
held in order to help teachers become more competent and proficient. Thus
suffice it to say that workshops can be of great help to enhance teachers’
competence.
Although the
participants of workshops are normally considered to be less experienced, they
are not supposed to be passive. Clearly
speaking, teachers’ assessment of the workshops they have attended can help
improve the current state of workshops. This idea which is less accentuated by
researchers comprises the main cornerstone of conducting the present research.
As Nozari (2011) pointed out, post-workshop assessments by the participants are
necessary to identify the merits and drawbacks of the workshops. In this way,
we may improve the workshops which are designed to enhance teachers’
competence. Similarly, the present study aimed at investigating English student
teachers’ attitudes towards the workshops they had attended, the effects of
these workshops on their teaching competence and the need for them as a
supplement to the current internship course.
Background of
the Study
In 2012,
Iranian educational authorities introduced Communicative Language Teaching
(CLT) as the new approach to teaching English at schools. The goal of this
approach similar to audiolingualism is to make students able to communicate in
the target language yet how this method gets students to achieve communicative
proficiency is at odds with Audio Lingual Methods. The advocates of CLT opine
that the best way to achieve communicative proficiency is communication itself
– that is students ought to immerse in real-life interaction and communication
in order for them to be able to choose what to say and how to say it (Freeman,
2011).Abiding by the rules of CLT, students’ role changes from a passive to an
active one. Students should take part cooperatively in class activities and
with the help of their teachers, make the class environment interactive in
which case subconscious learning is more likely to happen (Rashtchi and
Keyvanfar, 2007). Similarly, teachers are no longer models of the target
language. The teacher is truly a facilitator; walking around in the class and
among his/her students observing their needs, interests and proficiency levels
in order to choose appropriate materials to present (Rashtchi and Keyvanfar,
2007).
The problem
with the newly-adopted approach is that teachers feel that CLT is not fully
implementable in the classroom. They are of the view that there is
incompatibility between CLT innovations and the context. Teachers also complain
about the inconsistencies between CLT principles and the newly-published
English text-books, it was for this reason that Khuzestan English Language
Teachers Association (KELTA) started to design workshops focusing on CLT
method.
Simultaneous with this plan, Farhangiyan
University, previously known as Teacher Training Centre, was reopened and as reported by the Ministry of Educaion over
twenty five thousand students got admited By 2014, all these student teachers
were sent to schools for a credit course called internship (Karvarzi) among
whom were English student teachers who would soon encounter with the same
problems which their older counterparts had already faced. To help English
student teachers fill the gap between CLT theories and their correspondent
practices and get more prepared for their career, KELTA in association with
Rasool Akram Pardis (Ahvaz branch of Farhangian University) held non-credit
workshops as a supplement to their internship course since the students
complained that internship course by itself could not meet their needs.
As workshops have
a crucial role in the professional development of teachers, this study aims to
investigate English student teachers’ attitudes towards teaching workshops.
Objectives of
the Study
The objectives
of the present study were as follows:
1. To
investigate English student teachers’ attitudes towards the teaching workshops.
2. To determine
if there was a need for teaching workshops to supplement the current internship
course.
3. To identify
the effect of teaching workshops on English student teachers’ competence.
Research
Questions
1. What are
English student teachers’ attitudes towards teaching workshops?
2. Is there any
need for teaching workshops to supplement the current internship course?
3. What is the
effect of teaching workshops on English student teachers’ competence?
Review of
Literature
The
instructional workshop is a meeting in which a group of teachers gather to give
one another feedback as to how teaching practices can be modified to help
better learning. The history of instructional workshops goes back to 1978 when
Professor Douglas Kerr from the Vancouver Community College developed them for
the instructors in British Columbia to improve their instructional skills
(Pattison and Day, 2006). These sorts of workshops that have different
timetables in different countries and associations basically are designed and
run to improve and develop teachers’ levels of professionalism and their
development as teachers. During the instructional workshops teachers give demos
of how they normally teach and receive verbal, written and even video feedback
and suggestions from their counterparts who have been taking part in the
workshop as students. In other words, teachers are fostered to examine and
reflect on their normal teaching practices during the instructional workshops
accompanying feedback from the participants who often focus on the learning
process rather than what is taught. Normally the participants go through
theories and the correspondent teaching practices, tips for choosing
appropriate learning objectives and lesson plans, techniques to get the
students participate in class discussions and ideas for learning evaluation
which can be adopted and adapted to be used in the classroom (Johnson, 2016).
Since 1978, the effect of workshops on
teachers’ competence has been emphasized by many educational researchers. As
mentioned above, taking part in instructional workshops provides the
participants with the opportunity to adopt the innovations which seem to be
feasible and suitable for their classrooms. Macpherson (2011) studied the
teachers who had taken part in instructional workshops and the findings
indicated that besides the development of skills, knowledge and attitudes; the
participants felt that they became more aware of their personal beliefs, intentions
and actions. They adopted and adapted some innovations from the workshops and
transferred them to their classrooms. In their beliefs, workshops encouraged
them to reflect on and adapt the new strategies and this statement is Consonant
with what has been already mentioned in the previous parts of this paper.
Similarly, Pandachuck at al. (2004) studied the effects of teaching-
enhancement workshops on the participants’ teaching performance as their
students rated them after the workshops. The conclusion they drew showed that
teachers assessed workshops to be useful and effective. In the same way, their
students stated that their teachers became more competent after taking part in
the workshops. This means that both teachers and students were on the same wave
length about the point that teaching workshops were helpful.
More recent
studies have been done on the impact of workshops on instructors’ approaches to
teaching. Cassidy and Ahmad (2013) maintained that graduate students who took
part in non-credit workshops got the tendency towards transformative learning
and reflective practice which shifted their approaches toward more
student-centredness. Others added that besides the shift in teachers’
approaches, the workshops affect student learning positively (Parsons, Hill,
Holland & Willis, 2013). In this respect, one may conclude that workshops
serve both the teachers and their students.
Recently it was recognized that preparation of
graduate students for their professions is of high significance (Shannon, Twale,
&Moore, 1998). To build a bridge between the theories graduate students go
through and their correspondent practices; some universities in Canada
developed workshops based on student needs. The aforementioned workshops were
designed “to discuss and digest, in depth, issues related to teaching and
learning in higher education. Further, students had the opportunity to practice
their teaching skills in multiple micro-teaching sessions” (Harris &
McEwen, 2009). As pointed out above, it is noteworthy that needs of
participants must be taken into consideration in designing workshops. This is
what was emphasized by Najafi (1990) that active participation of teachers and
the scientific measurements of their needs are necessary for developing any
in-service programme. Equally, Saeedi (1996) pointed out that the instructional
programmes are not designed based on the needs of the participants and that is
what strays them away from their goals. Ghoshuni (1995) stated that in-service
instructional programmes are lacking and not suitable in terms of time, place
and educational facilities. The above quoted statements attest to the
conclusion that to enhance the quality of workshops and tailor them to the
needs and requirements of the participants, it is necessary to study their
post-workshop assessments.
The attitude
which comprises one of the main parts of this study is believed to be the
usefulness of something we have perceived (Zhao and Cziko, 2001). Suja (2007)
confirms this point by stating that experience has a direct impact on our
attitudes. In this respect, the conclusion one could draw is that the
usefulness workshops, as perceived by the participants, builds their attitudes
towards the workshops. This means that the participants’ attitudes are not
haphazard, but rather they are experience-rooted and reasonable.
Research
Methodology
The methodology
of the present study consists of quantitative and qualitative research methods.
Sampling
The sampling of
this study was purposive since the participants were selected purposively from
two teacher training centres of Ahvaz namely Rasool Akram and Fatemeh Al-Zahra
pardis. 23 male and 17 female student teachers whose ages ranged between 21 to
24 participated in the study. The total number of the participants was 40 and
they all were BA English students in their last year of university. All of the
participants had passed four courses of internship during which they had
watched, written reports and practiced their teaching skills; beside each of
the participants at least had attended teaching workshops more than once.
Instrumentation
The instruments
of the study were 5-point Likert Scale (ranging from strongly disagree to
strongly agree) questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. The
questionnaire was adopted from Edwards and kissling's (2006). Participants were
asked to give their degree of agreement and disagreement to the statements
abaut the workshop they had attended. The questionnaire was uploaded to Google
and its link was sent to all the participants.
The
participants for the semi-structured interview were also selected non-randomly.
They were ten male student teachers and the interviews were conducted in the
dormitory of Pardis Rasool Akram of Ahvaz. Every interview was recorded by a
digital recorder to ascertain the accuracy of data collection and data
analysis.
Data analysis
The
questionnaires’ responses were analysed with Google Document programme since
the questionnaire was uploaded there. The data were analysed with descriptive
statistics; that is the percentage of each response was estimated. The
percentages summarized the data on student teachers’ attitudes towards
workshops, the need for workshops to supplement their internship course and the
effects of workshops on their competence.
The interviews
were analysed through focusing on the key words of the participants’ answers on
their attitudes towards workshops, the need for workshops to supplement their
internship course and the effects of workshops on their competence.
Results and
discussion
In this
section, the results of the questionnaire are presented in three separate parts
each of covers one of the three main questions.
The three questions which were supposed to be
answered are as follows:
1. What are
English student teachers’ attitudes towards teaching workshops?
2. Is there any
need for teaching workshops to supplement the current internship course?
3. What is the
effect of teaching workshops on English student teachers’ competence?
The
questionnaire items number 1, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, and 20 were designated to
provide us with the student teachers’ attitudes toward teaching workshops. As
presented in Table 1, most of the studied student teachers stated that they
utilized the ideas in workshops, they consider workshops to be effective, they
like to participate in workshops more than before and urge their classmates to
do so. All in all, the percentages given to the items which studied the
attitudes of the student teachers’ towards teaching workshops hold true for the
idea that they are delighted with these workshops and have positive attitudes
towards them.
Just a passing
glance on the results of questions number 3, 8, 17 and 18 is in table 3 enough
to conclude that the participants are surely for the idea of teaching workshops
as a supplementary source to the current internship course since most of them
confirmed the statements such as workshops supplement their internship course
and without workshops, the internship course feels lacking.
The student
teachers answers to questions number 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 14, succinctly indicate
the fact that teaching workshops have had positive effects on their teaching
competence because most of them feel that their ability to put the theories
into practice have improved, that changes have taken place in their teaching
methods, that they have specified their objectives and that finally they have
become more competent.
The 10
interviewees of the 40 participants gave more in-depth information about the
main three questions. The results of the interviews were nearly the same as
those of the questionnaire. Discerning the elicited comments of the
interviewees signals that most of them consider workshops as a development
programme which helped them manage their classes better, get the students
actively participate in the class discussions by making a friendly atmosphere
with purposive language games and other interactive activities, adopt CLT
principles and adapt them to the context and are better in control of how to
overcome the incompatibility between the theories and their correspondent
practices. They also hint at time and place as barriers which used to make
likely difficulties in attending the workshops which were approximately
eliminated when KELTA started to hold the workshops in their universities to
avoid any overlap with the student teachers' class time.
Conclusion
In summary,
most of the studied student teachers had positive attitudes towards the
teaching workshops they had attended. They were satisfied with the workshops.
They contend that these workshops kept them up with the innovations of language
teaching. They further pointed out that the effects are desirable enough to be
introduced as a beneficial development programme due to the fact that most of
the participants believed they had become more competent.
In terms of the
need for these noncredit teaching workshops to patch up the shortcomings of the
credit internship course, they feel that workshops can truly supplement their
internship course since more examinations and reflections on their teaching
methods will be provided. To sum up, most of them were unanimous that in the
absence of workshops; the internship course could not meet their needs and that
they hoped to attend workshops as a credit course.
The
implications of this study are for the Education Ministry to integrate
workshops with the curriculum of teacher training cenrtre known as Farhangiyan
University in Iran as the result clearly evidences the need and suggested their
effectiveness in helping students teachers become more competent.
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