EFL student teachers' professional identity construction in a dual diploma program

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Yabancı Diller Eğitimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2016

Öğrenci: MELİKE BEKERECİ

Danışman: DENİZ ÇOPUR

Özet:

This study explores how EFL student teachers of an undergraduate dual diploma program describe their professional identities after spending a year in their partner university in the United States, and after experiencing international and local practice teaching contexts. As a case study, the data were obtained through in-depth interviews, classroom observations, document reviews and focus group interviews. The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Classroom observations were conducted in senior year courses offered in the program for 14 weeks in each semester. Observations were unstructured and recorded as field notes. In addition, student teachers’ reflective journals were gathered on a weekly basis. The results suggest that dual diploma programs make a great contribution to prospective EFL teachers’ personal growth in terms of broadening their worldviews, improving their personal skills, making contributions to their perceptions about cultural differences, providing new perspectives about Turkish and American education systems, providing travelling opportunities, and giving them a chance to meet new people from all over the world in a multi-cultural environment. However, the results indicated that both fieldwork experience and practice teaching cause no significant changes in student teachers’ professional identities as a result of having insufficient feedback and doing very few teaching practices. Lastly, it was found that student teachers were not willing to pursue teaching as a career because of the undesired realities of teaching profession in Turkey.