Pre-service EFL Teachers as Digital Material Designers: A Case Study into the TPACK Development of EFL Pre-service Teachers in the Turkish Context

12th International ELT Research Conference: Analyze the Present, Imagine the Future in ELT, Çanakkale, Türkiye, 16 - 17 Mayıs 2022, ss.28

PRE-SERVICE EFL TEACHERS AS DIGITAL MATERIAL DESIGNERS: A CASE STUDY INTO THE TPACK DEVELOPMENT OF EFL PRESERVICE TEACHERS IN THE TURKISH CONTEXT

Prospective teachers of the 21st century are supposed to possess pedagogical and digital competence. It is crucial to provide

the pre-service teachers with the opportunity to become digital material designers so that they can achieve effective

technology integration in their future classes. However, the pre-service teacher education programs are likely to provide

prospective teachers with a strong basis in technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). This might constitute a

challenge for the effective technology integration. This 10-week qualitative case study aimed to investigate the TPACK

development of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pre-service teachers at a private K-12 school in the Turkish context as

they are engaged in developing digital teaching materials for EFL learners from the kindergarten level to Grade 7 at a private

K-12 school. It also explored how Turkish pre-service teachers’ TPACK knowledge was reflected in the digital materials they

developed. The participants were 24 pre-service teachers taking the elective course Designing and Using Digital Materials for

ELT and 9 in-service EFL teachers at a private K-12 school in the spring semester of the 2020 and 2021 academic year (during

the COVID-19 pandemic). The in-service teachers in the study acted as mentors for the pre-service teachers’ digital material

development process. The pre-service teachers had an advanced level of proficiency in English and completed their English

language teaching methodology courses and a basic digitial literacy course prior to their involvement in the study. In-service

English teachers at the private K-12 school were those who were actively integrating technology into their teaching. They

provided the pre-service teachers with guidance, detailed and constructive feedback throughout their digital material

development process. The purposive sampling strategy was utilized for the participant selection strategy. Pre-service teachers’

reflective journals and a technology integration assessment instrument (for in-service teachers) were used as the data

collection tools (Harris et al., 2014). The data were analyzed via content analysis. The findings suggested numerous gains

regarding the components of the TPACK framework (Koehler & Mishra, 2009) in different degrees and enhanced awareness

towards the effective integration of technology, content and pedagogy.

Keywords: technology integration, digital literacy, technological pedagogical content knowledge development, pre-service

teachers, computer-assisted language learning, English as a Foreign Language context, digital materials