Sharing Of Critical Teaching Incidents In A Tesol Practicum Using Facebook
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Date
2020-12
Authors
Naidu, Paramisvari Rama
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Practicum is attributed as the core component in any Teacher Education
programmes. The PSTs are expected to transform the knowledge gained in the
theoretical part into practice. Recent literature reveals that the PSTs are experiencing
severe contextual restraints on daily basis during practicum. They experience
incidents that become turning points in their teaching lives and are deemed as
‗critical‘. These are termed ‗critical teaching incidents‘ (CTIs). This research seeks to
find out; (1) to find out the CTIs experienced by the TESOL PSTs during their
practicum, (2) to investigate the consequences encountered due to the CTIs
experienced by the TESOL PSTs during their practicum and (3) to examine the
usefulness of Facebook as a platform to share the CTIs in their TESOL practicum. A
number of 10 final year TESOL PSTs took part in this research. The artefacts from
Facebook, reflective journals and online structured interviews provided the
opportunity to access the PSTs professional landscape to reveal the CTIs experienced
in practicum. The use of multiple analysis approaches provided different lenses to
interpret the CTIs. A Qualitative research method was employed in this research to
gather the data for duration of two months. The data was analyzed using Braun and
Clark‘s thematic approach. Students‘ negative attitude, lack of commitment, use of
mother tongue, poor proficiency and external factors are the CTIs identified in this
research. The results also revealed the consequences of CTIs faced by the PSTs; lost
motivation and ineffective lesson planning. The results also indicated that, using Facebook to share the CTIs during practicum enables the TESOL PSTs to conduct
effective teaching, exchange ideas, promote teamwork and collaboration to address
the CTIs as a CoP. This has generated several theoretical, pedagogical and policy
implications for the teacher education institutions, universities and researchers,
Therefore, it can be concluded that sharing of CTIs in a TESOL practicum using
Facebook would improve the TESOL PSTs potentialities and develop their teaching
ability.
Description
Keywords
Education