Pre-Service teachers' perceptions of a short-term international experience programme

Pre-Service teachers' perceptions of a short-term international experience programme

• Barkhuizen, Gary Dept. of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, University of Auckland, New Zealand
• Feryok, Anne University of Auckland, New Zealand

Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 34(1), 115-134, 2006

Routledge

2006

• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MA Professional Education for Teachers
• G Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: Specific Disciplines
  • GB English Language
    • GBA Teaching Objectives, Curriculum & Evaluation

Foreign Countries Student Teachers Language Teachers Preservice Teacher Education Teacher Education Programs Student Teacher Attitudes Diaries Questionnaires Language Proficiency English (Second Language) International Educational Exchange Hong Kong New Zealand

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

Short-term international experiences (STIE) are becoming a regular, sometimes required, feature of pre-service language teacher education programmes. Often inappropriately termed 'immersion programmes', they aim to give teachers the opportunity to improve their language proficiency in the language they will teach, to develop their pedagogical knowledge and to engage with an international sociocultural environment with which they are not familiar. In this article we report on a study which investigated pre-service English second language teachers' perceptions of a six-week international experience in Auckland, New Zealand. The student teachers, who were enrolled in a postgraduate diploma in teaching at a Hong Kong university, participated in an academic programme as well as a series of social events and school visits. They were encouraged to reflect on their expectations and experiences and to write about these in a pre-programme questionnaire, reflective journals and a summative programme evaluation. The teachers' articulations reveal that their expectations and experiences interrelate in complex, sometimes unexpected, ways. The findings have important implications for the coordinators of the programme at the host institution and also for those further afield who are involved in planning and managing similar STIE programmes.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598660500479904]

• English

Journal Articles

• 1359866X

• 10.1080/13598660500479904

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/f86ed864

2010-09-27