The purpose of this study is to identify the student teaching problems as perceived by the English language preservice teachers so as to develop a student teaching manual and to suggest guidelines for developing student teaching program. This problem was tackled through answering two questions : (1) What are the problems faced by the English language preservice teachers during their student teaching in the preparatory and secondary schools ? (2) How can the student teaching program in the Faculty of Education, Benha University, be developed ? In order to answer the first question, written reports on the field experience have been collected from 126 fourth year students at the English Section, Faculty of Education, Benha University, in the university year 2003-2004. the reports were carefully examined in order to identify a list of the overall difficulties encountered the student teachers. The list was tabulated and arranged and , in turn, an 40-item questionnaire was developed. It was arranged in three-point-Likert-scale format. It covered three major areas: (1) Educational and academic preparation of the preservice teachers, (2) Organizational and administrative problems, and (3) Supervision. The questionnaire was applied to three samples of the preservice teachers at Benha Faculty of Education in the university year 2004-2005: third year English language students ( n = 146), fourth year English language students ( n =69), and finally a sample of the general diploma students ( n =28). The statistical analysis revealed the top 10 problems encountered by the three samples separately as well as all of them as a whole. Based on the study findings, a manual for student teaching has been developed to help EFL preservice teachers avoid and overcome the common problems they usually face. Guidelines for developing the student teaching program have also been suggested. |
