Learning to Teach Speaking during the Practicum in Pre-Service Teacher Education in Korea

This study investigated student teachers’ teaching of English during the practicum with a particular focus on the teaching of speaking in the secondary school context in Korea. A multiple case study was conducted with three state teacher education institutions based in large cities in Korea. The aims of the study were to understand the student teachers’ practices and views of the teaching of speaking during the practicum and to identify any influence on their practices while undertaking the practicum. By tracing any change in their cognition after the practicum it was also aimed to understand to what extent the practicum had an impact on their learning to teach speaking.

This study collected data via classroom observations, subsequent interviews with the student teachers and their trainers as well as their mentors and head teachers during the practicum, and relevant documents gathered in the research context. The analysis of the cases showed that there was an impact of the practicum on the trainees’ learning to teach speaking but this was limited and bound to their teaching context and that the extent of their learning or cognition change also varied to different degrees according to their teacher competency. Overall, no significant development in their cognition during the practicum was found. There was also incongruence between the trainees’ initial expectations of the teaching of speaking with their actual practice, although their initial pedagogical beliefs with regard to student-centered communicative teaching were to some extent consistent throughout their practice. This incongruence was caused by the gap between the nature of teacher training and the reality of teaching in the classroom with a lack of collaboration between teacher colleges and secondary schools.

This study sheds light on the area of teaching speaking on which little research has been previously conducted particularly in the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context by providing an in-depth qualitative account of student teachers’ learning to teach speaking during the practicum through empirical research. This study, therefore, contributes to our understanding of teacher learning in the field of TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) teacher education.