The Future of Education

Teaching   practice as a key issue holds its roots in Initial Teacher Education Programs, where prospective teachers are prepared for their teaching experiences. This critical span also serves as a threshold on which teacher candidates stand for a secure and fruitful professional life. The programs of ITE ( Initial  Teacher Education)  improve teacher  competencies thanks to some classroom applications. As an extension to it, this study aims to describe a course procedure in which PCK ( Pedagogical Content  Knowledge ) (Shulman,1986)  as a teacher competency is fostered through the microteaching sessions  in young learner classrooms. In these classrooms teacher candidates are expected to prepare lessons in line with the courses conducted at schools and present them in the classroom, where the feedback by the peers and the lecturer is reflected upon after each session is over. In this way, before starting with the real students, candidate teachers achieve the opportunity to practise and receive feedback from different points of view. Moreover, after the session is over, each candidate is asked to write a reflection related to his/ her class, also relying on the feedbacks. The purpose of this reflection is to mirror to the self practice and to find out the strengths and the weaknesses of the course.

Key words: micro-teaching, young learner, pedagogical content knowledge, teacher competency

References

Shulman, L. S. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching.Educational researcher, 4-14.