Challenges in Practicum: Two Sides of the Coin

One possible way to eliminate the problems of beginning teachers would be to improve the quality of practicum component of teacher education programs since the practicum is where pre-service teachers (PTs) face realities of a classroom. The present study was conducted to find out the challenges that PTs and cooperating teachers (CTs) experience during practicum practices, in the hope that detection of the challenges may shed light on which aspects of practicum needs to be improved to increase quality. Data for the study were collected in the spring term of the 2013-2014 academic year through in-depth interviews with eight PTs studying at the English Language Teaching (ELT) department of a state university in Turkey and three CTs mentoring this group of PTs. The responses indicated that there were serious concerns about practicum practices conducted in Turkey, and thus a revision of those practices was needed. Keywords: practicum, teacher development, pre-service teachers, cooperating teachers.