Learning To Become An English Language Teacher: Navigating The Self Through Peer Practicum

Abstract

Pre-service English language teachers' school practicum is key to their learning to become a teacher. However, a number of challenges are observed in its implementation. This paper addresses this issue by investigating how engaging in practicum as peers can function as mentoring support and how this process can influence their selves. A cohort of 16 senior pre-service English teachers was invited to participate in the study from a state university in the west of Turkey. We collected qualitative data through dialogic verbal records and post-practicum interviews. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The results show that pre-service teachers provided for each other different forms of sustained psychosocial support in discovering knowledge about teaching and developing a sense of self as a teacher through dialogic interaction with peers. The paper discusses the implications of peer practicum for reconstructing practicum models already in practice in the research context and beyond.