Assessment of academic curricula for English Language Teachers

What is it about?

This paper describes a EFL (English as a Foreign Language) student teachers’ perception of their initial teacher education and its contribution to their future professional life. The sample comprised 112 student teachers in their fourth year of studies for a bachelor degree in the school of English language and literature in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. The study was based on the European Profile for Language Teacher Education- a Frame of Reference (European Commission 2004), which identifies 40 items as important elements in foreign language teacher education. Prominent among the findings is student teachers’ perception that the current academic curriculum should place more emphasis on school based teaching practice, more active learning strategies and on ways of reinforcing communication with other universities and research institutes.

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Why is it important?

The paper concludes by proposing ways of improving the existing curriculum of initial language teacher education.