The data analysis revealed that the concept of readiness to teach was made up of four main dimensions: motivation and interest, teaching ability, confidence and willingness. According to the trainee teachers, in order to have a high sense of teaching readiness, all four of these components needed to be present together. One trainee teacher describes the interdependent nature of these components as follows:
the more knowledge and skills I possess, the more confident I feel when it comes to the real teaching; the more confident I feel, the more interested I am in mobilizing my knowledge and skills and making good use of available resources so as to perform effectively as a school teacher. (Interview, Minh)
Firstly, all the respondents agreed that motivation and interest played a very important role in developing a sense of readiness to teach. While some trainee teachers mentioned motivation and interest as “a prerequisite” or “a condition”, others named these qualities as “a driving force” for a trainee teacher to feel “fully prepared”. One participant pointed out, “a trainee teacher with a high sense of teaching readiness must take his or her teaching seriously, have a positive attitude towards teaching, and most importantly must be highly motivated” (Interview, Tam). Interest in teaching was regarded as a source of motivation. A trainee teacher claimed, “in order to be motivated, the student
teacher must first of all be interested in the skills or the language areas he or she is going to teach. Interest inspires teaching” (Interview, Thinh).
Furthermore, the analysis of interviews indicated that both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations drove the trainee teachers to teach English. As teaching is an essential criterion for evaluation, good scores were the ultimate aims of all trainee teachers and they hoped to realize this through good teaching performance, “it is a requirement to complete the practicum. It is a great opportunity for me to practise my teaching skill” (Interview, Phong) or “I would like to teach well in order to earn a high result, and to leave a good impression on my school mentor and students” (Interview, Dai). It seems that forming a personal teacher identity was also among the objectives that trainee teachers wished to achieve. All wanted to be treated like a real teacher and receive respect from the students, “building up teacher identity and maintaining a good relationship with school mentors are among my main concerns as a new teacher” (Interview, Tam). Hence, gaining high marks, gaining praise from peers and mentors, as well as making students feel happy were the sources of trainee teachers’ teaching motivation. Some expressed the view that they were motivated to teach in order to fulfil the personal passion of teaching while others loved to build up relationships with mentors, students and other trainee teachers “because I love teaching, this will be a great opportunity to do a job I love to my full potential” (Interview, Nhan) or “I would love to see the happy faces of the students when I finish my lessons” (Interview, Danh).
Secondly, self-perception about one’s own teaching ability was another significant factor for determining the readiness to teach. The interview data shed light on the trainee teachers’ beliefs about their teaching potential. Most respondents were confident that they could handle basic teaching duties such as planning the lessons, teaching in class, designing tests, grading students and completing student reports. “I believe that I will be able to carry out all the duties expected of a trainee teacher” (Interview, Tran). However, they expressed their wish to have more time and support regarding the transition from trainee teachers to fully working teachers during the first years of teaching in terms of classroom management and school engagement. “I need more time, more guidance and help before taking on the role of a school teacher” (Interview, Hung). Finishing the practicum with a score meeting their expectations was something that the trainee teachers were very certain about but they were unsure at to how ready they were to become English teachers because they thought that teaching alone did not make effective teachers. “To take the role of an English teacher, I will need much more time to practise teaching and carrying out other teaching duties than the eight weeks’ teaching round” (Interview, Nga).
In addition, teaching readiness, according to the participants, involved the professional and personal willingness to bring into the classroom the knowledge, skills and attributes expected of an English
activities. Willingness is believed to depend on both the motivation to teach and the confidence in one’s ability to take responsibility for the choices they are required to make:
Those who are ready to teach are self-confident and inquiring. They are active language teachers, having lots of initiatives in searching for information, applying what has been learned in teaching practice, asking for help when needed, and making use of time to prepare for their lessons. (Interview, Nhan)
The two themes, professional readiness and personal readiness, constituted more than 80 per cent of the twelve comments provided. It was influenced by their motivation to teach and the personal belief in their own ability as a teacher. As can be inferred from the interview transcripts, teaching readiness consisted of the preparation of essential knowledge and skills that an English language teacher should have such as: strong content knowledge including knowledge of English grammar, English vocabulary, English teaching methodology, English tests, English lesson planning as well as skills in classroom management, ability to correct students’ oral and written mistakes, and ability to model spoken and written English. Most respondents mentioned they needed to feel ready in terms of English language knowledge, pedagogical knowledge as well as instructional and interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills enabled smooth communication with the school mentors, the students and other fellow trainees and these interactions were conducted in Vietnamese. Teaching readiness was also interpreted by some respondents as having an optimistic view of the teaching practicum and trying to improve the dispositions desired of a teacher such as patience, understanding, kindness, helpfulness, sharing, sensitivity and enthusiasm. For some, maintaining their physical and mental health contributed to their preparedness for the school placement. In this sense, teaching readiness engaged the individual’s emotional preparation to start the actual classroom teaching.
Therefore, the two dimensions of teacher readiness including “personal attributes” and “professional practices” emerging from the study by Haigh et al. (2013) were present in the trainee teachers’ conceptualization of teaching readiness, together with the idea of “teaching motivation” and “willingness” as impetus for boosting high levels of readiness to teach. In addition, providing their opinions about the concept of teaching readiness, a majority of the trainee teachers believed that they were ready to enter the teaching practicum with strong motivation, adequate confidence in their teaching ability and great willingness to learn from this experience when reflecting on the need to teach, the professional preparation they had experienced during university learning and their desire to become teachers. However, the level of teaching readiness appeared to be hindered by the perceived limited teaching abilities when trainee teachers lacked the confidence in classroom management and school engagement, the two areas not sufficiently covered during university study. Trainee teachers from U2 and U3, who had already participated in the first placement, showed more confidence in their preparation for the practicum than those from U1, whose lack of practicum experience intensified their concerns about the readiness to teach.