Cuadros secundarios

The interviews with the twelve trainee teachers revealed that most started to think about preparing for the practicum either in the first semester of the final year or just several weeks before the practicum. Information about the practicum provided by the university and the host school was regarded as crucial in guiding their preparation. The closer the practicum, the more preparation was done by the trainee teachers. Several external factors were cited as influential in how trainee teachers prepared for their school placement, including school location, school reputation, school facilities, students’ English proficiency, mentoring relationship, collegial support and evaluation practice. The interviews with the twelve trainee teachers brought consistent findings about the influences in their lead-up to the practicum.

First, according to the respondents, the distance from the host school to their home mattered. Most preferred a school close to their home because it would save them much time travelling. Schools that were located in the city centre and provided easy access via public transport were most favoured. The reputation of a school was another significant factor affecting trainee teachers’ preparation. Reputation refers to the school’s overall prestige as well as its English language teaching programs. The participating schools were grouped into two categories: “specialized high schools” and “normal high schools”. In both types of school, students are then grouped into blocks A, B, C and D, based on the subjects they are going to take in their university entrance examination. Students in blocks A, B and C learned English to pass the national graduation examination. Block D students needed intensive English study because they would sit for both the national graduation examination and the national university entrance examination with English as a compulsory subject. In “normal high schools”, students often studied in mixed-ability classes. There were fewer specialized high schools where students were classified as better academic performers in most subjects, including English. The facilities in specialized high schools were typically better than in the normal ones. A majority of the

trainee teachers preferred to go to “normal high schools” while their highly proficient colleagues tended to choose “specialized high schools”. This is evident in the following comment from one trainee teacher:

when I chose this school, I knew that I am under pressure to work hard. I would like to get experience in a highly competitive environment. I think more of what I can learn rather than what result I will get because I have heard that trainee teachers going to this school normally do not get high marks because the school expects much from them. (Interview, Minh)

In addition to the school location and reputation, students’ overall learning ability and their English proficiency were significant in determining the trainee teachers’ preparation. If the trainee teachers knew that their students’ knowledge of English was limited, either because English was not among the subjects required for university examination or because they were not motivated to learn English, they tended to incorporate more drills and controlled practice in their lessons rather than communicative activities. They believed that adapting their teaching to students’ ability would help them understand the students' learning needs as well as gain their cooperation and respect. “I will try to listen to my students’ concern before and after each lesson in order to see how I should plan and modify my lesson. This is also a way to gain the students’ cooperation and respect” (Interview, Thinh).

The mentoring relationship, collegial support and evaluation practices were also high on the list of concerns of the trainee teachers. Before the teaching practicum, the trainee teachers expressed their hope that they would build a friendly and cooperative relationship with their school mentors and other teaching staff, which would then be conducive to their teaching. In their opinion, the better the relationship between them and the school mentors, the smoother their practicum would go. Moreover, another concern that appeared to overwhelm trainee teachers with anxiety was the evaluation practices at the host school. The reasons cited were that if they knew how the school mentors would evaluate them, they could prepare for their teaching performance. One trainee teacher was determined, “if the mentor thinks that I should use a particular teaching method or certain resources for teaching, I will try to prepare my lesson under his or her guidance” (Interview, Nga).

Therefore, information about the mentoring relationship at the school which the trainee teachers would attend was generally elicited from their friends and university teachers. “I listened to some stories about how the school mentors in that school evaluate trainee teachers, and whether they tended to give high or low marks” (Interview, Yen). The more they knew about the school, its evaluation practices and mentors, the more comfortable they felt before starting the placement. Trainee teachers expressed the view that they generally preferred teaching the skills in which they were most confident and put more effort into improving the areas in which they felt less proficient. For those from U2 and U3, the first practicum experience informed them of what they should do. For

my first practicum on how to work in harmony with school mentors, how to build up a friendly relationship with students and have a balance between teaching and non-teaching activities” (Interview, Minh).

It was also discovered that in the preparation for the practicum, trainee teachers were concerned with whether their personality, English competency and teaching capacity found themselves a place in the school norms, its collegial support and teaching culture. This mirrors the view that a large set of idiosyncratic and contextual variables, such as personal characteristics and the individual’s resources, mentors’ guidance and support, and the characteristics of the school’s ethos, determines an easy or a difficult adaptation to teaching realities (Veeman, 1984; Johnson, 2009; Shin, 2012). Although the preparatory period before the teaching practice has an impact on trainee teachers’ subsequent growth during the practicum and even later into the teaching profession, the trainee teachers’ responses highlighted that the preparation was hectic and stressful and they would have felt more comfortable with a longer period for preparation before going to the school as well as more opportunities to contact and discuss their concerns with the school mentors and university mentors.