Student Teachers’ Perspectives on Teaching Practice in the College of Education at Al-Mergeb University

Abstract

This research article focuses its attention on student-teachers’ perspectives on teaching practice in the College of Education at Al-Mergeb University. Semi- structured interview with all student teachers was utilised to collect the data while content analysis was employed to identify themes and analyse the data. This study was done in the academic year 2013-2014 involving 33 student teachers studying in the fourth year level. The findings revealed that, despite the positive experiences during teaching practice, student teachers experienced challenges which affected their perception of the teaching profession. Based on the findings of this study, measures are being suggested on how to improve teaching practice in order to have a positive influence on the student teachers’ perception of, and attitude towards, the teaching profession. Furthermore, the findings indicated that student teachers view teaching practice as an important component in their training because it exposes them to the actual teaching and learning environment in which they can contextualise their theoretical knowledge gained during training period.