ABSTRACT

Teaching practice is a compulsory, legislated component of initial teacher education programmes in South Africa. During this experience, preservice teachers engage with their mentor teachers. By exploring first-year students’ experiences with their mentor teachers during their first teaching practice, we argue that mentorship is a vital component of teaching practice in order for first-year students to grow and develop their teaching skills and their professional development. The theoretical framework chosen underpins the mentorship processes based on Hagger and Macintyre’s work, this enabled a multi-dimensional analysis and account of mentorship. Four hundred and twelve first-year students participated in this study and the data were analysed by means of an open coding method. The results were that 376 (91%) of participants reported that they felt unsupported and powerless during teaching practice, because of negative engagements and experiences with mentor teachers. These findings have implications for the preparation of preservice teachers in other contexts too.

摘要

教学实践是南非初始教师教育计划的强制性立法组成部分。在这段经历中，职前教师与导师互动。通过探讨一年级学生在其首次教学实践中与导师的经历，我们认为，指导是教学实践的重要组成部分，以使一年级学生能够发展和发展他们的教学技能和专业发展。选择的理论框架为基于Hagger和Macintyre的工作的指导过程奠定了基础，这实现了对指导的多维分析和说明。412名一年级学生参加了这项研究，并通过开放编码方法对数据进行了分析。结果是，有376名（91％）的参与者报告说，由于教师的负面参与和与老师的经历，他们在教学实践中感到无助和无能为力。这些发现也对在其他情况下准备学前班教师产生了影响。