EFL Teacher Evaluation: Prospective Teachers' Readiness To Teach

Research in different fields has shown that determining whether a prospective teacher is capable of teaching is one of high stakes judgments which can impact significantly on student outcomes and involves both conscious and unconscious processes. Against the backdrop of previous research, this study specifically addresses the question: What aspects of an EFL teacher candidate’s practice are considered when judgments of his/her ‘readiness to teach’ are made? The study is informed by the framing Social Judgment Theory (SJT( (Hammond, Rohrbaugh, Mumpower, & Adelman, 1977) which attempts to model how judgments are made in complex social settings through a careful identification and analysis of the context of the judgment, the cues and policies (underlying constructs) used by the assessors of teacher candidate achievements of the learning outcomes for the practicum. A task of ‘twenty questions’ (from Shulman and Elstein, 1975; Cooksey, 1996; Haigh, Ell and Mackisack, 2013) was designed to form the basis of a structured interview and to uncover participants’ beliefs and ideas in a qualitative manner. The results indicated that there is variation between judges, but an overall pattern can be seen. There is broad agreement amongst the judges as to what the cues are in judging readiness to teach, comparable weight is given to these cues and judges use more than one type and source of evidence when making their decisions. In line with Haigh et al.'s (2013) findings, the overall picture is of a holistic process, where judges see multiple aspects of a teacher candidate’s performance as relevant to their decisions. The two overarching concerns do they have the necessary personal qualities and relationships and can they plan, teach and assess for learning are evenly balanced in the questions posed by the 15 participants. The pattern is reinforced: knowledge and planning is the most important dimension by a small margin, assessment and use of evidence is least important by a small margin, and the other dimensions appear to be of similar significance. In conclusion, it is proved that according to SJT framework, having several informed voices and perspectives combined seems critical to balanced and holistic judgment of EFL teacher candidates' readiness to teach

Keywords:

EFL , Teacher Education , Teaching Readiness