A Case Study of a Competency- Based Teacher Training Course

The present case study reports on an innovative teacher training course with ۱۴ Iranian senior undergraduate student-teachers majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). The course was developed after a Competency Based Teacher Education theory (CBTE) to assess student/teachers’ practicums via three sources- self, peer-group and teacher-educator- and based on the criteria devised in a Teacher Observation Instrument (TOI). The aim was primarily to see if there was congruence among the three sources in assessing student-teachers’ performance and secondarily to know what the attitude of the course participants was towards the course and three modes of assessment. Pearson Correlation showed that peer-group’s assessment was relatively congruent with both teacher-educator’s and self-assessment (r= .۵۷, n= ۱۴, P< .۰۵ for both comparisons). The results from semi-structured interviews with student-teachers showed that they had favored peer-group and teacher-educator’s assessment more than self-assessment and that the course made them teach more reflectively.

Keywords:

criterion , competency , self-assessment , peer-group assessment , teacher-educator’s assessment