This study is the first of its kind undertaken in Colleges of Education in Portugal and has relied heavily on research evidence obtained from Europe, especially Great Britain, the United States and Canada. Until the mid 80s, primary school teachers were trained in Portugal in non-higher education schools - Escolas do Magisterio Primärio. Middle-school teachers were prepared only in Universities. In 1985/86 Colleges of Education were formed and started training Professores do Ensino Bdsico (primary and middle-school teachers) by means of curricula which were specified by Government for both primary and middle-school teachers during the first three years. The policy designed by the Ministry of Education, mainly through the Portaria No 352/86, is not considered to be the most appropriate means of contributing to the improvement of Portuguese teacher education. This is particularly true with regards to foreign language middle-school teacher education, since this subject was made subsidiary to core primary school teacher preparation. The present study analyses some of the effects of the policies created by the national educational authorities on FL middle-school teacher training in Colleges. It also examines the effects produced by the policies, structures and processes defined and implemented by some of these institutions in order to train middle-school language teachers. To attain this aim, the methodology for the study focused mainly on information obtained from: (1) one questionnaire administered to all the 4th year FL student teachers (157 students)a ttending the Portuguese/Frencha nd Portuguese/English courses in the public Colleges of Education in the year of 1991/92. This questionnaire served as the starting point from which all the relevant information gathered in the experimental and control group Colleges was contrasted and validated; (2) the observation of 64 lessons conducted by 16 experimental and control group College students in middle-schools within the framework of their practicum (from January through June 1992); (3) 47 interviews representative of the views expressed by College teachers, co-operating teachers and student teachers working in these two groups. In order to better contrast the data obtained from the experimental and control group Colleges, an experimental programme was designed by the researcher, the Programme Connections. This was implemented in two Colleges throughout the whole school year (1991/92). The Programme provided the teachers and the students in the experimental group Colleges with the conditions which enabled comparisons to be made with conventional programmes. Thus, part of the empirical research focuses on a comparison between these students trained through the Experimental Programme Connections and those who were not. The pros and cons of the two methods are then analysed accordingly and discussed in the light of recent findings from the literature. The findings indicate that the existing conventional programmes of training for modern language teachers needs to be changed in a number of ways. Thus, this study restates some of the current principles and practices underlying FL middle-school initial teacher training policies. As a result it is hoped that future teachers will: (1) reveal a better scientific and methodological preparation from their ITT courses; (2) begin their profession in a more confident manner; (3) help develop schools by acquiring a more comprehensive understanding of how these institutions really function. The study also calls attention to the need for more appropriate and better continuing education programmes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:283461 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Travassos, Jose Casa Nova Tavares |
| Publisher | University of the West of England, Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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