<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Recently, teacher training courses have attracted the researchers’ special attention, while teacher education programs have not received as much attention. The present study investigated the attitudes key stakeholders in a teacher education program (i.e., student teachers, in-service teachers, and teacher educators) hold toward the appropriateness of TEFL teacher education programs at an Iranian teacher education university and their relevance to and sustainable impact in the real teaching context. To this end, 62 pre-service teachers, 48 in-service teachers, and 28 teacher educators filled out the Foreign Language Teacher Education Program Evaluation questionnaire adapted from <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_jtes-2016-0011_ref_015_w2aab2b8c19b1b7b1ab1ac15Aa">Peacock (2009)</xref>. The results of ANOVA tests indicated that the pre-service teachers and teacher educators found courses with literary strands less relevant to English language teaching and believed that those courses should be modified or replaced by teaching more knowledge-building or knowledge-applying subjects. In addition, the in-service teachers harboured a negative perspective towards the courses which were not practical in the real classroom setting and considered them less empowering. All three groups found teaching-related courses, such as teaching methodology, of more sustainable nature and useful in the real teaching context. Besides, the participants believed that it is essential for the universities to incorporate several practical courses including practicum and classroom observations within the curriculum. This study suggests that accommodating key stakeholders’ preferences in a teacher education programs could lead to crafting more accountable and empowering teacher education programs.</p></abstract>

Recently, teacher training courses have attracted the researchers’ special attention, while teacher education programs have not received as much attention. The present study investigated the attitudes key stakeholders in a teacher education program (i.e., student teachers, in-service teachers, and teacher educators) hold toward the appropriateness of TEFL teacher education programs at an Iranian teacher education university and their relevance to and sustainable impact in the real teaching context. To this end, 62 pre-service teachers, 48 in-service teachers, and 28 teacher educators filled out the Foreign Language Teacher Education Program Evaluation questionnaire adapted from Peacock (2009). The results of ANOVA tests indicated that the pre-service teachers and teacher educators found courses with literary strands less relevant to English language teaching and believed that those courses should be modified or replaced by teaching more knowledge-building or knowledge-applying subjects. In addition, the in-service teachers harboured a negative perspective towards the courses which were not practical in the real classroom setting and considered them less empowering. All three groups found teaching-related courses, such as teaching methodology, of more sustainable nature and useful in the real teaching context. Besides, the participants believed that it is essential for the universities to incorporate several practical courses including practicum and classroom observations within the curriculum. This study suggests that accommodating key stakeholders’ preferences in a teacher education programs could lead to crafting more accountable and empowering teacher education programs.

Key Stakeholders’ Attitudes towards Teacher Education Programs in TEFL: A Case Study of Farhangian University in Iran

Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Recently, teacher training courses have attracted the researchers’ special attention, while teacher education programs have not received as much attention. The...

Key Stakeholders’ Attitudes towards Teacher Education Programs in TEFL: A Case Study of Farhangian University in Iran

Published Online: Dec 30, 2016

Page range: 5 - 20

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jtes-2016-0011

Keywords
In-service teachers, Pre-service teachers, Teacher education, Teacher educators, Teacher education program evaluation

© 2016 Javad Gholami et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Key Stakeholders’ Attitudes towards Teacher Education Programs in TEFL: A Case Study of Farhangian University in Iran

Published Online: Dec 30, 2016

Page range: 5 - 20

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jtes-2016-0011

KeywordsIn-service teachers, Pre-service teachers, Teacher education, Teacher educators, Teacher education program evaluation

© 2016 Javad Gholami et al., published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
In-service teachers, Pre-service teachers, Teacher education, Teacher educators, Teacher education program evaluation