Voices of Student Teachers in Their Teaching Practice: Key to Quality Learning

Abstract

World over, there are numerous challenges encountered by student teachers during their initial teacher training phase, and South African students engaged in initial teacher training programmes are not immune from these challenges. Although the teaching and learning terrain is impacted by provisioning factors, philosophical education factors, but major contributory factors are the systemic. This article reports on an empirical research study conducted in 2010, using students in Intermediate/Senior Phase (BEd degree) at the University of South Africa. The research investigated how student teachers learned during their teaching practice, especially, on how they presented lessons to school based learners. After the presentation of lessons, one of the requirements for these students was the completion of four reflection open ended questions which allowed them to provide self reflective views about their lessons’ presentations. Using socio-constructivism perspectives, underpinned by a socio critical perspective as lenses, the students’ voices about their learning was explored.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n2p569