IELTS Research Reports

Learning to play the ‘classroom tennis’ well:IELTS and international students in teacher education3 What support mechanisms are in place in the state system itself to support such newlygraduated teachers?4 In the light of this, what do you think of the adequacy of IELTS scores for entry intoteacher education?5 What do you think an adequate score would be?In addition, these people were asked to make comparisons with the PEAT instrument used by theNSWDET. Though devised in NSW, all other states are aware of the details of PEAT. Answers arereported here in their entirety, rather than by question.The key response was that issues about culture and values posed by teachers from non-Anglophonecountries were ongoing challenges to schools. The main employing authority in the state in which thisinterview was conducted ran a pre-employment program for the relevant teachers as they joined thesystem. This introduced people to the socio-cultural mix of schools, to curriculum and to professionalexperience and assessment practices. The team running this pre-employment program present ongoingprofessional advice and support. These interviewees believed that PEAT had been accepted by thebroader education community. This becomes relevant to this research in light of the belief that arequired score on PEAT was at a higher level than generally accepted IELTS scores for entry intoteacher education. While there is no way of making a strict comparison, the belief of this group was thatPEAT was ‘definitely’ higher than a 7.5 in IELTS. The significance of this, if the group is correct in thisestimate, is that IELTS university entrance scores into teacher education are generally lower than aninstrument required by one major employer in Australia. These interviewees felt that universities werebeing less than fair to students if they gave too much ‘leniency’ on entrance in this area – either throughsetting scores too low or allowing RPL. This disadvantaged students in the long run, either because theycould not cope with the academic program or because they may not meet employer requirements. Thesepeople were aware that for students subject to PEAT in the relevant state, only about 30% passed the teston their first attempt. In general, they believed that a benchmark of at least ‘7’would be better to gainadmission to teacher education because students may then be able to reach ‘7.5’by the end of the course(if the course is 18 months or more). They felt that a student with IELTS ‘7’at the beginning of a oneyearDip Ed would rarely reach IELTS ‘7.5’by the end of the 12 months. They also felt that a studentwith a score of ‘6’or ‘6.5’at the beginning of a program would be unlikely to reach ‘7.5’even after 2years. In general, they felt that the correct principle for IELTS was that the entry score should be at leastas high as the mandated state requirement for registration. This would allow time for students to improveenough to reach a score above the minimum mandated requirement.7 AUSTRALIAN TEACHER EDUCATORS’ PERSPECTIVES ON THE IELTSENTRY SCORES7.1 BackgroundFaculty of Education 1 runs a large graduate entry Masters level course for pre-service secondaryteachers. LBOTE students are a relatively high (compared to other universities) proportion of studentsand are all already Permanent Residents or citizens. Most LBOTE students are in Maths, Science andComputing Methods. Most LBOTE students are from the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent.Faculty of Education 2 runs a small course for international students only. It is at the Masters level andrequires two years of study. Students are mainly Indian and Chinese, with small numbers of JapaneseIELTS Research Reports Volume 11103