IELTS Research Reports

Learning to play the ‘classroom tennis’ well:IELTS and international students in teacher educationco-ordinator believes, are the discussions around practicum. The short, intensive nature of their(Master of Teaching) degree is seen as a problem by these academics, with many students attemptingto complete the course in 12 months because of financial imperatives. Acculturation into the courseitself takes time and the lecturers feel that students need to be supported more before the coursebegins. Many LBOTE students arrive feeling confident, do badly on practicum and then find they havemissed the workshop support program. Funding for these initiatives has been dependent from year-toyearon the availability of funds at the Faculty level.In a second Faculty, the following interventions are in place:(1) The inclusion in the course of 4 units which are peculiar to this international cohort .These are■■■■■■■■an English language unit aimed at increasingly sophisticated understandings of languageuse in a range of contexts including the discipline of Educationa unit introducing Australian education. This unit is composed of school visits whichinclude lesson observations. Some of these visits are to rural schools. This unit (4 hoursper week of school visits for 10-12 weeks) also has an extra 2 hour per week ‘supportworkshop’ run by the Learning and Teaching unit – it consists of ‘survival’ English and‘academic’ English (especially analysis and critical reflection) and is especially aimed atassignments, referencing, group assignments, giving presentationscultural investigations in schoolteacher-as-enquirerThe Faculty in question has recently taken the decision to make the international cohort a strand ofthe new Master of Teaching degree available to all secondary students and in this altered degree onlythe English language unit and the introduction to Australian education will be the distinguishingsupport units. Other Faculties recognised too the benefits of running credit bearing units that allowedinternational students to access appropriate support, though some areas of university administrationsometimes see these units as inappropriate at Masters level. However, running courses which do notcarry credit can impose insupportable costs on Faculties of Education.(2) the Faculty employment of a PhD student to assist students with aspects of assignments. Thisstudent ‘supports the support workshops’(3) use of a retired teacher to mentor students in groups(4) use of alumni as further mentors, who are themselves (mostly) teachers. All 2009 students hadmentors, though prior to this, it was mainly ‘at risk’ students. The total group holds fortnightlymeetings around language and acculturation.(5) micro-teaching sessions(6) 18 students are undergoing an ‘international initiative’ in four schools, in which they become theresponsibility of one person in the school who runs a workshop or two for them on acculturation aspart of the practicum.The course co-ordinator would like to further supplement this support in the future with more useof classroom scenarios on video, more videoing and critiquing by students of themselves in microteachingcontexts and perhaps supplementing these using Web technology such as Second Life forrole- playing scenarios. The Head of this Faculty noted that the Faculty had funded some of theseIELTS Research Reports Volume 11109