Ideals meet reality. A qualitative study on student teachers’ attitudes and thoughts on oral English and how this is reflected in their practice

Abstract

This study aims to explore how student teachers view the ideal English teacher when it comes to the use of oral English in the classroom. It also investigates whether or not the student teachers’ attitudes and thoughts on oral English are reflected in their practice. The following research questions was thus formed:

“How are student teachers’ attitudes and thoughts towards the use of oral English in Norwegian classrooms reflected in their practice?”

On the basis of my research question I used qualitative methods in form of observations and interviews to collect data that would answer the research question. Observation was used to see how the students used oral English during practice, while the interviews were conducted following the observations to get insight into their attitudes and thoughts towards different aspects of how to use oral English in the classroom. The interviews were also used to compare their ideals and thought with their actual practice to see if there were any similarities or differences.

The results from this study show that teacher students’ ideal English teacher concerning the use of oral English, uses oral English as much as possible during English lessons, while also trying to motivate the pupils to use English. The students’ practice reflected their thoughts and answers from the interviews, and showed a clear consistency between ideal thoughts on how to be an English teacher, and how their lessons were conducted.