Teacher educators’ perceptions of critical incidents in teaching practice: the case of novice EFL teachers

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Allameh Tabataba 'i University

Teacher educators' perceptions of critical incidents in teaching practice: the case of novice EFL teachers

Masoomeh Estaji,

Javad Ahmadi Fatalaki

Abstract

Teachers experience various challenges and conditions in their profession, and they may require to make appropriate decisions and take action based on the analysis of the situation. The present study attempted to identify the critical incidents that occur in teaching practices for the novice teachers from the teacher educators' standpoint. Moreover, they were asked to offer some solutions for these critical incidents. To do so, eight teacher educators at a teacher education university in Iran were asked to be involved in a semi-structured interview to openly express their views. Content and thematic analyses were carried out on the transcript of the interviews. Based on the findings, teacher educators referred to nine major incidents in the teachers' pedagogical practices and offered six solutions. The major incidents included time management, the students' ineffective cooperation, odd behavior, demotivation, dissatisfaction, lack of empathy and sympathy, the teacher's content knowledge, and the required type of feedback. The solutions provided by the teacher educators were familiarizing the preservice teachers with the critical incidents, management strategies, use of classroom observation, running workshops, reflective practice, and emotional intelligence development. The research results help novice and pre-service teachers to identify the critical incidents, reflect upon them, and be prepared to react appropriately. Moreover, the results confirm the necessity of a course, emphasizing both the critical incidents and the probable solutions.

Keywords: critical incidents, EFL teachers, teacher reflection, teacher educators. teacher educator classroom critical

Анотація

Естаджі Мазумех, Фаталакі Джавад Ахмаді. Сприйняття викладачами критичних випадків у педагогічній практиці (на прикладі молодих викладачів англійської мови як іноземної).

Учителі стикаються з різними викликами та працюють у різних умовах, і вони можуть вимагати прийняття відповідних рішень та вживання заходів на основі аналізу ситуації. У цьому дослідженні була зроблена спроба визначити критичні інциденти, які трапляються в педагогічній практиці викладачів-початківців як педагогів. Крім того, їх попросили запропонувати деякі рішення для цих критичних інцидентів. Для цього вісьмох викладачів педагогічного університету в Ірані попросили взяти участь у напівструктурованому інтерв'ю, щоб відкрито висловити свої погляди. Змістовий і тематичний аналізи проведено на стенограмах інтерв'ю. На основі отриманих даних викладачі назвали дев'ять основних інцидентів у педагогічній практиці викладачів і запропонували шість рішень. Серед таких випадків були неправильний тайм-менеджмент, неефективна співпраця зі студентами, неадекватна поведінка, демотивація, незадоволеність, відсутність емпатії та симпатії, недостатнє знання вчителем змісту прдмета та невідповідний до ситуації тип зворотного зв'язку. Рішення, запропоновані педагогами, полягали в ознайомленні молодих учителів з критичними випадками, стратегіями управління, використанням спостереження в аудиторії, проведенням семінарів, рефлексивною практикою та розвитком емоційного інтелекту. Результати дослідження допоможуть викладачам-початківцям і викладачам-асистентам визначати критичні випадки, обмірковувати їх і бути готовими до відповідних дій. Крім того, результати підтверджують необхідність розроблення курсу, який наголошував би і на критичних випадках, і на потенційних рішеннях.

Ключові слова: критичні випадки, викладачі англійської як іноземної, міркування викладача, педагоги.

Introduction

Underrating the novice teachers' needs and meeting them are critical concerns for all language and educational policymakers, mentors, principals, and even local educational associations. Not dealing with their difficulties, novice teachers may feel frustrated and consider leaving the profession for good (Kwan & Simpson, 2010). Roberson and Roberson (2009) contended that the principals should be aware of the problems the novice teachers face during the first year of teaching as they attempt to adapt to the new atmosphere. Wong (2004) also stated that novice teachers may experience different feelings of stress, fear, excitement, lack of confidence and organization in planning, uncertainty, joy, and the like in their career. Therefore, it is necessary to help them overcome the problems they encounter during the first year of teaching.

To better understand the novice teachers' needs, school principals and university administrators should carry out a comprehensive analysis of these teachers' performance during and at the end of their educational period through surveys, observation, keeping journals, and reflection notes (Schulz, 2005). Still, the main reason for frustration is that the depth of teachers' emotions is not evaluated and their approach for handling them is not discussed well (Roberson & Roberson, 2009). McCann and Johannsson (2004) believe that “teacher persona” is among the most burning issues new teachers struggle with as they need to identify their role as competent teachers. Novice teachers may misjudge their influential role in education and take on a special role without considering reflection and suitable assessment of their performance when dealing with school principals, benchmarks, supervisors, and parents (Roberson & Roberson, 2009). Besides, many new teachers feel lonely and are overwhelmed during the first year of teaching. Therefore, powerlessness is the typical feeling of most of the new teachers (McCann & Johannessen, 2004). These instances show that the novice teachers face lots of challenges during the first year of their teaching.

The first case of frustration for the novice teachers may be the critical incidents that they may face. Hence, the teachers' behavior should be examined to identify the critical moments of their pedagogical practice. The conglomeration of all critical incidents needs proper iavestigatiea, which is bound to offer a practical solution for pre-service teachers; however, providing a oae-size-fits-all approach does aot serve the purpose. As the problems may vary according to contextual differences aad teachers may aot face the same challenges throughout the world, a more localized approach should be developed to fill the gap between theory and practice.

Getting informed of all the critical incidents is far-fetched; however, several critical incidents in language teaching occur for all the novice teachers and due to their frequency and saliency, they are easily deciphered by the experts of the field. The teacher educators, being responsible for training the pre-service teachers during the practicum course, can share their experiences regarding the critical incidents that the teachers usually encounter and guide them to deal with these incidents and difficulties in the teaching practice. This study attempted to identify the most frequent and important critical incidents and their appropriate solutions from the teacher educators' perspectives.

Literature Review

Problem-Based Teacher Education

Current educational movements emphasize the role of teacher education programs to resolve the novice teachers' problems. As Desimone (2008) mentioned, teaching for novice teachers is a complex phenomenon since they need to satisfy parents and principals, evaluate textbooks, assess the students' performance, and manage the classroom events effectively. As a solution, problem-based learning (PBL) is considered for preservice teachers to learn how to confront the difficulties and be comfortable enough to solve them. PBL is an educational process posing an open-ended problem and giving the opportunity to learners or even student teachers to come up with ideas regarding the problem and discuss it autonomously or cooperatively.

Koray, Presley, Koksal, and Ozdemir (2008) carried out a study to allow the preservice teachers to learn the problem-solving process and express their attitude toward PBL. After using the PBL curriculum in one group and the traditional approach of instruction in the second group, they concluded that the experimental group that received PBL outperformed in perceiving the problem-solving skills and they stated that PBL had enhanced their self-confidence and helped them struggle with problems, although it took a while to become comfortable with PBL.

In a quasi-experimental study, Desimone (2006) attempted to identify the role of PBL in decision-making and strategic problem-solving skills of preservice teachers. The pre-test of the study required the student teachers to decide on a terminally ill student, and the post-test required them to offer solutions. Using MANCOVA, he concluded that the students who were taught by PBL could better understand the main problem and give varied solutions to the problems at hand. They could also use various sources to find the proper solutions.

To help the prospective teachers, Levin, Hibbard, and Rock (2002) designed a pedagogical tool to practice teaching strategies in special education and work collaboratively with other professionals. The result of their study showed that PBL helped the prospective teachers to learn skills, strategies, and techniques to work with children who have lots of disabilities in a problem-solving setting that necessitates peer collaboration.

In a seminal study, Caekin, Dillard, and Goodin (2016) investigated the difference between prospective teachers who esed the problem-based learning approach and those who used the traditional style. They also discussed the effect of problem-based learning on the student teachers' self-efficacy. Based on the results, there was a significant difference between the two groups and this showed that PBL had influenced edTPA, which is the test that analyzes the teachers' performance on planning, instruction, and assessment. Likewise, there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups considering their perceived self-efficacy.

Critical Incidents in Teaching

Critical incidents can be interpreted as a circumstance in teaching that has unpredictable features and needs special attention. Farrell (2008) pointed out that a critical incident is any unplanned event that occurs during class. If trainee teachers formally reflect on these critical incidents, “it may be possible for them to uncover new understandings of the teaching and learning process” (p. 3). Farrell (2013) defined teaching high and teaching low as concepts that may have a lot in common with critical incidents. In the former case, spontaneous intervention can be implemented by the teacher which has positive consequences, and the latter is the problematic incidents that may bring along difficulties for the teacher. Critical incidents are unpredictable events that need to be considered and based on which proper decisions should be taken.

Kwan and Simpson (2010) mentioned that critical incidents are “characterized by an element of unplanned occurrence which can be problematic for the teacher, calling for an on-the-spot adjustment (reflection-in-action) of the planned course of the lesson” (p. 423). Tripp (1993) stated that critical incidents are daily moments that occur for all teachers and believed that every moment of teaching can be critical. He also noted that no behavior is intrinsically critical, and it is the attitude of the teacher that makes it critical.

Tripp (1993) has also claimed that “critical incidents are produced by the way we look at a situation: A critical incident is an interpretation of the significance of an event” (p. 8). In a similar vein, Angelides (2001) stated that critical moments are not necessarily emotion engaging and can happen in every class. The reasons for the occurrence of such moments are sometimes unimportant, and the awareness of their existence can help the novice teachers or even teacher trainees to reflect upon these moments whether they are minor or major issues (Farrell, 2008).

Critical incidents may occur in every educational context, and it is the teacher's responsibility to deal with them effectively. One of the solutions to deal with these critical incidents is the reflection and knowledge of the reflective practice. The activities and situations that necessitate the proper type of reflection can be perceived to be the focal point of teacher education programs as reflection and reflective practices are given higher priority (Kolar & Dickson, 2002; Yost & Moska, 2003). Hence, critical incidents in teaching are at the heart of reflection and the novice teachers should be aware of them and know influential strategies to deal with them. Hereupon, the role of teacher education should be familiarizing the teachers with the difficulties and dilemmas in the form of critical incidents.

As Yost, Sentler, and Forlenza-Bailey (2000) pointed out, if teachers get involved in the process of problem-solving for daily problems, their critical reflection increases substantially. Some studies considered the effect of critical incidents on in-service and pre-service teachers (e.g., Griffin, 2003; Romano, 2006). They believe that these critical incidents should be accompanied by appropriate reflection. Some critical incidents need to be responded to immediately, and some others need time to think about deeply. Romano (2006) has used the term “bumpy moments” for these critical incidents that novice teachers encounter. He believes that reflection is the best tool to manage and understand the critical incidents.

Similarly, Romano (2006) concluded that reflection could influence the way teachers manage the class or even the students' behavior in critical moments of teaching practice. Griffin (2003) also asked the pre-service teacher to express their views toward the concept of critical incidents, and they were asked to think of appropriate responses to the problem at hand. She concluded that these pre-service teachers became more critical after thinking about these incidents. They moved from being concrete thinkers to alert thinkers of their own attempts in teaching.

Richards and Farrell (2005) asserted that awareness of critical incidents can serve several purposes. For example, it can be a type of reflective inquiry or it can facilitate the identification of the problems and solutions. They also stated that analyzing critical incidents can influence professional development in several ways:

• .It can create a greater level of self-awareness. By writing about and discussing the critical incidents, a teacher can become more aware of some of his or her assumptions about language teaching and learning.

• .It can encourage teachers to pose critical questions about teaching. By considering the meaning of critical incidents, teachers learn to pose questions about many dimensions of teaching that they had not given a great deal of thought to.

• .It can help bring beliefs to the level of awareness. By writing, reading, analyzing, and interpreting critical incidents, teachers can become more aware of their beliefs and decide if they should be changed. Kagan (1992) points out that the teachers' beliefs are generally stable and determine the kind of instruction teachers provide to students. However, beliefs are generally not open to critical examination. Analyzing critical incidents is one way that beliefs can be clarified and explored.

• .It can create opportunities for action research. Critical incident analysis can be the starting point for follow-up research, such as a case study or action.

• . It can help build a community of critical practitioners. Through examining critical incidents with other teachers, a community of practitioners can be created who may be able to influence teaching practices and policies in a school.

• .It can provide a resource for teachers. Compiling a file of critical incident reports can serve as a useful resource for both the new and experienced teachers. (pp.116-117)

Achinstein and Barret (2004) studied the challenges the novice teachers face and found three major frames in this regard. The first one is the managerial frame, which deals with the procedures, behavioral problems, time management, and the teaching pace. The human relations frame is related to the student-teacher relationships, students' individual needs, motivation, collaboration, and sense of community. The political frame, as the last frame, is related to the teachers' perceptions of students' race and cultural differences. Alternatively, Schulz (2005) discussed the in-class challenges for the novice teachers and reported their worries. These problems include the mixed-level management, implementation of rules and regulations, getting the students to participate in class activities, teaching reading and writing, and preparing supplementary materials for teaching. Kilgour, Northcote, and Herman (2015) also examined the most important critical incidents for final year pre-service teachers in their first attempt to teach. Based on the analysis of the interview, classroom management, planning, communication, and learning were among the most common emotional distress that they faced.

Likewise, Atai and Nejadghanbar (2017) analyzed the critical incidents in EAP courses and interviewed 34 EAP teachers by focusing on 13 subject-related critical incidents. They concluded that these teachers mainly used three strategies to deal with these critical incidents, including ignorance, avoidance, and risk taking. They also claimed that the knowledge of critical incidents in EAP courses has provided teachers with valuable insights. In a Japanese context, Hall and Townsend (2017) conducted a study to find suitable tools to emphasize the commonest critical incidents during practicum. They took emotional and cognitive barriers into consideration and introduced E-portfolio to the student teachers to find the critical incidents and reflect upon them. The results of the study showed that E-portfolio as a technique helps the student teaches to analyze the strategies of dealing with critical incidents.

To explore the nature and types of critical incidents, Karimi and Nazari (2019) identified the ones occurred to Iranian EFL teachers as an initiative for their professional development. The teachers were asked to share their written CIs and reflect upon these CIs in an online group. The results of their study showed an interconnection between the factors influencing the varied CIs. The initiative implemented in this study also helped the teacher to enhance their knowledge of classroom critical incidents and boost their techniques to deal with pedagogical decisions. Barth et al. (2019) also discussed the influence of two different methods of problem-based learning and compared them with regard to the gained knowledge of critical incidents and professional vision. The first group received self-directed learning and the second one experienced direct instruction. The result of their study showed that the second group scored higher regarding the knowledge of critical incidents while there were no meaningful differences between groups concerning their professional vison.

Similarly, Esmaeili and Afzali (2020) conducted a research study to identify the critical incidents and categorize them and asked the pre-service teachers to propose their coping strategies. The findings of their study indicated that language skills, heterogeneous classrooms, materials, mother tongue, testing issues, and teaching cultural issues were among the most important critical issues. Dvir and Schatz Oppenheimer (2020) also examined the novice teachers' experience of teaching in the Covid-19 pandemic. Their study was based on 32 narratives of novice teachers in Israel, and they categorized the main issues into three broad domains: Technological, pedagogical, and educational. They stated that their study may contribute to the understanding of the turmoil teachers' face in the Covid crisis.

In a recent study, Tian, Louw and Kamal Khan (2021) explored their perceptions of language assessment literacy (LAL) in three different contexts in Asia during Covid-19 pandemic as a critical incident and used duo-ethnographic approach to analyze their perceptions of LAL and progress on their professional development. They concluded that they had low confidence in what they design, and what they know was too theoretical. However, their group-based reflection helped them to progress and considered more objective patterns for assessment. Although the mentioned studies were among the most appreciated efforts to render the novice teachers' difficulties, more research is required to unravel the complicated challenges in the teaching practice. Hence, this study gave an account of the teacher educators' perceptions regarding the critical incidents that EFL teachers frequently encounter in their pedagogical practices and some practical solutions to cope with these incidents.

Method

This study adopted a qualitative approach to unravel the teacher educators' perspectives regarding the critical incidents that occur in teaching practices for the novice teachers. Deep perception of the phenomenon is gained by carrying out an inductive analysis of the participants' attitudes by using semi-structured interviews.

Participants

To fulfill the aim of the study, eight teacher educators were selected out of 20 experts from a teacher training university, which prepares teachers for the state-funded schools. These teacher educators are responsible for preparing pre-service teachers to be employed both as middle and high school teachers. The teacher educators were chosen based on purposive sampling, considering their educational background, teaching, and teacher training experiences. They were all university professors, who had their PhD in TEFL and Applied Linguistics. To identify and discuss the critical incidents that teachers face in their teaching practices, they were involved in a semi-structured interview. Table 1 presents further information regarding the background and characteristics of the teacher educators who participated in this study.

Instruments

Interviews are an applied tool that enables the interviewers to receive first-hand data by asking the interviewees to express their notions, feelings, and thoughts (Berg, 2007). In light of this view, a semi-structured interview was held to identify the teacher educators' perceptions regarding the critical incidents that teachers encounter in their pedagogical practices and the role of reflection as a solution for dealing with the critical incidents, its effectiveness, and the way they apply it. As this interview was semi- structured, there was room for discussion on the critical incidents and the role of reflection in teaching practices from the teacher educators' standpoint. To check the content validity of the interview questions, developed by the researchers of the current study, five experts were asked to discuss their suitability in terms of language and content. Content validity index (CVI) as a measure to indicate the agreement between the experts was implemented by examining their views on the relevance of the items to the objectives using a 4-point Likert scale. Its value was found.84, representing the experts' agreement on the appropriateness of the items. Based on their evaluations of the items, one item was removed. Table 2 shows the interview questions of the study. The length of every interview was at least 30 minutes, and an audio recorder was used to save the spoken data and later trace the recordings and source information.

Table 1

Participants ' Demographic Information