Complexities and Tensions ESL Malaysian Student Teachers Face during their Field Practice

Abstract

The study aimed to understand the tensions and complexities that student teachers encounter during their teaching practice by focusing on the social aspects of their course. The four participants who were purposively selected to participate in this study had gone through three interview sessions, at the beginning, mid-point, and end of their teaching practice school attachments. The early emerging themes can be classified into three concerns: the crisis of confidence, social relationships, and support seeking. The discussion indicates that the lack of opportunity to get socially engaged within the given context and the inability to negotiate one's worries, values, and understandings are the key reasons for the respondents' tensions. The study recommends bottom up and top down reforms to enhance student teachers' engagement with/at the teaching practice site.