The impact of cooperative training of EFL student teachers on their teaching performance and attitude toward teaching

الملخص EN

Iraqi EFL college instructors, who supervise the teaching practice of EFL student teachers, commonly experience the inefficient teaching performance of prospective teachers.

This inefficiency is usually due to their inability to make connections between the practical experience and the theoretical knowledge of TEFL.

One of the reasons behind this inability may be the employment of traditional ways of training and instructing student teachers.

Moreover, it is usually noticed that many Iraqi EFL student teachers have a negative attitude toward the teaching profession.

They explicitly state that they would join the teaching force only if they fail to work in any other field.

The issue of developing EFL student teachers preparation by providing effective training strategy to prepare teachers to teach in more challenging ways is the main concern of this experimental study in which two groups are involved (experimental and control).

It aims at finding out the effect of employing a cooperative learning strategy in training EFL student teachers on developing their teaching performance as well as their attitude toward teaching.

To achieve the aims of this study, a classroom observation checklist and a questionnaire are constructed to evaluate student teachers' teaching performance and attitude toward teaching.

In addition, a set of lesson plans are designed to be followed with the experimental group.

The experiment lasts for 14 weeks at the end of which the study instruments are administered.

The findings of the study shows that employing the cooperative learning strategy in training Iraqi EFL student teachers is effective in enabling them develop both their teaching performance and a positive attitude toward teaching.

The study also put forward a set of practical recommendations to improve Iraqi EFL student teacher education and training.