Stepping into the World of Young English Learners through Experiential Learning: Proactive Practical Action Research on Pre-service Teachers’ Perception Evolvement and Professional Empowerment

Today, like the Aladdin's magic lamp, English proficiency offers avenues for education, career development, communication, entertainment, and partnerships. Coupled with the possible benefits of an early start, this situation has turned Teaching English to Young Learners into a truly global phenomenon. The abundance of studies with in-service teachers as research site has yielded to recent calls to complete the existing understanding with pre-service teacher perspective. Responding to those calls and informed by the Experiential Learning Theory and Reflective Practice, the current action research aimed at exploring ۳۴ ppre-service English teachers’ views and experiences regarding the impact of a TEYL course accompanied by collaborative mock lesson experiences, teacher educator feedback, and reflective entries. The findings underlined almost complete agreement on the role of such an experiential and reflective process on their awareness of the rewarding yet arduous nature of the profession, young children’s world, and teaching skills, thereby the development of a self-confident teacher identity. Particularly classroom management including managing the time, L۱ use, classroom space, resources as well as student roles and acts emerged as the primary concern. It ends with pedagogical implications informed by the insights of the action researcher, i.e., the pracademic, and solid theoretical knowledge.

کلیدواژه ها:

Early start ، Experiential learning ، Pre-service Teacher Training ، Teaching English to young learners ، Action Research