Carmen Durham, Loren Jones, and Amanda Cataneo, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

Digital tools offer many possibilities for education, including presenting curriculum in innovative ways, differentiating for culturally and linguistically diverse students, and creating opportunities for student collaboration (Fishman & Dede, 2016). Practical experiences in schools can prepare student teachers to use technology (Schmid & Hegelheimer, 2014), but unfortunately, many language teachers report receiving little preparation related to incorporating technology in the classroom through their teacher education programs (Kessler, 2006, 2007). As we shift to online instruction for Pre-K–12 schools and universities throughout the nation as a result of COVID-19, educational stakeholders across contexts have been impacted. Student teachers, along with their mentor teachers, have been given the formidable task of transitioning from face-to-face teaching to online instruction, making the role of TESOL teacher education in preparing student teachers to use technology more important than ever.

As a result of school closures, an entire cohort of English to speakers of other languages (ESOL) student teachers at our university were pulled out of their face-to-face student teaching internships. Uncertainty prevailed about how they would complete the program and certification requirements in time for graduation and how we, as teacher educators and student teaching supervisors, could prepare them for the challenges of student teaching in a virtual environment. In the following sections, we present the insights we gained in relation to supporting student teachers through this novel experience.

Establishing a Continued Sense of Community

Prior to the school closures, student teachers met every other week for a seminar course to collaborate and workshop various program and state certification requirements related to their ongoing internships. Technology was a focal area of the course; as such, student teachers selected, explored, and demonstrated the application of at least one resource.

The transition to online learning steered this course in a new direction, making it difficult to maintain the established sense of community and collaboration. Consequently, we implemented a new routine, meeting more frequently via Zoom to provide both emotional and academic support. Understandably, many student teachers were experiencing feelings of uncertainty and additional stress. In response, we prioritized frequent check-ins to gauge their evolving needs and added time and space for them to problem solve. We also created a shared virtual space through multiple Google documents for everyone to locate and contribute updated information. Academically, we modified course assignments and internship requirements to include a virtual instruction component.

Creating Opportunities to Practice Virtual Instruction

With the move to online instruction across contexts, the internship experience for student teachers was impacted significantly. Unsure about the feasibility of student teachers delivering online instruction within their internships, we created program-wide virtual experiences that would fulfill their remaining program and certification requirements. These experiences included various self-selected options, such as reviewing ESOL learner profiles and a lesson exemplar to plan for differentiated instruction, participating in an education-oriented webinar, and presenting a second technology resource.

In addition, we required all student teachers to develop and deliver their own virtual lesson via Zoom to their peers. This was a new experience for all involved because student teachers did not have prior opportunities to teach online or observe synchronous language classes. As participants in the online Zoom lessons, each peer completed an observation feedback form, thus providing each student teacher with feedback from multiple perspectives. Some student teachers elected to modify their virtual lesson and deliver it a second time, incorporating the peer feedback.

Exploring Missed Opportunities for Future Teaching

Looking back, though we took steps to support student teachers in navigating this new world of online instruction, there were missed opportunities that we plan to address in the future. All student teachers made an effort to adapt to the new online environment despite little to no preparation prior to this semester. In light of this, we plan to incorporate a virtual teaching experience that student teachers will complete in their coursework before the start of their internship. This will provide student teachers with an opportunity to deliver a virtual lesson and engage in multiple lessons as a participant, observing their peers’ use of varied approaches and resources.

In addition to delivering content online, we also must prepare student teachers for other aspects of virtual teaching, including socioemotional learning. After reflecting and discussing feedback with the student teachers, we recognize that although we supported them in navigating their own emotions, we did not provide them with the tools to address the complexities of socioemotional learning in a virtual environment for K–12 students.

Moving forward, we will incorporate readings, online videos, and discussions around this important topic, prioritizing the design of potential strategies for socioemotional learning in an online setting. We cannot ignore that the educational landscape has changed and online teaching has become a growing medium in K–12 education. Therefore, we must be proactive in preparing our future ESOL teachers by integrating the unique features of virtual instruction into teacher education.

References

Fishman, B., & Dede, C. (2016). Teaching and technology: New tools for new times. In D. H. Gitomer & C. A. Bell (Eds.), Handbook of research on teaching (5th ed.; pp. 1269–1334). American Educational Research Association.

Kessler, G. (2006). Assessing CALL teacher training What are we doing and what could we do better? In P. Hubbard & M. Levy (Eds.), Teacher education in CALL (pp. 23–42). John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.14.05kes

Kessler, G. (2007). Formal and informal CALL preparation and teacher attitude toward technology. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(2), 173–188. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588220701331394

Schmid, E. C., & Hegelheimer, V. (2014). Collaborative research projects in the technology-enhanced language classroom: Pre-service and in-service teachers exchange knowledge about technology.ReCALL, 26(3), 315–332. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958344014000135