Turkish EFL Pre-service teachers’ reflections on their engagement in a collaborative professional development experience with international mentors in virtual exchange project (VALIANT): Highlights from a multiple case study in the tertiary context

Date

2025-12-08

Author

Kaçar, Işıl Günseli

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

60
views

1
downloads

Cite This

During the COVID-19, professional isolation in educational contexts became much more acute thanbefore since teachers had restricted access to professional support networks that diminished theirmotivation to work and interfered with the collaboration opportunities with their internationalcolleagues. Similarly initial teacher education contexts witnessed a lack of collaboration and mentoringopportunities between in-service and pre-service teachers, In the post-pandemic period, the negativeimpact of professional isolation in the in-service teacher education context and restricted collaborationand mentoring opportunities between prospective and in-service teachers in the pre-service teachereducation contexts is still felt. Hence, the aim of this current study is to explore the reflections of theTurkish EFL pre-service teachers’ reflections on the benefits and challenges of their engagement inthree 5-week international collaborative professional development opportunities with internationalmentors in a virtual exchange project (VALIANT). This qualitative multiple case study adopted thesociocultural approach to teacher education. A total of 41 pre-service teachers from an English-medium state university and 20 international mentor teachers were actively formed an onlinecommunity of practice, engaging in a collaborative preparation of an open-access educational resourcein three implementations of the project. The data were collected via pre-service teachers’ onlinereflections on their practicum challenges, the open educational resources (e-booklets) that were createdin collaboration with the in-service teachers in the study, their end-of-the-project reflections and thesemi-structured interviews. They were analyzed via content analysis. Findings suggested pre-serviceteachers’ gaining new insights and perspectives into how to cope with practicum challenges, and theirbecoming familiar with inclusive practices, and culturally responsive teaching, and effective classroommanagement strategies and how to enhance student engagement, motivation and well-being, and howto effectively integrate technology into teaching. Being part of an international collaborative supportnetwork empowered pre-service teachers professionally and promoted their self-efficacy.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118229

Collections

Department of Foreign Language Education, Conference / Seminar