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Exploring Prospective EFL Teachers’ Beliefs

are ‘energy-free’ (Betul, Int.) and not ‘willing to do anything new’ (Emel, Post-M). According to the
PTs, teachers are contended with the flow of the teaching process and resist on not bringing something
new to the classroom.
The last concept of post-images defined by the PTs was teaching. PTs referred to English language
teaching as teaching the world, mostly, as they did in the early-images. By relating the concept of teach-
ing the world and the teaching English, PTs highlighted the importance of learning English in the global
context. Similar to teaching as teaching the world metaphor, PTs referred to teaching as raising a child.
PTs considered that ‘learning is an onerous process and it takes a lot of time just like raising a child’.
While defining teaching through metaphors in the post-images, PTs defined teaching as cooking and
art as they did in the early images with similar explanations in terms its nature as a ‘coherent context of
experience’ (Tuğba, Post-M) and a ‘gradual process’ (Gulcin, Post-M).
PTs reflected on their perceptions of being a PT, teachers of English and teaching profession both
before and after the practice teaching experience. In terms of overall content analysis, it was observed
that PTs found it difficult to reflect on their role as a prospective teacher before they attended the prac-
tice teaching. Although PTs were given the same data collection tool at the end of the practice teaching
experience, it was observed that the descriptors used by the PTs to define their role increased and PTs
used an increased number of secondary concepts that do not play a primary role in teaching to define
their role in the practice teaching course.

Interviews

In this section, the change (or lack of change) in the beliefs of the prospective EFL teachers in terms of
self, teachers and teaching will be reported. The data analyses of the interviews were conducted after
completing the verbatim transcription of the interviews. The findings based on the influencing factors
were examined and discussed.

Change (or Lack of Change) Throughout the Practice Teaching Course

The findings showed that some PTs reported on a stable understanding of their experience throughout
the course, whereas some of the PTs reflected on the difference in their understanding of the profession
which could be ascribed to a number of reasons. The influencing factors of change or lack of change
were addressed by the PTs as the context of practice teaching and the independence of the PTs during
practice teaching experience. The two concepts were very closely related to each other and were difficult
to distinguish. In addition to the conceptual change in the professional learning processes of PTs, they
considered a number of facilitating reasons for them to monitor their professional learning and imped-
ing factors affected their understanding of the practice teaching process. By referring to the context of
professional learning experience, PTs were worried about their role as they were treated as students
rather than prospective teachers.

The mentors I observed were very kind and nice to me; however, [rather than a professional], they
treated me like a student… It was true but they should have considered the fact that I will become a
teacher soon.(Seda, Int.)

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