1. Initial Teacher Education Research Project
Presentation to SACBC
13 October 2014

2. Conditions in schools
Low levels of English proficiency among both teachers and learners → fundamental limit on academic progress, since English is the LOLT in 90% of schools.
Lack of adequate reading pedagogies → large numbers of learners reaching Grade 5 essentially illiterate.
Lack of adequate pedagogies for basic numeracy → in Grade 7 learners continue to use ‘stick counting’ methods to perform arithmetic operations.
Low levels of subject knowledge among teachers.
Schools tend not to recruit and deploy primary school teachers according to subject specialisation → most primary school teachers will be required to teach maths and English.

3. The importance of ITE
Evidence has accumulated over the last two decades to suggest that in-service interventions have had limited impact on these problems This understanding, in turn, has led to a growing realisation that the greatest opportunity for improving the quality of schooling lies with ITE programmes.

4. Purposes of ITERP
Generate Information to inform the debate about the quality of ITE Key Question: What knowledge and skills do teachers need in order to act professionally? Collaborative forum: EDF and ITE practitioners, DHET, DBE (SACE, CHE, unions?)

5. Research Questions
1. What range of practices exists in the ITE programmes offered by HEIs to prepare teachers to teach in South African schools? 2. To what extent do these practices adequately prepare teachers to teach in South African schools? 3. How do teachers who qualified from different institutions navigate the challenges they encounter in their first years of teaching? 4. How can the quality of the curricula offered by ITE programmes be improved?

6. Four Components of ITERP
1. Content of ITE programmes at 5 HEIs – this report 2. Case studies of NQTs from 5 HEIs in first two years of teaching 3. Survey of all final year BEd students in 2013, tracking them into the workplace for 2 years 4. Conclude and disseminate

7. Component I: Case studies on 5 campuses
Criteria for selecting the five HEIs
History, location, demography, size, delivery mode
Broad overview of ITE programmes
Design, conceptual coherence
Analysis of TP instruments*
Conception of the teacher and good teaching
The intended and assessed curricula
Maths* and English* courses for student teachers specialising in IP
*available at

9. Maths courses for IP BEd maths specialists
HEI
Student numbers
Entrance Requirements
Maths Credits
% total credits A
20 (30%)
65% for 1st year compulsory maths
100
21% B
60 (33%)
M 50%
ML not allowed
128
25% C
(±10%) 
Pass (30%) in M or ML
108
23% D
150 (17%)
M 40% or 50%
120
24% E
10-60 (10-50%)
M 40% & test
ML 60% & test 64
13%

10. Maths courses for non-maths specialists
Institution
Student numbers
Maths credits
% of total credits A
50-80 40 8% B
120 16 3% C
1600 12
2.5% D
750
68 (ML)
13% E
19 (+30 opt)
4% (7% if opt)

11. Questions about Maths
Shouldn’t ALL IP teachers be competent to teach Maths? Shouldn’t specialist Maths teachers spend more time on their specialisation? What should the content of these courses be? What kind of cognitive skills should the courses develop? Entrance criteria?

12. IP courses for BEd IP English Specialists
Academic Literacy
1 year course: New Lits for Teachers
2 Semesters:
Academic and Computer Literacy
No AL, but some attention to it in Level 2 Eng modules
2 semesters: Academic Literacy
2 year long courses: Academic Literacy
Subject Knowledge
4 year courses: Eng Lang and Lit
6 semesters: Eng Lang and Lit 1 - 3
5 semesters: Eng Lang and Lit
6 semesters: Eng Lang and Lit
4 year-long courses: Eng Lang and Lit
School and Pedagogic Knowledge
2 year courses: Language Method 1 and 2
2 semesters: Eng as Medium of Instruction.
4 semesters: Eng Method
2 semesters: Language Method (one semester HL and one semester FAL)
2 semesters: English Method (FAL)
HL: 4 year- long courses: Eng Method

13. English courses for non-specialists in English
Knowledge A B C D E
Academic Literacy
1 year course: New Literacies for Teachers
2 semesters:
Academic & Comp Lit: 1 for all students + 1 for weak readers
No Academic Literacy courses
2 semesters: Academic Literacy
2 year courses: Academic Literacy
Subject Knowledge
None
2 semesters: One for Eng Lang; one for Eng Lit
HL 2 year courses: Eng Lang & Lit
FAL 2 year courses: Eng Lang & Lit
School and Pedagogic Knowledge
1 year course: Language Method
2 semesters: English as LOLT (FAL)
2 semesters: English Method HL and FAL
HL 2 year courses: Eng Method
FAL 2 year courses: Eng Method

14. Total credits allocated for English courses (%)
Elective A B C D E
IP English Specialists
120 (25%)
162 (34%)
72 (15%)
HL: 72 (15%)
AL: 5 (1%)
IP English Generalists
30 (6%)
28 (6%)
36 (7.5%)
24 (5%)
HL: 28 (6%)
FAL: 29 (6%)

15. English proficiency for all NQTs
Shouldn’t all students should be required to take some English courses?
in support of their on-going development as literate teachers
in order to assist learners in using English to learn the subjects that they teach
MRTEQ:
[A]ll IP teachers must specialise to teach languages (comprising First Additional Language teaching in one of the official languages and First Additional English Language teaching)
Government Gazette, No , 2011, p.21

16. Literature for Children
According to Banks, Leach and Moon ‘school knowledge’ for English includes ‘the school canon of literature including children’s literature’. Given that IP English specialists will be teaching learners in grade 4-6 who are expected to engage with a range of literary genres Limited attention to literature for children and adolescents at the five institutions can be questioned

17. Reading Pedagogy
In G4 learners should be in transition from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’. However, results of PIRLS, SACMEQ, ANA, NEEDU indicate that few learners have learned how to read accurately and fluently by the end of G3 This suggests that inclusion of content on teaching beginner readers how to read, in terms of both decoding and interpreting texts could be useful in a B Ed curriculum for all IP teachers

18. Writing
The curriculum expects teachers to guide learners’ development as writers of texts in a range of genres Only two of the five HEIs offer input on different approaches to teaching writing Research in schools: learners do very little writing Several possible reasons for this, but teacher under-preparedness for teaching writing is likely to be one

19. Findings
A very wide variation in all dimensions of the curricula examined There are some excellent practices on each of the HEIs studied But it can be argued that none of the five institutions studied is rising fully to the challenge, particularly wrt student teachers not specialising in maths or English.

20. What next?
A serious discussion among teacher educators in all sub-disciplines, but particularly in English and mathematics: covergence ≠ consensus
Course design: coherence and directed to school needs
the proficiencies – subject knowledge and pedagogy – required by teachers
the curricula to achieve these standards
how these proficiencies should be assessed