The evaluation will be based on the existing theories and empirical findings concerning English language teacher education programs, which should put this current program investigated from different angles to see the extent to which this program has met the demand and expectations. At this point, the positive sides of the program will be disclosed first and then the weaknesses of the program will be presented.
4.3.1. Strengths of the program
The results of the student surveys and instructor focus group interview revealed very similar beliefs about the effective components of the program.
The students were taught English language skills including listening, reading, speaking, writing and pronunciation skills as well as grammar, level 3 in VSTEP, methods and activities to teach English to young-learners knowledge.
This first and foremost finding was proved in the findings of Coskun and Daloglu (2010) and Peacock (2009) that the component of teaching how to teach English received the highest percentage of agreement.
The findings were in agreement with Peacock‘s (2009) in which the participants showed great satisfaction of their instructors and the content of the program. Instructors are the vital part of the in-service programs, or in other words, the students showed positive attitudes toward the instructors and the program.
4.3.2. Limitations of the program
The initial weakness of the program lies in the fact that it is out of date and it does not meet with the social demand in Vietnam such as that in bilingual and multi-intelligent schools. More methods should be updated and any program together with its curriculum is supposed to be constantly kept updating and regularly revised (Pamela, 1996) and with the very fast development of the society, it is absolutely necessary to maintain the same rate of the advancements in the field of language teacher education programs in the world. Thus, methodologies to be of value in the local context and to reflect students‘ actual needs and interests should be adapted (Snow, Kamhi- Stein, & Brinton, 2006).
The status of English as world Englises was also raised in the student interview. It is when they did internship at bilingual schools, and this hole in
the program was pointed out by Snow et al. (2006) that ‗Instruction focuses on communicative effectiveness—rather than grammatical accuracy based on Inner Circle expectations. The curriculum would also integrate instructional materials that represent different varieties of World Englishes and such materials would be used as a means to raise awareness about the role and place of English in different geographical regions‘ (Snow et al., 2006, p. 265).
It is here to say that preserving the local in an increasingly globalized world, and addressing the evaluation needs of programs in cross-national environments and the policy frameworks and cultures in which these are implemented (Lincoln, 2001).
The program was criticized by the instructors not to be culture-based.
As Peacock (2009) confirms that ‗the program needs to promote the culture of teaching and what it means to be a teacher‘ (p. 270) and this is in line with Cross (1995) shares the idea that the target cultures should be placed right in the heart of a teacher training program. This evaluation concludes that there is a need to invest more in the material development, there is also a need to teach cultures of English-speaking countries in the program. Even ệgeyik (2009) states that there is a need to have separate courses on culture.
In this evaluation, both the instructors and the learners were critical about the practical aspect of the program. Firstly, the students need to take classroom observations and practice more as a positive step to contribute to their professional life once they start to teach. This can be understood to be the first step to enter the nature of their profession (Malu, 2015). Secondly, there is a need to provide the students with more learning opportunities, especially to practice English skills, which is in line with Al-Gaeed (1983) in his previous findings. Thirdly, in a different context, Peacock (2009) also insist that the amount of practice teaching should be reconsidered and
increased and this can be done by equally balancing between theory and practice in the program (Blair, 2001). Fourthly, there is a special need to provide the students with more opportunities to practice pronouncing English.
In a different study Barkhuizen (1997) insists that there is a need to help students with better English skills, especially pronunciation to have better learning attitude, and lessen the interventions of mother tongue. Last but not least, the students said they need more realistic practices so that they can deal with sudden situations in the classroom, which is also confirmed by Huong and Yeo (2016).
The findings revealed that there is a need to teach theory, especially theory about teaching kindergarten students, before the program is introduced.
This present study shows that by gaining more support from the community or social fundraising can help solve this problem.
The present study shows that there is a critical need to provide more micro-teaching methods, it is that the instructors should incorporate real situations and provide more details in the explanations of the situations. In another study, Erozan (2005) and Seferoğlu (2006) express the need for micro teaching and more small details to look at different aspects and at different levels of the situations, as well as the instructors need to understand each individual student to help them well with personal and professional developments.
The program was also criticized when there were instructors who met with English language mistakes and there is a need for regular training for the instructors themselves (Ferguson & Donno, 2003).
The most important finding of this present study showed that the students who attended this program lacked proficiency, therefore, it could not boost their proficiency level. There is a need to have more separate courses on phonetics.
Chapter V