Is it possible to teach English through EBA TV? Exploring student teachers’ concerns and self-efficacy beliefs

Abstract

This qualitative study explored student teachers’ perceptions and feelings about teaching English in an emergency remote teaching platform, Educational Information Network TV. To this end, sixty-eight student teachers participated in this study. The participants were first invited to watch English language courses specifically designed for primary and secondary-level education provided through this medium of instruction. They were later asked to write two-page reflective journals on the strengths and weaknesses of these courses drawing upon their own feelings and opinions. Their written reflections were content analyzed, and the findings revealed two main themes: student teachers’ concerns and self-efficacy beliefs. More specifically, the student teachers were concerned about macro-level factors, pedagogical issues, teachers’ competencies, and context-dependent factors. Additionally, the findings shed light on the contributing factors to their self-efficacy beliefs. They attributed their future success to student-oriented factors, teacher-oriented factors, and parental involvement. The overall findings showed that their concerns outweighed their perceived self-efficacy beliefs. We hope that these findings will inform second language teacher education programs for the future since it could be of pivotal importance to prepare student teachers for distance or online learning platforms by helping them deal with their concerns and enriching their self-efficacy beliefs in their own teaching contexts.