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This paper examines the cross-cultural internship teaching experience of a mainland Chinese student of a Master's program on adult education in a Macao university.

Using autobiography, the data were collected from the teaching journals, biographical notes, and deep reflections of the student teacher, tracking the whole process of cross-cultural internship teaching. The data were analyzed in a grounded way, by scrutinizing the process to overcome the difficulties and challenges encountered in the two-month internship teaching period.

Three key themes were identified: (a) constructing relationship with mentor teacher as the key condition; (b) classroom interaction as an important influencing factor; (c) professional identity as the result of the learning-to-teach process. Furthermore, this paper reveals an adaptation process during the internship, where the student teacher went through three phases, namely, novice anxiety, adjustment, and ability acquisition.

This paper’s analysis on the internship teaching experience reflecting practical issues in the process has extended the literature of academic adaptation in internship learning of non-local students. Based on this cross-cultural student case under the unique mainland China-Macao cross-border context, some suggestions are provided for university policy makers and educators in Macao.

The purpose of this paper is to test and develop a new tool for lesson observation and feedback within the context of initial teacher education. The tool was designed to align with the practitioner enquiry model of teacher learning underpinning the course, and as such it drew mentors into the mode of responding to their students’ questions.

The research was undertaken as a Design Study. The design of the tool led to an iterative, collaborative, process‐focused approach to the development of the observation tool. Students and their mentors were encouraged to experiment with and report on their observation experience.

The observation tool altered the quality of the mentoring relationship through focusing on enquiry as its foundation. Feedback from student teachers and their mentors helped us to define the role of observation in the process of professional learning and to review the nature of the mentoring relationship which emerged.

Significant professional development and learning can be triggered by crossing both real and metaphorical boundaries and as such it is essential that the tools offered to students and their mentors are supportive of divergent learning outcomes, through which each student teacher has the opportunity to transform teaching practices, not simply replicate existing ones.

Observation and feedback in the classroom can be viewed as a “boundary” practice. This new tool can be regarded as a “boundary object” which promotes the use of questions to support the “framing and reframing” necessary for the professional learning and development of the beginning teachers.

Field experience (FE) has long been a crucial component of the process of teacher education. Clearly, a range of stakeholders can affect student-teachers’ achievements in FE. Given the importance of these stakeholders in FE, it may be possible to improve FE practices by clarifying the involvement of different parties in the FE process. Since student-teachers are the major beneficiaries in FE, their voices should not be ignored. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore student-teachers’ perceptions of the roles played by different stakeholders.

In a qualitative research design, 18 student-teachers took part in this study. Content analysis was used to classify and compress the large amount of text provided by the informants into a manageable number of categories to track trends, patterns, frameworks and typologies.

In addition to those of the five major stakeholders of FE (i.e. student-teachers, cooperating teachers, institute supervisors, schools and institutes), this study identified the roles of three other stakeholders (i.e. students, other student-teachers and parents) that had not been widely focused in previous studies.

The present research took the first step to investigate the roles played by different parties in FE from the perspective of student-teachers and offered insights for enhancing student-teachers’ performance in FE.

To support student teachers' well-being and ensure that they flourish during teacher education, it is necessary to examine the relationship between student teachers and their mentors during field experiences. Previous research has identified a connection between the quality of the mentor–mentee relationship and facets of student teachers' well-being. However, to date, this link has been insufficiently corroborated using longitudinal empirical data. This study aims to investigate the impact of mentor–mentee relationship quality on the well-being and flourishing of student teachers.

A cross-lagged panel design with two intervals (six weeks apart) was applied during a 15-week field experience with a sample of 125 German student teachers. Well-being and flourishing were captured using the positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, achievement (PERMA) framework. Relationship quality was assessed by adapting a questionnaire from the field of mentoring in medicine.

Relationship quality at the outset significantly predicted all five PERMA dimensions at the end of the assessment period. The impact of relationship quality was especially strong on the dimensions of relationships (R) and meaning (M). Conversely, the PERMA dimensions (except achievement) did not significantly impact relationship quality.

These results provide longitudinal empirical evidence underlining the beneficial effects of a healthy relationship between mentor and mentee in the field of teacher education. The findings clearly suggest that the relationship quality significantly influences student teachers' well-being and capacity to flourish during practical phases.

This article aims to report on a qualitative study that investigates the enculturation of a group of pre-service English language teachers over four years of a Bachelor of Education degree offered in a women ' s college in the United Arab Emirates.

Bourdieu ' s “thinking tools” of field, habitus and capital provide the overarching theoretical framework and analytic tools to examine the processes of enculturation which impact on the student teachers as they participate in a program based on Western-oriented theories and practices. The study draws upon data gathered from focus group interviews with student teachers in the first and fourth years of the program to provide insights into their ways of thinking as future Emirati English language teachers. The article discusses the priorities that emerge as these student teachers validate, or otherwise, the theoretical principles and practices legitimated through the program.

The findings suggest that influences bound by local, cultural and social forces contribute significantly to the student teachers ' perceived capacity to think and act as future Emirati English language teachers.

The study is limited to one site but, given the findings, similar investigations into processes of enculturation and the appropriation or resistance of essential aspects of English language teacher training could be undertaken.

There is limited research into English language teacher education programs in the Arab world. This research has potential applications for English language teacher education programs where there is intent to effect educational reform.

This paper is about mentoring of initial teacher education (ITE) students whilst on their practicum.

Informed by a social constructivist theoretical framework, an online survey was used to capture the breadth of quantitative data and the richness of qualitative responses relating to factors that impact student teachers' experiences during practicum.

Quantitative data indicate that many student teachers were positive about the practicum, but this varied across the type of school in which they were placed. The qualitative data analyses showed a greater in-depth understanding of the range of issues that impacted how student teachers are treated in their role as a mentee by the mentor and the wider school community.

Better understanding the experiences of student teachers helps to inform ITE providers of the critical role that mentor teachers play in preparing student teachers. The practical implications are that strategies to develop deep and collaborative partnerships amongst ITE providers, mentor teachers and school leaders, which build stronger understandings of a mentor teacher's role, are critical in order to support student teachers.

This research study repositions the critical nature of effective mentoring of student teachers so that mentor teachers and ITE providers can be informed by the voices and lived realities of these student teachers. The mentoring relationship needs to be critically interrogated to provide a more even and supportive “playing field” for all student teachers.

Since a teacher's identity is the result of ongoing discussion, explanation, negotiation and justification, famous education quotes were integrated into a language teacher practicum in a teacher education program in the northwest university in Taiwan. This study aims to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 English as a foreign language student teachers' professional identities. This study also aims to discuss the following research questions.

This case study focused on 10 student teachers' identity construction in a practicum class under one advisor. According to Merriam (1998), a case is a “thing, a single entity, a unit around which there are boundaries” (p. 27). The case was a practicum and the unit of analysis was participants' identity construction.

First, reading and discussing famous quotes was a useful “discourse” and “language” for student teachers to construct and negotiate their identities. Second, through the integration of reading and discussing quotes, participants revealed more professional identity in knowledge and expertise, particularly in English instruction in the post-test.

This study examined the influence of discussing educational quotes of 10 students’ professional identity. However, given the nature of the study, there were some limitations. First, although the small sample size offered rich data through observation, artifacts and pre-and post-tests, it restricts our ability to generalize the results.

This study is highly practical (i.e. learning by discussion) and strongly interactive among the participant in a professional and social context. The conceptual framework in Figure 1 presents a theoretical framework supporting reading and discussing quotes as the discourse for the student teachers for their professional identity construction. Social context and relationship shape their professional identity (Izadinia, 2013). Student teachers spent much of their time with their cooperating teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools. In order to foster student teachers’ professional identity construction, it is recommended that student teachers should be encouraged to read and discuss educational quotes with teachers and administrators in their cooperating schools as a mean of professional dialogue and learning.

In this study, it was argued that educational or English teaching quotes could be used as viable, effective and appropriate materials in documenting student teachers' professional identity construction out of their classroom practice in their practicum. The findings of this study derived from the nature of 10 student teachers' professional learning via discussing famous education sayings, and professional learning took place during the practicum.

Most of the studies reviewed above were small-scale and qualitative case studies. Some involved only one or two single cases (e.g. Antonek et al., 1997; Calandra et al., 2006; Camp, 2013). Only a few studies were analyzed and explored based on theoretical frameworks (e.g. Chasteen, 2015). No explicit references were made to any theoretical frameworks in most of the studies. This study included both qualitative (observation and artifacts) and quantitative data (pretest and posttest) to explore the influence of discussing education quotes on 10 student teachers' professional identities and reflective practices.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: Can student teachers use variation theory to design and review lessons? Can exposure to variation in designs for lessons with the same intended object of learning develop student teachers understanding of design?

The student teachers were undertaking an English‐medium education degree, a feature of which was peer teaching, with the teachers collaborating planning, teaching and reflecting on lessons. A sample of individual student teachers’ written reflections on the design and effect of 15 lessons involving seven objects of learning was collected and analysed using a comparative method. The lesson designs in terms of the pattern of variation and critical aspects afforded, and the teachers’ evaluations of the lessons, are described.

Four critical cases show how variation in the enacted object of learning created by the student teachers in their lessons, and in the lived object of learning of their students, impacted on the lived object of learning to teach of those student teachers. In the design and enactment of their lessons, student teachers used variation to effect in ten out of 15 lessons taught.

The use of the variation framework appeared to be successful in varying what had previously been invariant for many student teachers, who had themselves been educated in teacher‐centric classrooms. Its use offered a systematic, evidence‐based approach to designing, teaching and reviewing lessons, and, therefore, an opportunity to integrate the roles of teacher and learner in pursuit of the object of learning. By specifying the variation framework as a design tool, and not a method of teaching, the opportunity is opened up for further critical investigation of its usefulness in initial teacher education.

This paper explores the potential and pitfalls of Lesson Study (LS) in Dutch initial teacher education (ITE). This context is examined through data drawn from student-teachers and teacher educators participating in LS.

Three case studies of three teacher education institutes in the Netherlands are presented, focusing on student-teachers' learning in two cases and teacher educators' learning in the third case.

The case studies show that LS in the context of Dutch ITE has high potential. All cases yield clear benefits for working collaboratively as a result of participating in a LS. Student-teachers appreciate the explicit focus in LS on how students learn and teacher educators stress how LS may strengthen their role as “teachers of teachers.” Time, planning arrangements, commitment and a LS facilitator are highlighted as essential conditions for LS application in ITE.

The three cases address a specific ITE context focusing on different target groups (student-teachers and teacher educators in applied and/or research universities). Consequently, results are explorative regarding Dutch ITE.

The potential of LS in Dutch ITE is recognized and stressed; this study may act as a catalyst for further and wider application of LS in this context, taking into account possible pitfalls and conditions.

This is one of the first studies exploring the potential of LS in Dutch ITE using both student-teachers' and teacher educators' perspectives.

Mentoring is widely recognised as an effective strategy for supporting the professional learning of teachers and student teachers across different educational contexts. Yet, its effectiveness in initial teacher education (ITE) may be more widely conceived to take account of mentoring as a cultural practice, contributing to a change of professional learning habits and relationships towards collegiate and collaborative reflexivity. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of mentoring experiences between teachers and student teachers, how these are embedded within the established professional learning culture of the school and the opportunities for mentoring to affect professional learning.

Set within the context of a teacher education reform project in Scotland, involving student teachers, mentors and university tutors, the study adopted a critical constructivist theory stance to explore mentoring relationships. A sequential mixed methods approach informed the collection and analysis of data.

Quantitative data point to a diversity of experiences of mentoring amongst teachers and student teachers. Qualitative data provide a nuanced account of participants’ views of their mentoring experiences, pointing to opportunities for revisiting assumptions about learning in the classroom as well as questioning established professional learning patterns.

The authors conclude that mentoring relationships cannot be disentangled from a critical interrogation of the modes of relationships and values supporting professional learning in ITE. Practical implications centre upon preparation and resources to develop mentoring as a tool for learning, embedded within the professional culture of the school.

This study reframes the concept of mentoring as a practice that does not simply reinforce professional expectations but seeks to redefine teacher professional learning, pedagogy and social relationships in school contexts.