Turkish pre-service teachers' reflective practices in teaching English to young learners

The course 'Teaching English to Young Learners' is the first stage where pre-service teachers are introduced to a child's world, developmental characteristics, needs, interests as well as teaching and learning techniques for these learners in English language teaching pre-service teacher education programmes in Turkey. This action research study identifies the gap that pre-service teachers experience between the theoretical considerations and realities of teaching, and the problems they face in this course. It provides the opportunity for monitoring and evaluating themselves in a pre-service teacher education programme in Turkey. Hence, this piece of research aims to promote reflective practice at the pre-service level in teaching English to young learners through video recorded microteaching sessions, reflective journals, and lesson plans of pre-service teachers. The study reports on the results by highlighting the contribution of these reflective tools to pre-service teachers' professional development, self- and peer- reflections and the preparedness to teach English to young learners. Finally, insights and recommendations concerning teacher educators and pre-service programmes are offered to promote reflective practice and make methodology courses more beneficial before pre-service teachers embark on their practicum experience. [Author abstract]