Indonesian pre-service English teachers’ learning and using classroom language

This study investigates how seven pre-service English teachers (PSETs) learned classroom language in a Classroom Discourse (CD) unit at Pahlawan University, Indonesia, and used it in sixteen microteaching and seven practicum lessons. Specifically, the research investigates the nature of classroom language taught in the CD unit, how the PSETs learned it and how they implemented it. The data for this case study research were collected in two phases, at the university and in regional schools. The data include a questionnaire, learning and teaching journals, videotaped and audiotaped lessons, interviews, and classroom observation. Seven PSETs, two university staff, and five supervising teachers took part in this research. The analysis of data is both quantitative and qualitative. A review of the literature links the nature of classroom language to theoretical perspectives on learning, which show the importance of language as a tool for mediating learning. It was found that the CD unit curriculum goals refer to scaffolding, yet classroom language taught in the unit focuses on eight Basic Teaching Skills (BTSs) and includes limited content on classroom interaction, including scaffolding. It was further found that PSETs learned classroom language taught in the unit in the form of expressions used for the eight BTSs. They learned to use these by observing other PSETs, and English teachers during the CD unit. They also used these expressions in microteaching at university and in lessons which they taught in the school-based practicum. In their lessons, the PSETs focussed particularly on the use of five of the eight BTSs, including three kinds of lesson management skills, explaining the lesson and asking comprehension check questions. Although the PSETs tended to use English in microteaching, there was a noticeable change to trilingual code switching in the practicum. Three kinds of scaffolding, prompting, extension and modelling were attempted. However, these were used unsystematically.