NEW TENDENCIES OF EFL TEACHER TRAINING AT UKRAINIAN UNIVERSITIES: BRITISH COUNCIL PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

The paper deals with the education reform measures in Ukraine, with a focus on the improvement of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers training. The significance of the new tendencies in the rise of the EFL teacher training quality according to the European standards is examined. For this study, taken into consideration the experience of Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University, the role of the latest British Council Project is defined. The article describes the British Council PRESETT program “New Generation School Teacher” which was implemented in some Ukrainian universities. The theoretical research methods and the case study approach were taken to investigate the main questions of the research which are concerned with the defining of new tendencies in EFL teacher training and the effectiveness of the program “New Generation School Teacher” implemented in Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University. The latest documents are reviewed and the prospects for their implementation in Ukrainian higher pedagogical education are determined. Much attention is paid to the agendas and other documents approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.

The analysis of the requirements for the EFL teachers’ qualifications and the review of the latest projects, programs and agendas made it possible to indicate the tendencies of pedagogical education development and outline their influence on the EFL teacher training quality improving. They are defined in this article as follows: implementation of new approaches; government’s supervision and support; newly-qualified teachers’ support; teachers’ professional development; wide cooperation between education and science; cooperation between educators of different stages in the educational process. The defining of the new tendencies in EFL teacher training suggested by the author summarize the academic efforts of Ukrainian educators, show the progressive experience and may be helpful for indicating further prospects in the formal education of FL teachers in Ukraine.            We also aimed to investigate students’ opinion of the program “New generation school teacher”. Students of Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University who study the Methodology course were interviewed about the benefits and drawbacks of this program. In general, we’ve got more positive feedback than we expected. We came to the conclusion that one of the main obstacles is the rapid implementation of EFL teacher training changes at other universities. They are connected with the small number of universities that were involved in the British Council project. As a result, a limited number of graduates have already been trained in this program and are ready to become agents of change at schools. The main recommendation is the wide implementation of “New generation school teacher” program by other universities.

In conclusion, we defined that the effectiveness of new changes in EFL teacher training courses is on a high level but has the limitation of its implementation at Ukrainian universities. The further measures which can be implemented in formal EFL teacher education depend on government support, universities readiness to change the traditional teacher training programs and academic freedom.