Exploring Teacher Educators’ and Teacher Trainers’ Perceptions on Methodology Courses

Abstract

Methodology courses are one of useful sources through which teacher trainers can enrich their knowledge in terms of language teaching. The purpose of this study is exploring teacher educators’ and teacher trainers’ perceptions on the effectiveness of methodology courses and also uncovering their suggestions towards such courses to make them more effective. Initial participants were selected through purposive sampling followed by theoretical sampling based on the principles of grounded theory. Data were gathered through interviews along with memo writings and three main categories were found. The first main category was weak points of the methodology courses. The second category was ‘the suggestions to make this course effective’ with three sub-categories such as ‘do it by practice’, ‘localizing some methods’, and ‘avoiding bias towards this course’. The third category contributes to ‘how this course is helpful for the teacher trainers’ with four sub-categories such as ‘leading to unconscious use of methods’, ‘building student teachers’ background’, ‘providing purposeful methods’, and ‘acting as a pre-requisite for effective practice’.