Co-Teaching in the EFL Classroom: Teacher and Learner Perspectives

Abstract

Over the past few decades cooperative teaching has been integrated in education programs to improve the quality of education, however, its impact on teachers’ in teacher preparation programs have not been extensively studied (Graziano & Navarrete, 2012). This study explores cooperative teaching experiences of Armenian pre-service teachers during the graduate internship program. The purpose of the study is to present an overall description of cooperative practices of teachers, their perceptions of the implementation of the method, what benefits and challenges they faced while using co-teaching, as well as their students’ attitudes about the method were investigated. Graduate student teachers willing to engage in co-teaching made up pairs with one of their classmates to co-teach a group of students studying English. For this qualitative research study there were several observations were done in all those classrooms where co-teaching was applied. Later on, semi-structured interviews were conducted with student teachers and their students to find out their attitudes about co-teaching. The findings of the study show that mostly teachers enjoyed working with a partner as co-teachers and consider it beneficial for their professional development. However, factors such as personality clashes and inconsistencies in professional competencies might be obstacles for the success of cooperation between partners. The findings from interviews with students revealed that students consider co-teaching to be more interesting instructional method which creates opportunities for individualized attention and active learning.