‘We teach plastic lessons to please them’: The influence of supervision on the practice of English language student teachers in Kenya

Abstract

This article analyses the process of supervision by teacher educators and its influence on English language student teachers during a practicum in Kenya. The student teachers were enrolled in a four-year Bachelor of Education course for teaching English at secondary school level. Drawing on the perspectives of teacher educators, co-operating teachers and student teachers, this analysis suggests that supervision was brief and un-coordinated and that the feedback student teachers received was mainly evaluative, directive and focused on general, rather than subject-specific pedagogy. Student teachers’ concerns during the practicum were related largely to pleasing their supervisors and obtaining a pass mark, and this limited the extent to which student teachers developed the pedagogical reasoning that is considered to be the main goal of teaching practice by both the Kenya government and current literature in the field of language teacher education (LTE). This study has implications for the conduct of teaching practice on pre-service language teacher education courses in Kenya and more generally.