lmplementation of a New Pre-service Teacher Training Course : Collaborating with the Elementary School System

This paper discusses the activities of our effective teacher training program utilizing elementary schools and proposes our plan for establishing a system to build a stronger partnership among the university, elementary schools, and local educational administrations to produce competent language teachers. Through building this partnership with the school system, university students can test out their teaching plans, teaching materials, and the various theories they learned in their university lectures. In this transition period of implementing English education in elementary schools, one of the schools' important concerns may be to gain competent teachers of the subject. In this sense, I assume that the elementary schools as well can benefit from our program. The English language must be taught by instructors who have a strong command of the language, background knowledge of the language itself, and a broad view of the various theories of language teaching. Therefore, utilizing enthusiastic, competent university students to assist classroom teachers would be a wise choice. The practicum experience is extremely beneficial for college students who aim to become teachers since they are provided with a precious opportunity to actually interact with students in the elementary schools, examine their original teaching plans and obtain feedback and advice from the homeroom teachers. All these elements lead to improving their teaching techniques, developing effective teaching materials and building communication skills. I am confident that our program is fruitful and all the educational institutions involved can benefit from it, and as a result, it may lead to the production of promising future teachers and eventually influence foreign language education as a whole